Timo006
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 527
Registered: 07-19-2006
IP: Logged
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Returning to King Dugan’s Dungeon after 10 years (+8)
Hey everyone, it’s been quite a while! I’m Timo006 (though I usually go by TimoVM nowadays), I used to be a forum regular over 10 years ago but fell off due to other interests. Wanting to replay the series, I’ve decided to reinstall DROD 5 and play through all the main game holds in order!
Last week, I worked my way through King Dugan’s Dungeon 2.0 and mastered it. Coming back to this series after such a long time, along with a new perspective, I wanted to share the thoughts I had during my playthrough. If all goes well, I’d like to do this separately for other main game holds as well, but we’ll see when we get here!
To give a bit of of context, in the past I did beat all main game holds and SMS holds (with the exception of Treacle Stew). I’m far from the best, but I have a pretty solid grasp of the DROD fundamentals. I’m quite forgetful and impatient, so I tend to dislike rooms where I have to keep track of a lot of stuff at once or rooms where I need to specifically time stuff.
As a final note before I start, this is not intended to be a review. I’m writing this mostly to articulate my own thoughts to get a better view of what parts I did or didn’t like. My opinion here is highly subjective and I’d like to stress that, regardless of what I say, I had a lot of fun replaying KDD 2.0.
Returning to a childhood classic: general thoughts
I first started playing DROD through the free Architect Edition, back when JtRH was already out and TCB was under development. I recall experiencing DROD as hard back then, getting stuck on multiple rooms (and not yet knowing of the existence of the Hints & Solutions board).
What strikes me about KDD is that it feels very honest and as a bit of a passion project. Levels tend to have good fundamentals, but mostly focus on single elements and how they interact with Beethro. Elements are occasionly combined in interesting ways, but not nearly to the extent that later games would. Level theming is clearly present and well implemented, especially past the third level.
The Hold occasionally doesn’t quite know how to handle teaching certain aspects. Monster movement is taught mostly through trial and error when clearing horde rooms, though I should mention that tar is a notable exception to this. Certain rooms are specifically designed to teach backswiping, but these tend to be sporadic and out of the way.
At times, the experience and difficulty curve can come across as uneven, with certain inclusions that would feel out of place in later main game Holds. Examples here include stuff like the 8 Gates of Bill (actually a good puzzle, but arguably a weird inclusion and a literal difficulty roadblock in the third level) and the giant maze that is the thirteenth level (more on this later!). In a literal sense, you can feel that the idea of what DROD is and what it can be just isn’t fully developed yet.
One might look at all of this and think that these are negative aspects, but I’m not too sure of that. One major advantage of KDD is that it feels unlike any other major game Hold. While the end result might not be very polished to modern standards, it is and remains an interesting experience to play through.
With all that being said, let’s focus on the meat of what I want to talk about. KDD’s puzzles:
Not as good as later entries: puzzle rooms
KDD’s rooms can roughly be split up in two categories: rooms in which you must handle numbers of monsters (horde rooms) and rooms in which you must figure out how/in what order to kill a limited number of monsters (puzzle rooms). Puzzle rooms tend to be basic and less well developed compared to later entries.
Later entries in the series tend to use lynchpin designs. Usually you enter a room, formulate an obvious plan of attack, but when you try the obvious plan you find that there’s a certain unexpected snag that disrupts your plan. Your task is to then work around it or make a certain realization on how to tackle the room, with more difficult rooms often having multiple of these unexpected snags.
In KDD, dedicated puzzle rooms tend to either lack these snags, or just have relatively simplistic ones. This usually means that puzzle rooms often just ask you to perfect your execution, so if a player already knows the basics on how to be efficient these aren’t much of an engaging challenge.
Interestingly, KDD also contains a lot of horde rooms, and these actually turn out to be very fun to play through.
The best parts of the Hold: horde rooms
Compared to later entries, KDD doesn’t have a lot of game elements yet. There’s also a lot of interesting interactions that simply go completely unexplored.
What KDD absolutely nails is interesting monster design. Beethro’s movement mechanics and monster movement mechanics combine well into rooms that do not have a specific puzzle concept outside of “here’s a bunch of monsters, figure out the best way to clear them”. These rooms are often a mix of relaxing (since you immediately know what you need to do in general) and engaging (since you need to figure out how to approach the moment to moment combat), with enough maningful variation between them to last several levels.
Roaches and queens are staples, serpents offer interesting scenarios when combined with other monsters, brains add additional variation and interesting choices, etc.. In my opinion there’s one element that shines above all, though.
Arguably the most interesting mechanic: Living Tar
The flexibility of tar cannot be understated. Tar is a unique puzzle element that is both interesting to deal with, naturally synergizes well with other elements and offers both potential as a puzzle element and as a horde element. Not only do tar rooms tend to be some of the most creative and fun rooms, tar itself is regularly used as part of level themes in combination with other elements.
Having said that, I should also note that there is one element that shines a bit less.
