Dungeon Master

Imagine the year 1987, you step into a dark dungeon, on the screen a monster creeps in real time, and for the first time in your life you feel that this is not a static turn-based game. This is Dungeon Master, a title that literally redefined what a computer RPG could look like.

The game from the American studio FTL Games, released first on the Atari ST, abandoned the then-usual turn-based approach and built the entire experience on a first-person view in fluid, continuous time. You lead a four-member party, which you assemble from characters imprisoned in mirrors, descend floor by floor and solve physically conceived puzzles: levers, buttons, doors, hidden paths. Combat takes place live, so you have to nimbly click on weapons and spells, retreat and maneuver.

The magic system was revolutionary too, where you compose spells from runes according to forces and elements, and so was the system of improving skills through practice, not mere accumulation of experience. The more you fight, the better a warrior you are; the more you cast spells, the mightier a mage. This approach, where the character improves at what it actually does, influenced dozens of later games.

Dungeon Master became one of the best-selling games for the Atari ST and is generally listed among the most influential RPGs ever. It inspired a whole wave of first-person dungeon crawlers, and its DNA can be traced in series like Eye of the Beholder or later in modern titles that proudly return to grid-based dungeon crawling. For its time it also dazzled with fluid graphics and sound.

What makes the game remarkable even after decades is its coherence. It is not a jumble of systems but a thoughtfully designed world, where every puzzle, every enemy and every weapon found makes sense. The atmosphere of descending into the unknown, when you have to look after your charges' fatigue, hunger and thirst, still draws you in today.

Why play: It is a cornerstone of the dungeon-crawler genre and one of the most influential games of the eighties. Anyone who wants to understand where modern RPGs came from must descend right here.