Contents:
The Intro
Title: Dungeon Hack
Release year: 1993
Developed by: DreamForge Intertainment
Genre: Roleplaying game (RPG)
Platform replayed on: PC
Roleplaying games.
Sometimes you want an epic tale that spans countless hours of exploration, combat, and an unravelling plot.
Sometimes you just want to hack and slash countless numbers of whatever’s standing in your way.
Dungeon Hack (1993) sits very much under the hack and slash classification, but with a twist. Where other hack and slash roleplaying games still feature a plot, however thin, that will be the same every time you play (for example, the Diablo series, or the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance series), Dungeon Hack offers a unique experience every time.
How? It’s a customisable dungeon generator.
But can Dungeon Hack still generate an engaging hack and slash experience, thirty years on from its original release?
Let’s find out. It’s time to grab your gear and go dungeon delving in Dungeon Hack!
The Game
I first played Dungeon Hack shortly after its 1993 release. I remember it was another game I had hired out from the mail-order PC-game rental service that I used as a kid in the 90s.
(I’ve featured other games I remember renting here on Present Perfect Gaming, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, SimCity 2000, and Alone in the Dark.)
Renting consoles and console games from the video store was popular at the time, but I was glad to have access to PC-game rentals. I didn’t have many games I could call my own as a kid growing up in the 90s, so rentals definitely helped me have access to a much wider library of games.
I probably gave Dungeon Hack a go due to it being another Dungeons & Dragons game. I never played the tabletop roleplaying version of Dungeons & Dragons, but by the time I played Dungeon Hack, I had played several of the “Gold Box” games published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) which were based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules, including Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989) and my personal favourite Champions of Krynn (1990).
Dungeon Hack is also based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules, so I was immediately familiar with the all-important character creation system.
If you’re not familiar with the rules, the manual provided is exhaustive, if not intimidating. Since playing the old “Gold Box” games in the early 90s, I continued to play computer roleplaying games based on Dungeons & Dragons through the late 90s and early 2000s—games such as Baldur’s Gate (1998), Planescape: Torment (1999), Icewind Dale (2000), and Neverwinter Nights (2002).
It’s fair to say I was pretty comfortable with the Dungeons & Dragons rules by that stage, so coming back to Dungeon Hack almost thirty years later wasn’t much of a challenge. If you’re not familiar, well, be prepared to spend some time with the manual to make sense of all the character races, classes, and magic systems.
In Dungeon Hack you only create one character. Usually computer roleplaying games involve a party of adventurers, so you either create multiple characters from the outset, or create one and find allies along the way.
Creating only one character certainly means you get into the action quicker, but knowing you’ll be solo the whole time presents a challenge. Will you use sword or spells to defeat your foes? How will you heal? What about dealing with traps and locks? Or will you try to be a jack of all trades but master of none?
Having a party of adventurers helps cover all bases—in Dungeon Hack you’re all alone.
Getting through character creation brings you to the customisable dungeon generation screen. There is a wide variety of options here. You can adjust the frequency of certain things, such as how many monsters there are and how much treasure there is.
You can also turn certain things on or off, including whether there are underwater levels, multi-level puzzles, or even if there are undead monsters (we’ll get to the undead later on…).
If you find all this a bit much, you can also select a generic easy/moderate/hard setting. There’s also a permanent death option, for the true gluttons for punishment, where if your character dies, all of your saved games are deleted! You will lose all of your progress, and will need to start the game again with a new character.
Once you have settled on your dungeon customisation, you have what’s called a dungeon seed number. This way, you could actually share it with someone else, and they could play the exact same dungeon.
With a character created, it’s time to enter your own personalised dungeon…
There is a story in Dungeon Hack, though I use that term very loosely. Your character is (forcefully) sent by a sorceress to retrieve an orb housed deep within the dungeon you have just created. What this orb does or why the sorceress wants it? Well, that would be way too much story for a game like Dungeon Hack. Your character’s motivation, besides not wanting to irritate the sorceress, is the promise of gold and treasure.
Check out the Dungeon Hack intro video in full below:
The aim in Dungeon Hack is to explore and fight your way down through however many levels you chose until you reach the bottom, and defeat the final boss. Each level presents a couple of creature types that will stand in your way of finding the exit down to the next level.
Unsurprisingly, the creatures you face increase in difficulty as you descend through the dungeon. But it wouldn’t be a roleplaying game if your character didn’t increase in power and find new loot to equip themselves with in order to defeat these ever-increasing threats now, would it?