A rather hit or miss element: Goblins
Yes, that’s right. Goblins are an exceedingly interesting element with rather complex but fundamentally predictable movement. However, I feel that KDD tends to not use them to their full potential. Remember earlier when I said that you can just fill a room with monsters, ask the player to clear it out and have it be a good horde room? Goblins are unfortunately the exception to this pattern, since they can easily overwhelm a player if you add too many of them. This tends to make goblin rooms feel rather empty and tedious. Goblins overwhelm you, until you find a way to deal with their numbers, after which you pick them off one by one in a repeated fashion.
I should add though that it’s not all bad. Near the end of the game, at level 23, KDD explores the idea of manipulating Goblins to your advantage. These result in very interesting rooms, offering a glimpse to the true potential of Goblins as puzzle elements.
Speaking of levels, let’s focus on a few:
Levels I really liked:
- Level 19 was one of the most fun levels that I played, and in my opinion the closest to a modern DROD level. This level asks you to guide roaches and wraithwings through sectioned-off areas filled with force arrows. Excellent experience all around!
- Level 6 was also surprisingly fun, despite the game repeatedly warning me for its supposed tediousness. The repetition theme forces the use of actual puzzles, and these happen to be worked out quite well!
- Level 9 was similarly a pleasant surprise, with a theme of luring specific amount of reaches into single-use traps without letting any escape. These puzzles were still rather basic, but were nonetheless engaging to solve.
Levels I didn’t like all that much:
- Level 11, themed around tar covering walls, was a tad bit too tedious for my liking. It makes me impatient, which means I make mistakes and lock myself in an unwinnable scenario, forcing me to restart from checkpoints repeatedly. I’m not much of a fan.
- Level 12, centered around serpents stuck in fixed looping paths, has similar tediousness issues. It’s very easy to accidentally fat-finger your way into being eaten, meaning you need to restart from checkpoint. This is one of the levels where single turn undo was an absolute blessing.
- Level 15, centered around trapdoors and introducing red doors, was exceedingly tedious. It’s an awkward level to nagivate, with some overly large sections filled with trapdoors that are just tedious to clear. It dwells a bit too long on red doors without adding interaction from other elements for my tastes.
- Level 18 is very chaotic, with rooms that tend to not be all that fun to play through, such as a room that is just an open room filled with trapdoors and two goblins. This was my personal least favorite floor, and the only one where I can clearly say that it needed a bit more time in the oven.
Additional thoughts that didn’t fit in previous sections
- Level 13, the level consisting of 5 x 5 rooms forming a single maze, was surprisingly doable! Nearly all rooms are easily reachable, allowing you to take your time backtracking the intended route by checking the map at your own pace.
- Level 25 is a bit hit or miss for me. I do appreciate the concept of the ‘Neather as a game finale, but the way it’s scripted during certain rooms is a tad too complicated for my tastes, especially in a game that revolves around dealing with monsters with relatively simple and predictable movement
Lastly, the story and the DROD 5 adaptation
Unsurprisingly, KDD doesn’t have that much going for it when it comes to story. This is perfectly fine, in my opinion, and it makes sense that the first game is mostly just focused on clearing rooms filled with monsters.
The additions that 2.0 makes are mostly focused on Beethro talking to himself, which actually works quite well for fleshing him out as a character. He doesn’t have a lot to say in particular, but I especially like his responses when clearing challenges. Through this, he’s not only portrayed as someone experienced with the job, but also someone who likes to challenge himself, taking pride when going above and beyond. The Beethro we see here feels like a natural extension of the Beethro we see in later main game Holds.
Originally, DROD came with 9 different room styles in a more exaggerated and slightly cartoonish style. When KDD 2.0, these were replaced by a set of 3 room styles that were more grounded. These look gorgeous, but there’s only so much you can do before these become repetitive.
Fortunately, KDD 2.0 was reworked for DROD 5, incorporating the new room styles into the Hold while also adding support for challenges (something similar happened for JtRH, which we’ll see later). This is a very welcome change, restoring the style variety to something akin to what it used to be in Architect Edition and earlier. Challenges have also been added. These are a welcome addition, adding optional difficulty to quite a few rooms.
Wrapping everything up: a nostalgic experience
Overall, I had quite a good time with King Dugan’s Dungeon. It’s a weird Hold to play through by modern standards, with room design that doesn’t really match the other main game Holds.
In my eyes, KDD has a strong early game (levels 1-9), a strong late game (levels 19-25) and an uneven middle game. Even after 10 years, my background in DROD was more than sufficient to finish the game without much effort on my part.
Replaying it after so long is weird, to say the least. I have fond memories of both the Architect Edition and KDD 2.0 when I bought it. I remember a lot of confusion and frustration when I originally played through it, but I also remember there being something compelling underneath all that.
I’ve never been able to actually convince someone to fully play any DROD game. Replaying KDD I can see that it’s by nature a very niche experience. The mechanics are quite deep and understanding them is necessary to enjoy the game, but learning them simply takes a lot of time and effort.
And yet, somehow, KDD did manage to get its hooks on me, which ultimately led to me playing the remainder of the series. I cannot deny that there’s something extremely compelling here, even if I can’t seem to nail down what exactly that is.
As I’m writing this, I’m already halfway through Journey to Rooted Hold. It’s already clear that it’s a much different experience compared to King Dugan’s Dungeon, and I hope you won’t mind reading my thoughts again once I finish it!
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Drod Number: 3034; 8th person to see the Second Sky
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