Dungeon Lords hands-on preview
Sia 'Garrett' Manzari, 2005-02-20

D.W. Bradley should be well known to any serious RPGamer, as evidenced by his original "Cybermage" (for Origin) and/or his remarkable Wizardy series.
His last released game (up to this point), was "Wizards & Warriors", a good RPG that did not appeal to the casual gamer for its complexity. This will change with Dungeon Lords, his latest and upcoming RPG, which is scheduled for release by April 17th, 2005. This preview is based on a pre-alpha version with a lot of features missing - yet still having a hint of the heart and soul of the final version.

Unlike Wizards & Warriors, Dungeon Lords offers no party, but is a one man (or woman...or dwarf...or whatever) adventure. As in almost every RPG you start with creating your character; you have the choice of utilizing a pre-created character, or indulging yourself by creating your very own.
The character screen is quite simple to overview, but it features a lot of information, as you can see in these following screenshots.

Then you start the game. It is controlled with the classic WASD and mouse movement; interaction uses a few uncommon keys - but you get used to them soon, for example, interaction with objetcs or talking to NPCs is done with the Shift key, while hitting the spacebar causes your character to jump. But I am guessing you will be able to set your own "hotkeys", even though in this pre-beta it is not possible (actually, not a single option is available here).

D.W. Bradley announced Dungeon Lords as a fighting RPG, so it seems that fighting is a crucial part of the game. And in fact, combat is working quite well. You attack with a close combat or ranged weapon, can block attacks, can do combo attacks ot use magic...everthing goes offhand quite simple and without much ado and still looks and feels very exact. Enemies in this preview version include wolves, goblins, but also higher level stone statues, and a dragon - among many others...and even a large number of low-level enemies can threat a higher level hero...

Let's take a look at some of the other elements that belong to a good RPG: There is a quest log and an automap (which was not implemented yet, but the help screen tells the key for it, so I guess it will be in the game). There are only limited sound effects and no music yet. Graphics are very nice, with leaves and grass moving with the wind and weather changes and a night/day cycle. The resolution in this version is set to 800x600, hopefully the final game will feature higher resolutions (actually I am quite sure it will).

Something else that was a lot of fun was picking locks: You need to remember symbols and click, when a moving bar hits these symbols...the more difficult the lock to pick, the faster the bar is moving and the more symbols there are to remember and to click...so it actually also challenges also the wits and dexterity of the player - though possibly the skill of the character also influences this though.

Overall, the version looks very, really very promising. If the story and quests in this pre-beta are any indication of the proposed, finished product, then Dungeon Lords will be a feast for RPGamers!