Beginner's Guide To DROD.
[updated 27/6/14]
What is DROD?
DROD (Deadly Rooms of Death) is a turn-based puzzle game (or
"stepping game" if you will), about a guy with a sword, called Beethro Budkin, who kills monsters. There is an underlying story which is great in its own right and that develops through the different game versions and levels released, but knowing or following the story is not essential to solving the puzzles.
Puzzles consist of a tiled grid on which the character moves – each turn either moving to an adjacent tile, rotating (thereby turning his sword) or just waiting. Various monsters, obstacles, doors, bombs, pressure plates, trapdoors and other elements, each of which acts in a completely deterministic and predictable way, are placed on other tiles in the room. The goal in each room is to clear all the monsters in it and/or step on a conquer token. Puzzles in DROD have no memory – if you leave one unconquered and come back to it, it will revert to its original state.
At its simplest therefore, DROD is about killing monsters with your sword, and many puzzles are based around just that. However, the range and flexibility of the elements available in DROD allow you to create puzzles of enormous complexity. You may have to manipulate the movement of monsters; navigate mazes; find ways to kill monsters without using your sword; solve problems of combinatorics (opening/closing/toggling doors); work out how to keep monsters alive or reconfigure the non-monster elements in the room in particular ways (e.g. dropping trapdoors in certain patterns, moving platforms around, cutting fuses to influence the timings of bomb explosions etc). (
here is a good article some different kinds of puzzles that can be implemented in DROD, with examples.)
DROD, in-effect, acts as a Turing machine on which it is possible to implement innumerable puzzles. For example, Towers of Hanoi and the 3 and 5 gallon bottle puzzle puzzle have been successfully implemented.
See
here for further discussion and examples.
There are various ways to play DROD.
1.You can play DROD in order to solve the puzzles and enjoy the story.
2.You can try to optimise your solutions of the puzzles (complete them in as few moves as possible). The creators have developed a system whereby your solutions can be uploaded and ranked with other people's. In this way you can compete with other players, and watch their solutions.
3.DROD comes with a level editor, allowing you to create your own puzzles, which you can then upload for others to play, allowing you to revel in their confusion.
DROD RPG is set in the same universe as DROD and shares common elements but is an entirely different game with different gameplay. I therefore won't be discussing it here.
DROD Versions, Engines and Levels
DROD has been through several iterations, and this is a potential source for confusion. There are now 5 different engines, 5 official campaigns (levelsets, or "
holds"
, of 25 levels or more), and a number of smaller official holds (called Smitemaster's Selections, of up to 14 levels).
Since the latest DROD engine is fully backwards compatible, I would recommend simply buying the latest engine (
DROD 5.0), and playing all the holds in that version. (This is done by importing
relevant hold file into the game, and this also applies for any usermade hold you might want to play)
Here is the canonical order of the main campaigns and other holds that have come out so far:
-
DROD 4: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder (full campaign) was actually released with the DROD4 engine and functions as a prequel to the saga of Beethro Budkin. It follows the adventures of his grandfather, Gunthro Budkin, who gets embroiled in a war between the continents of Rasarus and Tueno. It has been designed with beginners in mind and is an ideal entry point to DROD.
-
Smitemastery 101 (Smitemaster's Selection) is a small hold in which Beethro Budkin gets trained in the fundamentals, and is also aimed at beginners.
-
King Dugan's Dungeon (full campaign) - This is where it all began, where we first meet Beethro Budkin, professional smitemaster, tasked with clearing out King Dugan's Dungeon. Earlier versions of the hold can be downloaded for for free
here, but this version has been updated with more features, secrets and voice acting.
Recently, a remake of this hold has been made in
Flash, so you can play it in your browser for free without having to download anything. This version also contains some bonuses, such as extra rooms and challenges.
-
Journey to Rooted Hold (full campaign) - this was released along with the DROD2 engine. Here the saga of Beethro Budkin continues as he uncovers the underground Rooted Empire, and sets off down the High Path to uncover the headquarters.
-
Perfection,
Beethro's Teacher and
Master Locks are Smitemaster's Selections that detail Beethro's adventures along the High Path. These are recommended for more experienced players, although Master Locks comes in two versions, easier or harder.
