Didouneto
Level: Delver

Rank Points: 79
Registered: 03-21-2004
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Me,i have discovered Drod in 1997 in a shareware CD(Create by Webfoot and TLK for French gamers) (i have 7 years old in 97,very young gamer)

And you,how have you know this beautiful game ?

I'm just very curious

bradwall
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 424
Registered: 02-12-2003
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I had a friend introduce it to me many years ago. I got Webfoot DROD and have been around since then and have watched it grow from Webfoot to Caravel and beyond.
It has been exciting to see one of my all time favorite games grow from what it was into what it is today.

Svante
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 169
Registered: 04-23-2005
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I think I remember an old thread about this, but it's probably too old to revive now. Anyway, as I didn't say in that thread, I found DROD through autofish.net, a pretty good site. Mainly because it mentions DROD, but still...

-Svante

Bunches
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 192
Registered: 03-17-2006
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I've known DROD for 7 or so months. I've played DROD for 6 months. Ezlo was the one who showed me DROD and from then on i've been hooked.

Banjooie
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1645
Registered: 12-12-2004
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Underdogs, I was like 'bah, I need a game' and then HEY HERE IS ARCHITECT'S EDITION.

Then I was like 'wtf, why are there no levels for this or community' because I kept googling 'deadly rooms of doom'.

gamer_extreme_101
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1939
Registered: 03-07-2004
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Banjooie wrote:
Then I was like 'wtf, why are there no levels for this or community' because I kept googling 'deadly rooms of doom'.

Well, at least "Deadly Rooms of Death" and "DROD" both come up as our community site now. Phew!

____________________________
--That guy with a million different aliases since he doesn't like this name anymore.

Niccus
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 308
Registered: 07-02-2006
IP: Logged

Article by Ed Pegg Jr. You might know him.

Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
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Didouneto wrote:
Me,i have discovered Drod in 1997 in a shareware CD(Create by Webfoot and TLK for French gamers) (i have 7 years old in 97,very young gamer)

Similar. Played the first 3 levels of the Webfoot demo, called to get the other 25 but Webfoot by then sold only crappy 3D games (the kind that's all polygons, cumbersome, unoriginal, and unattractive). About 7 years later (or so), I was bored and found the demo while cleaning out my hard drive. I think to myself that the full version might be public domain by now. I Google it and discover that it has been resurrected, vastly improved, and has a sequel with another sequel in the works. I download AE and have more fun than with most games in the interim.

I also noticed that I couldn't design good original puzzles for DROD, for some reason, despite the hundreds of quality puzzles I'd produced in other games with editors (Kye, Daisy's Garden, etc. on the shareware CDs), and only recently worked up the courage to even beta-test holds.

While I'm on the subject, I must ask Erik whether he wrote those wacky "buy the full version" texts (e.g. "Death can be fatal - but not in DROD!").

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2796
Registered: 02-04-2003
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Jatopian wrote:
While I'm on the subject, I must ask Erik whether he wrote those wacky "buy the full version" texts (e.g. "Death can be fatal - but not in DROD!").

Yep, those are mine.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

coppro
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1309
Registered: 11-24-2005
IP: Logged

I was introduced to DROD by a friend who still maintains interest, but does not post here as often as I do. I lived with the trial for a few months, before winning a copy of JtRH in a contest and purchasing a CaravelNet subscription. I have mastered all Caravel official holds, with the exception of Beethro's Teacher (Stupid... wubba... room.) I am eagerly waiting for Master Locks and The City Beneath (which, unfortunately, has yet to be beta-tested as I understand it). And last but not least, I am of course only posting here for the rank point

Alneyan
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 622
Registered: 07-06-2004
IP: Logged

That was sometime in late 2001, if memory serves, while I was browsing the newly-added games at the Underdogs. I played Caravel DROD (1.5) some, but got repealed by KDD, Ninth Level a couple of times. Back in those days, life wasn't quite as easy as you youngsters have it. We sweated day and night with the plain mail program, though the luckiest among us could boast of having a working Mutt. No fuzzy browser-based bulletin board, and not even a working ASCII charset (we did our own encoding and decoding by hand, I tell ya).

Okay. I did some more playing following the release of Architect's Edition, actually came somewhere near finishing KDD (I gave up on level 23, though), and played some user-made holds (Tomb of Nomb being the first one). I more or less stopped playing the game in 2004, though I was still keeping a watch on newsletters and the like. I got lured back a few monthers after the release of Rooted Hold, and did finish KDD twice this time around.

I still cannot build my way out of a paper bag, though.

