Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon

aka: Deathtrap Dungeon
Moby ID: 667
Windows Specs
Buy on PlayStation
$12.00 used, $169.99 new on eBay
Buy on Windows
$6.99 new on Steam
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Description official descriptions

Fang was once a proud and rich city, until Baron Sukumvit took over. Under his rule, the city is known as the City of the Lost Souls. Deep inside the mountains surrounding the city, Baron Sukumvit built a labyrinth, named Deathtrap Dungeon, and used it to imprison his enemies. Filled with vulgarities, traps and disgusting monsters, the dungeon is a very dangerous place. With his enemies gone, the Baron now has opened up the dungeon to sport and sends willing heroes down into it's depths, betting on the likelihood of their survival. If anyone could survive all levels of the dungeon, and slay the red dragon Melkor, they would receive 10.000 gold pieces and Baron Sukumvit would renounce his rule over Fang. Two brave heroes: Red Lotus and Bandog, agree to these terms and enter the Deathtrap Dungeon...

Deathtrap Dungeon is a 3rd person action game. Controlling either Red Lotus or Bandog, the player controls the character from behind with a camera mode like in Tomb Raider. To deal with the enemies encountered, there are three different kinds of attacks: melee weapons, range weapons and magic. The melee weapons include basic fists to normal swords to a magic enhanced war hammer. In the range weapons department are goodies like bombs or a flame-thrower. In terms of spells are magicks such as fireballs or rather crazy spells like the exploding pig. But the real challenge are of course the riddles, traps and abysses that are everywhere throughout the dungeon.

During the journey, players will encounter many locked doors, that require the finding of keys and devices. There are also potions that regenerate health or provide immunity against fire for a limited amount of time. There are also several treasures hidden in the dungeon, finding them will increase the player's score at the end of the level. The player can save this game during a level by finding the various save points.

The game also features the two multiplayer-modes: Deathmatch and Last Man Standing.

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Credits (Windows version)

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Average score: 70% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.8 out of 5 (based on 26 ratings with 1 reviews)

Tomb Raider Goes Fighting Fantasy

The Good
I liked the Tomb Raider games and I loved the old Fighting Fantasy choose your own adventure books from Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone - I bought up to the 34th book when I was a kid and then I erm, grew up and stopped. Still, when I heard that a game was being released based upon the book "Deathtrap Dungeon" by Jackson and Livingstone and that it looked all very Tomb Raider-esque, I just had to check it out.

Was it any good - well here's the good points:

It looks great, either based upon the Tomb Raider engine or something very much like it, you get to play a skimpily clad amazon babe or a warrior bloke, both toting rather large swords and with a few additional tricks up their sleeves...erm, not that either have sleeves, but you know what I mean. The graphs look great to me, especially when you are fighting off a huge red dragon which swoops up into the darkness of the caverns and then reappears spurting fire and fury...ahhh just great!

In terms of control system its all very simple, run, jump, attack parry - the usual and easy to control. You get a variety of weapons to play with, from swords and ranged weapons to the fantastic "war pigs" - porkers with dynamite strapped to their back who will scuttle off at high speed to blast their victims - very funny I can tell you, I never tire of unleashing those little critters! You find all these goodies lying around the different levels of the game.

In terms of size there is a lot to explore here and the levels are quite different from each other, even though you are in Sukumvit's dungeons, he has made them interesting at least. It fun exploring and it will pay dividends in terms of special weapons etc. but its not necessary to do so. Completion of levels is quite linear, usually involving looking for keys to locked gates.

The Bad
...but there are problems. Firstly and most importantly its all very easy. 3 days of solid play after my purchase the game was done and dusted and ready for a swap someplace - not good. Also the character A.I. isn't exactly mindblowing - the enemy have set attack patterns and it doesn't take very long to work out what these are. There are a variety of different enemies here to choose from which is great, but learn their attacks and dispatching of them is very easy indeed! Worse still is the fact they are restricted to 'zones' so don't expect to be chased by them - in fact, the edges of these zones are often slap bang in the middle of corridors where they will stop dead in front of your face and stand there unable to attack or anything else. A few missiles aimed in their direction and you're free to progress - enemy vanquished - very silly. I suppose its none too original either - just Tomb Raider with less moves or exploring and swords instead of guns...

The Bottom Line
Its not a bad game though, just a little easy and unambitious.Its out on a budget release now which its probably worth, certainly worth a look if you liked Tomb Raider and want to play the Fantasy equivalent of it anyway!

Windows · by wampyrii (9) · 2002

Discussion

Subject By Date
Lots of screenshots and a few videos Mobygamesisreanimated (11069) Mar 1, 2009

Trivia

Advertising

When the game first came out, one of the ads was about an average looking gamer being chained to the wall in a dungeon, a dominatrix standing near with a whip, and a computer with Deathtrap Dungeon just out of reach. The ad blurb was "The only thing worse than Deathtrap Dungeon is... Not being able to play it." Eidos eventually withdrew the ad.

One of the characters in the game is a female swordsmen, except she was in a thong leather bikini in the preview pictures! Due to ratings concerns, Eidos gave her some 'proper' armor (chainmail bodice) before the game went gold. The female character, in subsequent beta screenshots, also had a 'chain bra'. Basically, the only things it covered were her nipples, with the chain attached only by her nipples.

Inspiration

Based on the multi-million selling Fighting Fantasy gamebook series by Ian Livingstone & Steve Jackson. The original Deathtrap Dungeon gamebook was released in 1984.

Information provided here also contributed by CaptainCanuck and KnockStump.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by robotriot.

PlayStation added by Ray Soderlund.

Additional contributors: KnockStump, Kasey Chang, Indra was here, Alaka, DreinIX, Mastran, ZeTomes.

Game added January 4, 2000. Last modified February 16, 2024.