Dungeon Hack (DOS)

Dungeon Hack

Platform:	DOS
Year:	1993
Developer:	DreamForge Intertainment, Inc.
Buy:	Amazon

Dungeon Hack is a pseudo 3-D dungeon crawl that creates randomly generated mazes for you to explore. Using Advanced Dungeons & Dragon - 2nd Edition rules, the game will seem familiar to anyone who has played any AD&D SSI games before, like Eye of the Beholder (DOS). The game uses the exact same engine as Eye of the Beholder III, the AESOP engine. There are a wide assortment of monsters, items, spells, weapons, and armor, but only a basic story. You can customize your dungeon in many ways; how many levels, keys required to open some doors, water levels, etc. All of the work in the game was placed on combat and the randomizer, which is high quality for its time, but because the game lacks a meaningful plot, you will quickly get bored with killing yet another hobgoblin. One realistic feature of the game is the Character Death Real option, which deletes any save games you have if your character gets killed. As you progress further into the game, the levels and enemies become tougher, with some of the monsters only being able to be killed by magic spells. The mechanics of the game are nicely implemented, and it's a nice way to kill some time.

Screenshots

The title screen.

Watching the Introduction.

The main menu.

Creating a new character.

Customizing my dungeon.

About to waste a goblin.

Music

The soundtrack only consists of three rather tame tracks. The music can be played on three different platforms. Songs beginning with a 1 are for the Roland MT-32/LAPC-I. Songs beginning with 2 are for the AdLib/Sound Blaster. Songs beginning with a 3 are for the PC Speaker.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Programmer	Length	Listen
101	Scene One	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	2:58
102	Scene Two	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	0:50
103	End	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	0:49
201	Scene One	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	2:58
202	Scene Two	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	0:58
203	End	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	0:58
301	Scene One	Unknown	Ralph Thomas	3:18

Credits

Ripper: TheAlmightyGuru
Recorder: TheAlmightyGuru (MT-32/PC Speaker), Doommaster1994 (AdLib/SoundBlaster)
Game Credits:
- Audio: Anthony Mollick
- Audio: James McMenamy
- Digital Sound Effects: Ralph Thomas credited as Cooksey
Manual Credits:
- Music and Sound Effects: Anthony Mollick

It is controversial who composed the music to Dungeon Hack. Anthony Mollick said that he only created the game's sound effects, but Jamie McMenamy has stated that he never worked on Dungeon Hack and that Ravenloft was the first game that he worked on. In the game's manual, only Anthony Mollick is credited for Music and Sound Effects, but in the game, both Anthony and Jamie are credited for Audio. Until further verification can be made, the composer will be left as Unknown.

The real name of the Digital Sound Effects designer has been revealed as Ralph Thomas, though Anthony said Ralph is wrongly credited, as Tony did all of the sound effects. He said the sound effects were done by his bass player "Fuzzy" and his brother Scott, then he would use effects on the voices.

Ralph Thomas is credited for Digital Sound Effects, but he was also credited for music programming in Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (DOS), a game which uses the same game and sound engine, so he is listed as the game's sound programmer.

(Sources: 1, 2, 3)

Game Rip

Format	Download
	Download (Info)

The XMI files were ripped from the open.res file. There are three types of XMI files, one for the Roland MT-32, one for Adlib, and one for PC Speaker. The PC Speaker only has a single track. The file names come from the descriptions near the end of the open.res file. The Roland MT-32 soundtrack was recorded by saving the SysEx data using MIDI-OX and then playing the XMI files through Winamp to an actual Roland MT-32 and recording the output. The PC Speaker song was emulated and recorded through DOSBox.

The VGM files were logged in ValleyBell's version of DOSBox 0.74 during gameplay, but the music can also be played in Midpak with the proper XMI and sound driver files (ADLIB.ADV and STPATCH.AD).

The AdLib/SoundBlaster music was recorded during gameplay in DOSBox 0.72.