Tscott
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 382
Registered: 02-10-2003
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Like others I found DROD at Home of the Underdogs. It was the webfoot version that I found and it was the highest rated puzzle game on the site so I had to try it out. I did, and I think I stopped before I even saw the first "hard" room of level one... I got distracted easily back in those days; probably started a new first person shooter the next day.

Anyway, later I was looking for something else to play and went back to the Underdogs and saw DROD listed again and this time toughed it out. I had to find demos for about 3 or 4 rooms that I had trouble with (you had to rename the files so they would play from the title screen in those days). I got stuck for a week in level 24, and stuck for 2 weeks in the room with all the tar babies in level 25. Finally made it through the whole thing, felt a great feeling of accomplishment that I never got from a first person shooter, and then put the game aside.

Later I happened on the official website and found it had been updated and they were working on a new and better version of the game and looking for testers. Hey, yeah, I'll help if I can. Then they came out with the Architect's Edition and DROD been my main game that I've been playing ever since.

____________________________
And I can recall our caravel: a little wicker beetle shell with four fine maste and lateen sails,
its bearings on Cair Paravel. O my love, O it was a funny little thing to be the ones to've seen.
-Joanna Newsom "Bridges and Balloons"

TripleM
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1379
Registered: 02-05-2003
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Alneyan wrote:I played Caravel DROD (1.5) some, but got repealed by KDD, Ninth Level a couple of times. Back in those days, life wasn't quite as easy as you youngsters have it. We sweated day and night with the plain mail program, though the luckiest among us could boast of having a working Mutt. No fuzzy browser-based bulletin board, and not even a working ASCII charset (we did our own encoding and decoding by hand, I tell ya).

You think you had it tough?
I found DROD (via the underdogs) way back in the early Webfoot days - ie, no checkpoints. Imagine playing through the whole of DROD, those multiple tar mother rooms, and all the rest, with no checkpoints. Oh yes.
Actually, I stopped playing it after going 'the wrong way' on level 8, the first time through. A few months later, found a savegame online somewhere and finished it from level 9 onwards. Of course, I have completed the versions since then, including level 8.

Oh - and I'm still registered in the DROD yahoo group, and get those occasional spam emails that get sent through it

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[Last edited by TripleM at 07-13-2006 09:56 AM]

Tuttle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1552
Registered: 02-22-2003
IP: Logged

I'm pretty sure I stumbled onto it through The Underdogs. Much like Tscott I bashed through an early version (Caravel DROD from memory) and then put it aside, except in my case it took me two and a half years to get back to it.

Alneyan
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 622
Registered: 07-06-2004
IP: Logged

TripleM wrote:
You think you had it tough?

Well, I'll admit I didn't go to school bare-footed with fifteen pounds on my sorry neck, but still. I know about Webfoot DROD and actually played Caravel DROD without checkpoints for a few levels (I had turned them off by mistake). I liked level 8 even then, though.

Of course, I'm also the kind of player who only heard about Undo and macros on level 16 of Rooted Hold (granted, macros aren't terribly useful compared to checkpoints or undo).

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[Last edited by Alneyan at 07-13-2006 10:22 AM]

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

Alneyan wrote:Well, I'll admit I didn't go to school bare-footed with fifteen pounds on my sorry neck, but still.

Why not? Have you no sense of adventure?

I bought Webfoot when it was first released, in the days when it wasn't possible to complete level 13, and room 48,1551, or L15 1S2W as it later affectionately became known as, had a trivial solution. The only help available was on usenet until Matthew Daly (I think) set up a fansite. I was replaying DROD yet again in 2003 and couldn't remember the solution to one particular room and couldn't find my archive of rec.games.computer.puzzle - which is where I discovered DROD in the first place. I did a search for Matthew Daly's website and ended up here, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
IP: Logged

Banjooie wrote:
Underdogs, I was like 'bah, I need a game' and then HEY HERE IS ARCHITECT'S EDITION.

Then I was like 'wtf, why are there no levels for this or community' because I kept googling 'deadly rooms of doom'.

Same here... On a long day at work back in 2005 I decided to look up some games on hotu, and I believe AE was recommended as it was freeware and a a great game.

Never looked back.

