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JemyM · 04-20-2010, 09:12 AM

Evil's Doom (Amiga, 1996)
This extremely rare Amiga-exclusive dungeon master clone had a troubled past. The original beta version was done but never published. Instead a "special edition" was planned, but this was never finished. The final edition of the game had bugs that made the game impossible to finish. Still, the beta have been floating around on the web since 1996 along with those dreadful bugs.

But then some fan begun working on it and managed to fix the bugs. The edition I have played is known as "1.8" from Mars 2010, which have the major bugs fixed and can thus be played until the ending.

More info:
http://hol.abime.net/3953
http://morphos.blog.com.es/2010/03/0...-vitux-8117566

Story
Horrible killings have struck the peaceful and everyone is scared for the unknown attackers. Vantan, who looks exactly like Conan, is sitting alone in the wilderness when he gets a vision of Death himself in the sky. The skeletal face calls out to him; "come to the Lost Legions".
Back to civilization, Vantan study old books and find an old legend about "lost legions", as well as references to a ruin on the Island of Noya. When the game begin, Vantan and a travel friend, Bamboola, have just traveled to Noya. Now they are standing in the Town Pier of Titangel. First task is to find the ruins so a visit to the tavern is in order...

The story is delivered in cutscenes and dialog, often told by an old man, known as the Chronicler, who happen to be quite mad. The english is questionable but it can be forgiven considering it's age. They try really hard to make a deep and complex story and it's part funny, part exciting, part silly. The developers have a sense of humor but sometimes they go a bit too far. There are many open direct references to real-world stuff or other franchises. You see references to Silmarilis, Crom and Rome, there are also dialogues in polish. I also found a Nivea Creme which I believe was an easter egg. Also many of the supposed ancient or wise NPC's you meet behave and speak like teenagers...

Graphics & Sound
Art in Evil's Doom is great but diminished somewhat from it's technical limitations. The artist who worked on the project was really good, I have to give them that. Cutscenes have full color artwork with a great amount of colors even though it's not perfect.

Thanks to a technical issue though, there are problems which cause the artwork to suffer. The first edition of the game was probably made with the old Amiga 500 in mind. A500 was capable of displaying high resolution (640x512) but only in 16 color. Even if some textures and artwork were updated with 256 color graphics, the walls and monsters are still presented in grayscale, leaving a rather dull impression to me. The game also suffers from it's interlaced resolution which cause flicker and is corrupted in WinUAE. I found a workaround using a tool known as "ModePro" which forces a screen to open up in the resolution you define. However, this solution added some other wierd artifacts but at least it's was better than it's almost unplayable vanilla mode.

The sound is pretty good. You hear the monsters behind walls ofcourse and there are some really good music too. The SFX adds to the creepiness of the game. The sound effects for sharks was a bit silly though, they sound like lions on crack.

Gameplay
You begin the game in the overworld map where you can talk to people, recruit new characters, buy items and progress your quest. There are no monsters here, just dialogue and the ability to move between static areas. It's from these areas you can enter the dungeons.

As a dungeon master clone you spend most of the game in dungeons that you move through with the help of your NUMPAD 4-9 keys. Beneath the dungeon interface you have your four characters, their portraits, current health, stamina and mana, and their left and right hand. You strike or use spells by rightclicking equipped items and you move them around with the left button, just like any dungeon crawler. Rightclick a portrait and you get to see the inventory and the characters stats.

Fighters will ofcourse deal most of the damage and protect the rear row where you might want a pair of spellcasters. Utilityspells are used quite alot, especially your automap, magic light since most dungeons are pitch black dark, and a feast spell (that recover hunger/thirst) which makes me wonder why they even bothered about implementing food in the game.

Unfortunately I have to say that the game is a bit unbalanced. There are definitely "best items in the game" and you know when you find them. Some items simply have double or triple the stats compared to other similar items. Characters can be a bit unbalanced too, one character I used had double the amount of intelligence/wisdom compared to other characters but only 1/7 the health.

I did miss a way to strike from the keyboard or have an autoattack button. The main fighters right hand are far from eachother and moving back and forth between them felt encumbersome. I played most of the game with a mousepad which made it difficult to move back/forth fast enough.

There are other nuisances such as being forced to work all the back up from a 10 floor dungeon after reaching a cutscene in the end, you do not need to fight monsters again but couldn't they have just moved you back to the first level?

Conclusion
I tried the beta when it began to circulate back in the 90'ies and it's first now that I finally got back to complete it. There are many flaws with Evil's Doom, still I found the overall experience to be enjoyable. I enjoy Dungeon Master clones and I have played lesser ones than this game. Besides some problems with balance, it's sometimes silly story and an interface that could have needed some more polish, the only real issue I had was it's lack of color. If you decide to give it a go, prepare to give it some love first to be able to get something in return. If you enjoy Dungeon Master clones and already played the old classics, definitely have a go at this one.

