Pseudo_Intellectual (66360) on 6/16/2015 12:03 AM · Permalink · Report

The cads in the CRPG Addict forum are skeptical that this game was on MS-DOS as early as 1989:

Alexander GrebenkovJune 14, 2015 at 9:27 PM I did my research while writing an article on Dungeon Master for Russian Wikipedia (which recently got the featured article status). MobyGames is clearly wrong on DOS release date: no reviews, no other sources even mention Dungeon Master for IBM compartible PCs until 1992. And then it was basically five year old game, without any enhancements, competing with many clones and spiritual followers, such as Ultima Underworld (which had very innovative 3D engine). It was good for players with outdated hardware (hell, I was stuck with a PC XT clone until 1997), but it rightfully recieved mostly negative reviews.

Olaf BarthelJune 15, 2015 at 5:04 AM I played "Dungeon Master" on the Atari ST (on loan from reLINE Software) back in 1988/1989 when this was the only option to play it. The Amiga version did not materialize until late 1989/early 1990, if I remember correctly, and it was a significant improvement over the Atari ST version: better sound (and in stereo) and it used 32 colours as opposed to the 16 bit colour user interface of the Atari ST version (which had to use clever tricks to make the most of that). The animation was smoother, and the user interface was more responsive, too.

I consider it unlikely that a PC version would have been possible at the time, because "Dungeon Master" was written entirely in 68000 assembly language. I recall reading a computer game magazine article on "Software Heaven, Inc." at the time which stressed this fact. That article even had a photograph of the source code "tome", which was a bound printout the size of a phone book.

Given the size and complexity of this game, it's amazing that they chose to write it in assembly language.

That it took 4-5 years for a PC version to emerge sounds about right to me. It would have had to be a complete reimplementation of the game.

CRPG AddictJune 15, 2015 at 9:23 AM Thanks for the correction. That's what I get for relying on a single source.

TrypticonJune 15, 2015 at 1:10 PM 1992 is right for the PC version, but conversions already appeared late89/early 90 on the Japanese FM-Towns and PC-98 platforms which are both X86 based like IBM-compatibles. There was also a Apple IIGS port around that time, so X68000 assembly can't have been that much of stumbling block in principle.

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What's our source?