-
The City Beneath (full campaign) is the third main hold and was released with DROD3. Beethro finally reaches the headquarters of the Rooted Empire and tries to get to the bottom of it all.
-
Devilishly Dangerous Dungeons of Doom,
Suit Pursuit and
Finding the First Truth (Smitemaster's Selections) follow up on the revelations of The City Beneath and bridge the plot to its thrilling conclusion...
-
The Second Sky (full campaign) is the epic conclusion to the saga and has been released with the latest engine, DROD5. Find out what the Empire has been up to and what the Grand Event is. This is the biggest and best version yet and contains not only new elements and monsters, but improvements and expansions to graphics, soundtrack and user interface.
There are also a number of non-canonical Smitemaster's Selections to play, including Beethro and the Secret Society and Halph has a Bad Day (packaged as
Halph Stories),
Complex Complex (which accompanies Suit Pursuit) and
Flood Warning (released free with the full version of Gunthro and the Epic Blunder).
But, and here's where it gets even more fun, because DROD comes with a level editor, many people have made and released user-made holds. These can be found
here, in a list that you can sort by release date, architect, difficulty and overall rating of goodosity. If I've counted correctly there are 477 at the time of writing, each with between 1 and 76 levels (or between 1 to 593 individual rooms).
What you can get for free.
Astute readers will have realised there's a lot you can get for free.
-
DROD Architect's Edition (including the original KDD)
-
KDD, as a standalone hold file
-The Flash remake of KDD (called KDD Lite, or
Flash DROD) which you can play in your browser.
-
Journey to Rooted/KDD 2.0 demo (comes with the DROD2 engine)
-
The City Beneath demo (comes with the DROD3 engine)
-
Gunthro and the Epic Blunder demo (comes with the DROD4 engine)
-
The Second Sky Demo (comes with the DROD5 engine)
The demo versions of the engines come with limited graphical styles and music, but are otherwise completely unlimited.
- With the DROD5 engine you can then play
every single usermade hold (currently 477 and counting) and make your own holds using all the available monsters and elements.
What you can buy, and why.
- The full versions of
Journey to Rooted Hold,
The City Beneath,
Gunthro and the Epic Blunder and
The Second Sky all excellent holds (and in getting the full versions you get all the musical and graphical styles)
- The Smitemasters Selections (all good, as discussed above, occasionally very difficult)
- CaravelNet membership. This enables you to upload your room solutions to the net, allowing you to compete with others and watch their solutions. It also lets you download and rate holds and chat in-game and on the Caravel Forum. See the
FAQ for further information.
-
Deadly Music of Death, the complete soundtrack to
DROD:AE,
DROD:JtRH and
Flash DROD.
Which holds should I play?
This is a tricky question – you want to play holds that are good, but also not too hard to start off with. The problem is, there are a lot of not very good, if easy, holds, whereas a lot of the best holds are very difficult.
You can see discussions on this topic
here (in particular see Ezlo's comment), and
here
One thing you may want to do is arrange the list of available holds in reverse order of difficulty – but there's a lot of dross there I wouldn't really recommend.
So here are my suggestions for a beginner to DROD (in a rough order in which you might want to play them). For some hold architects, you can click on their name to see other holds they've made.
-
DROD Learning Zone (by
Larrymurk) is a hold written specifically for beginners (and with kids in mind too). It covers a lot of the basics very simply and enjoyably. It is completely impossible to get stuck or die, making it very easy, but it also means that there is no challenge involved whatsoever.
- Tutorials – DROD 2, 3, 4 and 5 (full versions and demos) come with in-game tutorials that cover the basics (these aren't separate downloadable holds). These are quick, easy and well worth playing. There are a few user-made tutorials too:
DROD Tutorials by Nillo,
Zohnin's Tutorial and
Zohnin's Tutorial 3.0 are probably the best ones to have a look at, although you may just want to start playing some non-tutorial holds.
- KDD was the original DROD hold, so it starts very basic, and could act as a good introduction. The other bonus here is that with Architect's edition you can play all 25 levels for free and there are many excellent rooms throughout. The downsides are that it doesn't have much in the way of story, has no speech and is restricted to the elements and monsters of DROD 1. Also, being the first ever hold, it lacks a lot of the refinement that comes with later holds, as people realised what made a clever and enjoyable puzzle. Lastly, the difficulty curve is quite uneven at times.