04-20-2010, 09:12 AM	#1278
JemyM Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Sweden Posts: 713	Evil's Doom (Amiga, 1996) This extremely rare Amiga-exclusive dungeon master clone had a troubled past. The original beta version was done but never published. Instead a "special edition" was planned, but this was never finished. The final edition of the game had bugs that made the game impossible to finish. Still, the beta have been floating around on the web since 1996 along with those dreadful bugs. But then some fan begun working on it and managed to fix the bugs. The edition I have played is known as "1.8" from Mars 2010, which have the major bugs fixed and can thus be played until the ending. More info: http://hol.abime.net/3953 http://morphos.blog.com.es/2010/03/0...-vitux-8117566 Story Horrible killings have struck the peaceful and everyone is scared for the unknown attackers. Vantan, who looks exactly like Conan, is sitting alone in the wilderness when he gets a vision of Death himself in the sky. The skeletal face calls out to him; "come to the Lost Legions". Back to civilization, Vantan study old books and find an old legend about "lost legions", as well as references to a ruin on the Island of Noya. When the game begin, Vantan and a travel friend, Bamboola, have just traveled to Noya. Now they are standing in the Town Pier of Titangel. First task is to find the ruins so a visit to the tavern is in order... The story is delivered in cutscenes and dialog, often told by an old man, known as the Chronicler, who happen to be quite mad. The english is questionable but it can be forgiven considering it's age. They try really hard to make a deep and complex story and it's part funny, part exciting, part silly. The developers have a sense of humor but sometimes they go a bit too far. There are many open direct references to real-world stuff or other franchises. You see references to Silmarilis, Crom and Rome, there are also dialogues in polish. I also found a Nivea Creme which I believe was an easter egg. Also many of the supposed ancient or wise NPC's you meet behave and speak like teenagers... Graphics & Sound Art in Evil's Doom is great but diminished somewhat from it's technical limitations. The artist who worked on the project was really good, I have to give them that. Cutscenes have full color artwork with a great amount of colors even though it's not perfect. Thanks to a technical issue though, there are problems which cause the artwork to suffer. The first edition of the game was probably made with the old Amiga 500 in mind. A500 was capable of displaying high resolution (640x512) but only in 16 color. Even if some textures and artwork were updated with 256 color graphics, the walls and monsters are still presented in grayscale, leaving a rather dull impression to me. The game also suffers from it's interlaced resolution which cause flicker and is corrupted in WinUAE. I found a workaround using a tool known as "ModePro" which forces a screen to open up in the resolution you define. However, this solution added some other wierd artifacts but at least it's was better than it's almost unplayable vanilla mode. The sound is pretty good. You hear the monsters behind walls ofcourse and there are some really good music too. The SFX adds to the creepiness of the game. The sound effects for sharks was a bit silly though, they sound like lions on crack. Gameplay You begin the game in the overworld map where you can talk to people, recruit new characters, buy items and progress your quest. There are no monsters here, just dialogue and the ability to move between static areas. It's from these areas you can enter the dungeons. As a dungeon master clone you spend most of the game in dungeons that you move through with the help of your NUMPAD 4-9 keys. Beneath the dungeon interface you have your four characters, their portraits, current health, stamina and mana, and their left and right hand. You strike or use spells by rightclicking equipped items and you move them around with the left button, just like any dungeon crawler. Rightclick a portrait and you get to see the inventory and the characters stats. Fighters will ofcourse deal most of the damage and protect the rear row where you might want a pair of spellcasters. Utilityspells are used quite alot, especially your automap, magic light since most dungeons are pitch black dark, and a feast spell (that recover hunger/thirst) which makes me wonder why they even bothered about implementing food in the game. Unfortunately I have to say that the game is a bit unbalanced. There are definitely "best items in the game" and you know when you find them. Some items simply have double or triple the stats compared to other similar items. Characters can be a bit unbalanced too, one character I used had double the amount of intelligence/wisdom compared to other characters but only 1/7 the health. I did miss a way to strike from the keyboard or have an autoattack button. The main fighters right hand are far from eachother and moving back and forth between them felt encumbersome. I played most of the game with a mousepad which made it difficult to move back/forth fast enough. There are other nuisances such as being forced to work all the back up from a 10 floor dungeon after reaching a cutscene in the end, you do not need to fight monsters again but couldn't they have just moved you back to the first level? Conclusion I tried the beta when it began to circulate back in the 90'ies and it's first now that I finally got back to complete it. There are many flaws with Evil's Doom, still I found the overall experience to be enjoyable. I enjoy Dungeon Master clones and I have played lesser ones than this game. Besides some problems with balance, it's sometimes silly story and an interface that could have needed some more polish, the only real issue I had was it's lack of color. If you decide to give it a go, prepare to give it some love first to be able to get something in return. If you enjoy Dungeon Master clones and already played the old classics, definitely have a go at this one. __________________ The christian message of tolerance falls already in the first commandment. As long as mankind divide themselves by iron age philosophies in the quest for world dominion there are no hope for global peace. Learn the truth about the myth today and maybe our children can be allowed to live in a better world. Last edited by JemyM; 04-20-2010 at 09:37 AM.