[now I must try and get a job though]

UrAvgAzn
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 468
Registered: 04-15-2006
IP: Logged

I somehow accquired Webfoot DROD demo, I just can't remember how. It was about 4 years ago. I played through it and I said, hey, this is a good game. I didn't bother buying it though. I had other things to do at the age of eight (trying to convince my parents to buy a pet comes to mind, but they said I wasn't 'responsible' enough). Then, about 1 year ago, I googled DROD, and I saw that they had a few new versions. So then I checked DROD.net off of google, and downloaded DROD: AE. But that was a year ago when I had dial-up. Now that I have DSL, I downloaded JtRH about 5 months ago. And that, my friends, is my history of delving.
*bows for the audience after some polite applause and some very loud snoring*

Keep posting,

____________________________
"The leaf, still green, must someday fall.
Such grief, such joy, to live at all."
- T.A. Barron, The Lost Years of Merlin

Pinnacle
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1137
Registered: 06-10-2004
IP: Logged

I first found it on Home of the Underdogs, using dial-up. I was scared about the thirteen-meg download size, so put it off for a few days. Then I decided to do it.
It wasn't a mistake. So I played a few levels, and spent the next year trying to beat the game.
So now I'm here, saying that I first found it on Home of the Underdogs, using dial up. I was...this seems familiar.

____________________________
Once (adv.): Enough.
Twice (adv.): Once too often.
~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

roach strangler
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 57
Registered: 01-07-2006
IP: Logged

I have webfoot D.R.O.D. and I have been playing for six years!

Pilchard VIII
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 392
Registered: 01-21-2006
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I got hold of the demo of Webfoot DROD on 100 Smash Win Games CD. I played it and completed the demo, and then left it for six years. I found the disk again, played it again, and decided to see if it had made anything of itself. And then that same day, there i was, playing JtRH. What a feeling!

____________________________
The DROD Dragon

Citrus
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1233
Registered: 01-08-2006
IP: Logged

I have my own unique story to tell! One of my friends is a Linux freak, well to put it more acurately, a Tux the Penguin freak. He told me that I should get Tux Racer since it was a good game. So I searched online for a windows version, (I don't have Linux) and on that website the game of the day was JTRH. That day I played both demos to completion and bought KDD. A week later I bought JTRH. A week after that I got a CaravelNet membership. A week after that I started bugging all my friends to try it. So far at least three people have bought it due to me telling them about it.

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

Pilchard VIII
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 392
Registered: 01-21-2006
IP: Logged

Lucky. I can't convince any friends to play it.

____________________________
The DROD Dragon

Briareos
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3516
Registered: 08-07-2005
IP: Logged

Ezlo wrote:
So far at least three people have bought it due to me telling them about it.

"Viral marketing doesn't work - tell your friends"

np: New Order - Thieves Like Us (Singles (Disc 1))

____________________________
"I'm not anti-anything, I'm anti-everything, it fits better." - Sole
R.I.P. Robert Feldhoff (1962-2009)

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

I played the Webfoot version on one of those 100 Games CDs. I couldn't get past level 8, although I honestly didn't try too hard, and I also might have gotten screwed by that one room that you can't get back to if you don't do it right away.

A few years later I either randomly thought about it, or looked that old CD up again, and decided to Google it, and this forum had just opened a few weeks before, and the rest is history...

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

Citrus
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1233
Registered: 01-08-2006
IP: Logged

What I want to know is how Erik found DROD!

____________________________
Call me Citrus.

Alneyan
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 622
Registered: 07-06-2004
IP: Logged

Ezlo wrote:
What I want to know is how Erik found DROD!

Just like the rest of us: the wisp found him, and he became hooked on the game.

Jeff_Ray...
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 962
Registered: 05-16-2005
IP: Logged

Found it in 2002-2003. My first puzzle i tried is a room full of brains and the exit. But from that i've got way better.

____________________________
I make Let's Plays too!
Click here to find out my LPs' progress, and find out what I plan to tackle next!

Currently playing:


My Holds:
-Completed:

-Work in Progress:

skell
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3776
Registered: 12-28-2004
IP: Logged

I've found it on Underdogs about two years ago or something

____________________________
My website

captainzakku
Level: Delver
Rank Points: 77
Registered: 07-15-2006
IP: Logged

As a relatively new member I thought I'd share my DROD initiation. Like others I found this on underdogs in late 2000, early 2001? I vaguely remember hordes of beetles, horrible rooms of tar, and finally, covered in beetle guts, tar and god knows what, hacking my way through to the end of the game. I remember being terribly sad that I had finished the game, and I thought at the time that I had played my last DROD. Then the roaches ate my hard drive, and DROD was forever lost.

Or so I thought.

After repressing those mememories, for the next 4 years, I began to have troubling dreams of endless lines of malicious little blue blobs, and horrible giant roaches. I would wake up in a cold sweat with a scream on my lips and a melavolent voice in my head saying, "Go to google. GO TO GOOGLE! And search for 'DROD'."

On one other note, my girlfriend was very excited to hear that I finally beat the "beetle game" (JtRH) a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately then I found all of this...

-Zack

____________________________
"A problem worthy of attack, proves its worth by fighting back." Paul Erdös

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[Last edited by captainzakku at 07-27-2006 02:37 PM]