Dungeon Hack follows the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules closely, so anyone familiar will understand the experience points and leveling system. If you’re not, it’s back to that manual I mentioned earlier…
The game screen provides a first-person view, and everything you need to go dungeoneering. From this screen you can control movement, make attacks, cast spells, navigate the minimap, equip your character, manage inventory, and monitor your health (hit points in Dungeons & Dragons speak) and food levels. Yes, all that on one screen!
The only reason to leave this game screen is to view the larger version of the map of the level you’re currently on, or to access the menu where you can rest your character (to heal, and prepare spells if your character is a spellcaster).
Once you understand how to use all these on-screen systems like movement and attacking, you’re ready to go monster hunting. There’s no in-game tutorial in Dungeon Hack, so if you’re unsure how to equip your character or prepare your spells, you guessed it—back to the manual!
Exploring levels in Dungeon Hack is like finding your way through a maze, complete with wrong turns and dead ends, so the map is very useful when you find yourself needing to back track.
There is no shortage of deadly denizens to challenge your character, even when the monster amount is set to low. And there’s no turning back once you’re inside the dungeon. You can’t just run off back to town to recover and stock up whenever you get beaten up.
As such, Dungeon Hack is not just a hack and slash game—it’s a survival game too.
In order to survive Dungeon Hack, you will need to manage your resources: your hit points, your food, and your spells if you have them. Once your hit points and spells run low, it’s time to rest and recover. Resting requires food, so you’ll need to be on the lookout for more throughout the dungeon to ensure you don’t run out (food availability and food consumption levels can be adjusted when creating your dungeon to increase or decrease the difficulty).
Speaking of survival, I think it’s about time I rolled up a character and started my replay of Dungeon Hack!
The Replay
It’s always a difficult decision in a roleplaying game: which class of character should I build? You need to balance playing a character you will enjoy roleplaying with making them an effective character in the game (or in other words making them as powerful as possible). Particularly in computer roleplaying games, there can be such a thing as a weak character.
Dungeon Hack is not a game forgiving of weak characters.
I knew there would be some good choices, and bad choices. For one, given the claustrophobic nature of the dungeon, I knew that melee combat would be preferable to ranged combat most of the time (literally hacking and slashing). I didn’t want to be constantly running around trying to maintain distance between my character and the target to let off an arrow or a spell. This would also run the risk of running into more monsters.
I needed a fighter.
But I also needed healing. I knew it would be easier to rely on healing spells than resting alone (pro tip: casting healing spells mid-battle saves lives). I also knew that there are certain buffing and protection spells that will be very useful in keeping my character in the fight, particularly against undead foes.
I needed a cleric.
I was almost there, but I wasn’t sure my fighter would be able to terminate everything effectively with sword and shield alone. I needed some powerful offensive magic.
I needed a mage.
But wait, that’s three character classes I need. How do I choose between the three?
I don’t. I multiclass.
The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules allow for certain combinations of classes to go together. The benefit is you have access to more skills and abilities. The downside is you level up very slowly—you become that jack of all trades but master of none I mentioned above.
Enter the fighter/cleric/mage. I was restricted to being a half-elf if I wanted to be this class (a quirk of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules), so half-elf it was.
I named him Tanis, after one of the heroes from the well-known Dragonlance series of Dungeons & Dragons novels.
via larryelmore.com
I had my character ready to drop into the dungeon, but first I needed a dungeon to drop into! It was time to customise.
I didn’t want this Dungeon Hack replay to be too long and frustrating, so I made it a relatively easy dungeon. Ten levels, low monster amount, lots of treasure and food, and of course no permanent character death. However, I did include undead monsters and a water level, which I knew would bring their own challenges (as we shall soon see).
With the hard work done, it was now time to enter the dungeon…
I wasn’t expecting much resistance on the first level from the types of monsters I would face. As it turned out, it couldn’t have been more generic fantasy: goblins and orcs!
The classic low-level fantasy enemies didn’t prove to be much of a challenge, but I did have to watch getting hit—my character didn’t start with many hit points.
Surviving the first level, my next challenge wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from Dungeon Hack…
That’s right—classic copy protection! And I couldn’t avoid it; I had to look up the word in the manual and type it in. I was concerned this would become a regular occurrence when going between levels (or saving a game, as I’ve seen in other games from this era), but thankfully it turned out to be a one-time thing.
Upon entering the “password”, it was down to level two of the dungeon.
And immediately I encountered a large threat awaiting me…
A bugbear that could really pack a punch. I was concerned the ramp up in difficulty from the first level was going to be an exercise in frustration, with constant dying and reloading.
And this is why I didn’t even consider turning permanent character death on. Getting killed was a constant occurrence. Sometimes in Dungeon Hack, you just get unlucky with your strikes not getting through, and your foes getting lucky breaking your defence. It’s expected, and you just reload and try again.
