I remember the first time I became aware of Dungeonmaster. I was flicking through the pages of the latest Dragon Magazine (Issue #136), TSR’s long running monthly magazine for TTRPGs. I had got into Dungeon & Dragons in my last year of primary school when somebody lent me the original red box basic rulebook. This opened up the world of fantasy for me beyond the Hobbit. Unfortunately I was rather an outlier in my town growing up. Nobody else was really interested in roleplaying games and I only ever managed a couple of games with my friends before their attention went elsewhere. Imagine my excitement seeing the review in Dragon, a 3D realistic Dungeons & Dragons game I could play by myself. There was only one small issue, I didn’t have an Atari ST to play it on~!¬
The game had launched on the Atari system and the Amiga port was still in development. The chances of it being released on my Amstrad CPC 464, which was getting long in the tooth by 1988, were non existent. I couldn’t wait for the Amiga, so I began working on my Mum & Dad for a new computer. Luukily I had passed my 11 plus for Grammar School in 1988, so my bargaining power was improved. I can’t remember when I received the machine but I guess it might have been around Christmas 1989 when I received a brand new Atari STE with the Super Pack of games.
Dungeonmaster was delivered my mail a couple of weeks after ordering by post and I can still remember my excitement at loading it up and staring at the dungeon’s door for a couple of minutes before I dared to press open and enter the Hall of Champions.
The booklet that came with the game provided a short story that added atmosphere to the game from the off. Instead of configuring your characters at the beginning of the game, you wandered the halls as an incorporal Theron, your goal to select the four best champiosn to retreive the Firestaff and vanquish Lord Chaos.