However, the new
Flash version of DROD remedies some of these problems by redesigning some of the rooms and levels, uses DROD 3-era graphics, adds speech, is playable in your browser without download and includes all new bonus content, secrets, challenges and achievements. So this is a great starting point.
- Another good place to start (or go next) would be the demos for
JtRH,
TCB,
GatEB and
TSS (going on to play the full games if you wanted to, felt experienced enough and wanted to pay for it). These holds are of excellent quality and contain voice acting and the canonical DROD story, however they can get pretty tricky and frustrating in later levels. In particular, GatEB is designed with DROD novices in mind - there's a smoother learning curve, and hub-style levels make it possible to attempt challenges in any order you want.
-
Smitemastery 101 is a hold I made with beginners in mind, that starts off very easy and gradually gets harder and includes a lot of explanation of how things work. It's a Smitemasters' Selection, so you have to buy it. On the plus side it means it's looked over and polished by the official team and includes speech (and a song!)
-
Odd Jobs Novice is an excellent hold by
Larrymurk that offers a set of odd jobs for you to complete, in any order. Once you've managed that, there are Medium and Expert versions of the same puzzles in separate holds.
-
Aurora's Palace is another hold of mine. It only uses the basic elements of DROD 1 (AE) and contains plenty of hint scrolls. It therefore should be quite accessible for beginners. (There's a
Let's Play if you're curious or stuck)
-
Advanced Concepts. I can't recommend this one enough – it's invaluable. This is a compilation of a levels by me and some of the best architects in the community. Each level concentrates on a different element/monster (e.g. Brains or speed potions), explains how they work through a number of tutorial-style rooms and gives you a few rooms to practice out your new knowledge. There are also a number of additional challenge rooms as well. I'd try this one out after you were happy with the basics of DROD after playing one of the other holds first.
-
Advanced Concepts 2 has come out more recently, and covers a range of new topics, including tarstuff and wraithwings. It's harder to complete than the first Advanced Concepts, so should really come later.
-
Mysteries of the Deep is a fairly under-rated hold by
Jeff_Ray, that has a tutorial style structure, as in it starts easy and gets harder with each level, with plenty of explanation of how elements work. Overall it's very good, and has a lot of excellent puzzles. Downsides are the odd frustrating room, odd story and not very good English.
-
In The Research Facility and
Dan's Dungeon are large tutorial-style holds which aren't entirely comprehensive are are definitely well done and fun to play.
Shendy's other hold (
Lost in a City) is also worth checking out.
-
Sandtrap by
Tokyokid is a hold I discovered only recently by looking through highly rated easy holds. It's a number of pretty good, not too hard puzzles arranged in a maze. Fun. In a similar vein, try:
-
Population Density by
Ravon, which is another hold of interconnected rooms, that's not too hard.
-
Great Uncle Yurgess' Hold by Sergenth is a very popular and well done hold with a good story and lots of original puzzles. Also not too hard.
-
Loony Labyrinth, by zzyzx is a really good hold. It's a massive maze of rooms. A bit harder than some of the aforementioned holds. You may want to play it in the original Architect's Edition (having a newer edition allows for some spoilers).
-
Compass Point is a short and clever hold that puts a new spin on how you solve DROD puzzles. It's by
Robobob3000, whose other holds are definitely worth checking out too.
- The DROD community holds annual awards for good holds and architects, called the Annual People's Choice Awards (or Deadlies). You can find a complete list of all the categories, and winning architects and holds
here. Looking at the winners of these awards is a good way to find good holds to play.
These awards include the
Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement which has been awarded to:
Larrymurk (a couple of whose holds I've mentioned),
Doom,
me,
Boyblue,
Rheb and
Chaco. These architects' holds are all excellent, but can get very difficult. I suspect that holds by BoyBlue and Rheb would be way too hard for a beginner, but are highly recommended once you're more confident.
Of Doom's holds I'd recommend
Simon's Dungeon ,
Spider Well and
Nightmare Dungeon as being more suitable for beginners.
