Author: David Allen / Decklin's Domain Genre: Role-playing License: Commercial (£12.95) Version: 1.1 Other Links: :: The Unofficial M:TDoD Community Notes: Demo version limited to first 3 dungeon levels, out of 15

Downloads: for Windows 11,178 KB (Zip, demo version)

Deep

If, like me, you resent having to pay for a new game only to find that you can complete it in a few days - perhaps a week at most - and then realise there's nothing in it that entices you to play it again, Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol (henceforth referred to as M:DoD) could be a game you'd like. Suffice to say that it certainly isn't a game you'll complete overnight.

You begin in typical RPG fashion by creating one or more characters to start your adventure with. There are nine race types and twelve guilds (i.e. classes) to choose from, giving you plenty of freedom. At any stage of the game - at least, when you have the money and meet the joining requirements - you are also able to multi-guild your characters in a second and even third guild, all of which you can develop to a possible maximum of level 999.

After this you'll find yourself in the town, a place where you can do all the things that any respectable adventure has to do during their career. There is a general store for buying, selling, identifying and combining equipment, a morgue for resurrecting dead characters, a guildhouse where you can raise your characters' guild levels, a confinement shop to buy and sell monster companions, the Seer who will assist you in locating things within the dungeon and lastly a bank to keep your hard-earned valuables safe.

Once you have equipped your fledgling heroes with enough equipment to defend themselves in a fight, you will descend for the first time into the murky dungeon depths. The first room you enter is always empty, but any room beyond will hold one or more monsters - and their treasure, ripe for the picking! To begin with you will be barely strong enough to win a single fight before taking the staircase back up to town and resting up, but after a few fights you will have enough experience to level up and gain more hitpoints, thus increasing the length of time you can stay in the dungeon.

M:DoD's dungeon is a varied place, featuring exotic hazards like quicksand and antimagic areas as well as standard fare such as pits, teleporters and chutes. Fortunately you can use the automap window to navigate your way around these threats and find the best route from place to place. There is a great selection of monsters as well (numbering in the hundreds in fact), going from goblins, orcs and common footpads to water-dwellers, undead, demons, devils, dragons and even indigenous slime and plant life.

Sooner or later you will also need to make use of the many schools of magic that become available to you through certain guilds. Depending on how you develop your character you will gain access to spells which can assist you in any situation, from attacking monsters to opening magically sealed chests. Magic can also teleport your party from place to place, strengthen your heroes' resistances to hostile magic and even charm enemies into becoming your companions.

One of the greatest features of the game is the sense of discovering things for yourself as you play. The general store will start with only the most basic equipment, and it's your job to supply more powerful items from monsters as you grow in skill. By doing so, the information in the guild library will expand so that future characters can be more well-informed about what they could face. And yes, it's quite possible that your first characters (especially if you choose humans) will grow too old to reach the bottom of the dungeon themselves!

A friend of mine once described the game as a 'spreadsheet', which I suppose is a fair enough call if you value graphics over gameplay. There's not a huge amount to look at aside from the artwork depicting the various monsters. Nevertheless, for those who prefer playability in their games, M:DoD can easily steal away many hundreds of hours of your life should you become addicted - and an extremely rewarding experience it is, too...

Back to top