Level three brought the first encounter with the undead: ghouls.
This gruesome creature causes paralysis from the touch of its claw, meaning you can no longer attack. Strangely, while paralysed you can still move your character, so all you need to do is retreat to safety and wait for the effect to wear off.
Undead creatures in Dungeon Hack were also one of the reasons I decided on including cleric as one of my character classes. Clerics in Dungeons & Dragons have an ability (from whichever deity it is they pray to) to “turn undead”. This sees clerics calling upon holy power to literally turn undead creatures around and force them to shamble away.
It doesn’t always work, of course.
And it was about to get worse before it got better, with the discovery of wights and wraiths deeper down in the dungeon.
These disturbing creatures drain levels from your character upon striking. This is a big deal, as levels are hard to come by in Dungeon Hack (and therefore under the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules). A lot of monster slaying goes into each level earned, so you can’t afford to lose levels. Unless you’re willing to keep your distance, it will mean a whole lot of reloading.
Level drain attacks were another one of the reasons I played a cleric in Dungeon Hack. I knew that there was a cleric spell which can protect against level drain attacks: Negative Plane Protection. That is, once your character is of a high enough level to cast this spell.
It doesn’t remove the threat completely, as if you get hit while protected from the spell you lose the protection, but it did remove a lot of the frustration.
I was happy to leave the undead behind, as I progressed deeper into my customised dungeon. But undead paralysis and level drain attacks made way for brute force attacks, as I stumbled into a labyrinth of minotaurs.
I was about half way through, and I had already undertaken some serious slaying. Dungeon Hack keeps a running total of the fearsome foes you have slain.
I had also managed to level up my character a few times by this point.
But it’s not all about monster slaying in Dungeon Hack. There is some light puzzle solving involved as you navigate the dungeon levels.
There are keys to find.
Puzzles to complete.
And hidden locks to find.
I mentioned above when I was customising my dungeon that I had included a water level. Well, I found it when I went down a flight of stairs and found myself completely submerged in water.
How are you supposed to overcome this challenge?
The cleric to the rescue, once again, with a water-breathing spell!
Aside from the need to breathe underwater, the level plays out the same as any other level. You can even rest underwater (figure that one out).
Swimming to safety, I plunged deeper into the depths of the dungeon. I was getting close to the bottom, and the deadly creatures I was encountering continued to deliver some serious damage.
Despatching the last of these dungeon denizens, I knew the end was near. After slaying hundreds of monsters, what final horror awaited my fearless adventurer?
A mighty blue dragon!
It was another cleric spell that helped me take down this intimidating drake: Spiritual Hammer. Summoning throwing hammers, I hurled them from a distance…
Finally, “big blue” went down, and the orb was in sight.
Job done. It was time to go home…
Here’s how my character ended up:
Surviving Dungeon Hack, with a dungeon I had created myself, that’s got to be a satisfying experience, right?
Here’s The Verdict…
The Verdict
Dungeon Hack is repetitive. Dungeon Hack is frustrating. Dungeon Hack is difficult.
But Dungeon Hack also does exactly what it promises: a customisable dungeon crawl experience.
There’s no avoiding the repetition. Dungeon Hack is a hack and slash roleplaying game, which means a whole lot of fighting. In ten levels, I slayed over 300 monsters. And remember, I had the monster level set to low!
With that amount of monster slaying, and given the difficulty of some of the attacks you face (such as paralysis, level drain, and poison), a level of frustration is inevitable, as the rolls don’t always go your way.
Also accepting the barrier to entry with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules (for those unfamiliar), it would be easy to dismiss Dungeon Hack.
But that would be a mistake, as I think Dungeon Hack provided an experience unique to its era of 80s and 90s computer roleplaying games (check out Classic Game Sessions on YouTube for a great video on dungeon crawlers from this era).
Dungeon Hack also kept me coming back for more (something I experienced in my recent playthrough of Max Payne, which also features repetitive but engaging gameplay). The famous “just one more turn” phenomenon from the Civilization series became “just one more corner” in Dungeon Hack, as I found it very hard to drag myself away from my customised dungeon.
Dungeon Hack offers an incredible amount of replayability, even if the overall experience will be the same. Not only is there a myriad of dungeon and character customisation options, but I encountered less than half of the monsters in the game.
To come full circle to where I started this, sometimes we’re not looking for a sprawling roleplaying epic featuring political intrigue and complex character interactions.
Sometimes we’re looking for something a little less mentally taxing. Sometimes we just want to pick up a sword, ready our spells, and charge headfirst into danger.
And Dungeon Hack delivers.
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