-
Easy or Hard and
Odyssey are a couple of easy Larrymurk holds that are worth playing.
-
Chaco's Hold is a good example of, well, one of Chaco's holds and is well worth playing.
-
Tim is another great architect who has made a few holds, each based around an individual element or monster.
Simplicity is a minimalistic roach-only hold, while
Tunnel Vision revolves around tunnel-based puzzles.
City of Queens (roach queens) and
Penthouse (snakes) are much harder.
- Other excellent holds, that may be suitablefor a beginner and come recommended are
Phil's Dungeon by Kevin,
Treasure Hunt by
Oneiromancer,
Veere's Dungeon by Sim and
Mark's Penultimate Dungeon by Funk (whatever happened to Mark's Ultimate Dungeon?)
Other architects who have made some amazing holds are:
Dischorran,
Calamarain,
Jutt,
TScott,
zch and
kallor. The only reason I've not gone through their holds above is that, on the whole, their holds are much (sometimes much, much) harder.
If you're interested in my holds (some hard, some easy), click
here
drODDITIES
There are a lot of interesting things that can be done with the DROD engine. Here are a few examples.
DROD 3 made it possible to change the player role, so you can now make rooms where you play as a roach or a goblin, rather than Beethro.
Imperial Wandering by Chaco is an excellent example of this – you play as a Tar Technician (a character with no sword). In
Flight of the Fegundo by
brian_s you play as a Fegundo - a flying creature that can't be killed by monsters.
not dr0d 2 by Tahnan, is an excellent set of original word puzzles implemented in the DROD engine. As the name suggests it's not really DROD.
The Goblin is another of my holds, which I mention because it involves another subversion of standard DROD puzzles – only one of the rooms in the whole hold has a monster in it.
The Palace of Puzzles by
VortexSurfer,
The Sunken Pyramid and
Under the Mountains both by
RuAdam all involve classic non-DROD puzzles and mazes implemented in DROD.
geomatrx has made a series of vast, non-linear holds that fuse the gameplay of DROD with that of
Metroid. They are:
MetDROiD,
MetDROiD Prime and
MetDROiD Echoes
If you need help... (in-game)
There are a number of useful features in-game. Pressing F1 will bring up the help documentation, which includes backstory, controls, explanations of how monsters and elements work and gameplay tips.
Right clicking on a tile will tell you the elements on that tile, and the movement order of the monster on it.
Left clicking on an orb or pressure plate will show you the door(s) it is associated with and whether it opens (green), toggles (amber) or closes (red) it/them. Conversely, clicking on a door will show you which orbs or pressure plates affect it (in DROD 5). Left-clicking on a tunnel will show you where it connects to, on a bomb will show you the explosion radius, and a stalwart will show you who or what he is targetting.
F6 will bring up the demo screen, where you can export your own solutions, import others' or download others' from Caravelnet.
If you need help... (in the real world)
The DROD community is generally very helpful and well-informed.
If you have a general question like "
When's the next Smitemaster's Selection coming out?"
, "
What's Beethro's middle name?"
or "
How do Serpents move?"
, then the
General Board is probably the best place to go.
However, if you need to ask about a particular room in a particular hold, go to the
Hints and Solutions Board and click on Get Help for a Room. You can then select the hold, level and room you're stuck on and you'll be taken to previous hints and solutions that have been given for that room (or if they're none, it'll open a new thread where you can ask for help).
There are also a number of Let's Plays on youtube showing people playing the official levels, as well as some usermade ones too. These include:
Pearls,
Alex Diener and
Crazy Canuck
Finally, questions about Architecture (i.e. the creation of new holds) are best asked on the
Architecture Board, where you can also beta-test holds in production.
Hope this all helps or suggests new things for people to try.
Comments, additions and criticisms welcome.
Enjoy.
Quick Links:
Beginner's Guide |
Play in Browser |
Game Information and Downloads |
Holds |
Building |
Stories |
Mods |
Forum.
____________________________
New to DROD? You may want to read
this.
My
Holds and Levels:
Click here to view the secret text
[Last edited by Jacob at 06-27-2014 05:47 PM]
