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Classic dungeon crawling awesomeness!

Anvil of Dawn, a classic DOS-era dungeon crawler with first-person perspective, sprite graphics, a vast and rich world to explore, and dozens of hours of great and motivating gameplay, is available on GOG.com for only $5.99

Every fantasy land needs a hero, it seems. There's always an evil entity of some sort that menaces the realm and its people. Surprisingly, the people never stand up to it. They prefer to wait for a group of adventurers, or even just one champion who knows the importance of wearing leg armor around archers. Inevitably someone comes to the rescue and saves the realm one spider-infested cellar at a time. Schematic as it may sound, we love to relive those adventures over and over again. Even if one dungeon looks pretty much the same as any other, you still get this rush of excitement when making your first steps on its dusty floor. It's not about originality of the concept. It's about the involving gameplay, that lets you forget about the world around you. Here's a perfect game to do just that!

Anvil of Dawn has everything you ever loved about 1990s role-playing games. It presents you with a large and diverse gameworld, full of monsters and enemies to slay, riches and powerful items to loot, quests to carry out, weapons to wield, spells to cast, and an evil overlord to challenge. It was praised for its great pacing allowing to keep the gamer entertained and intrigued, always presenting him with something new to do and achieve. The imaginative sprite-based graphics, solid gameplay mechanics, and many classic gameplay ideas make this title a shining example of well executed cRPG design that makes us call its period "the good old times". Highly recommended!

If a true old-school cRPG experience is what you're looking for, you simply can't afford to miss Anvil of Dawn, for only $5.99 on GOG.com!
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Nergal01: Saw an LP by Kikoskia and the game looked pretty fun.
I also became interested in this game after watching a few of those videos. I never heard of it before. Nice release!
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fooziex: Awesome! This is one I've been waiting for. Next up, Dungeon Hack? Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession / Stone Prophet?
Oh, I wish!
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GeeLW: FINALLY! Listen not to the haters at all, as AoD is pretty cool beans.
What haters? There's one person in this thread who admits to not liking it.
Post edited May 15, 2013 by RaggieRags
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stika: Anvil of Dawn is actually pretty expensive on Ebay ranging anyhwere from 40 pounds to 100 pounds (60-150 dollars)

I was actually lucky enough to find my boxed copy for roughly 20 euro a year ago
I guess I was lucky, I bought my copy a few years ago for $12 US. I bet the E-bay retailers are upset :p
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fooziex: Awesome! This is one I've been waiting for. Next up, Dungeon Hack? Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession / Stone Prophet?
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GeeLW: Dungeon Hack is another "abandonware" game from Dreamforge, but I think the versions online are missing the awesome (and hi-larious) intro movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvodJIJdDi8

My ancient DH disc STILL installs and runs on XP (and you don't need it to play the game once installed), but it would be cool to see it here on gog, as I know that disc might give up the ghost one fine day...
Having a digital GOG copy that you can burn on CD-ROM or DVD is always a nice option. Yay for us, we win.
Post edited May 15, 2013 by oldschool
Does it mean we can look forwar for Ravenloft games?
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fooziex: Awesome! This is one I've been waiting for. Next up, Dungeon Hack? Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession / Stone Prophet?
These are AD&D games and are thus more difficult to get (but more promising; it'd be awesome to eventually have Azure Bonds, Gateway, and DKK here). The Summoning and Veil of Darkness are more likely.
So I played it for a few hours today, and yes combat is quite simplistic, the grid movement basically means you end up doing the "forward, attack, reverse, forward, attack, reverse" thing quite often, though not as much as Legend of Grimrock funnily enough.

Yet somehow, I feel like I should dislike it, but the "bells and whistles" and design seem to make AoD well... fun, I guess. The pretty graphics (sprites, environments) sound effects, music and ominous tone of the dungeons, seem to somehow make the game better than the actual barebones of it's gameplay mechanics.

It's not as good as Lands of Lore, but I compare it to that because it's a similar feeling I have about them both. Lands of Lore was simplistic in it's gameplay, but the voice-acting, pretty 2D art, and overall tight design made the game fun in spite of it's simplicity. I know bells & whistles do not make a game, but I've come to the opinion that they are a lot more important than I previously thought.

That being said, it's impossible to view old games without nostalgia goggles, so maybe I'm not impartial. Funnily enough the combat in this game is still has more options than Skyrim, with less copypasted dungeons too :/

EDIT: I'm playing as the green-goblin thing
Post edited May 15, 2013 by Crosmando
Also, if you peoples want to see the other games made by these developers, vote for these:

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/ravenloft_strahds_possession
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/ravenloft_stone_prophet
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/menzoberranzan
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/dungeon_hack
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/veil_of_darkness
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/the_summoning
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/war_wind
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/war_wind_ii_human_onslaught
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/warhammer_40000_rites_of_war_1
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/chronomaster
I've been waiting years and years for this. Thank you GOG!!! :-)))
Ooh, Veil of Darkness would be a nice addition. The two Ravenloft games are also really nice, but Menzoberranzan was pretty meh. And I never knew they made warwind :) As for Dungeon Hack.. curses to those who decided it's "sequel" Slayer was only released on the 3DO.
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jpolastre: and uhm, this is poking fun at dragon age or there's an even worse offender?
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G-Doc: Not picking on any particular title here. The offender here, is the FPP dungeon-crawling, tile-based RPG genre in general. I always thought that most of these games follow pretty much the same dungeon design. However, I never thought that was a bad thing. Give me any dungeon, any day! :-)
The only problem I have with dungeon crawlers is I get lost and the next player will find my body takes some loot and continues hopefully not also getting lost in the process. :)

I'm generally speaking of course, I'm sure there must have been a dungeon crawler I didn't get lost in.
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deonast: The only problem I have with dungeon crawlers is I get lost and the next player will find my body takes some loot and continues hopefully not also getting lost in the process. :)

I'm generally speaking of course, I'm sure there must have been a dungeon crawler I didn't get lost in.
I don't get that a lot, but there's one title in particular that had me confused in all of it dungeons. No, not only dungeons, come to think of it. The open spaces were even easier to get lost in. I mean Ishar series from Silmarils, especially the first one. I never got to finish it because I just kept wondering around in circles. :-) But it was a beautiful and intriguing game and I was just a kid hungry for adventure. Dozens of hours, minimum progress, but surprisingly little frustration. Good times!
I still have Dungeon Hack on CD. It would be more than welcome here. In my opinion.
The opening still makes me laugh.
Post edited May 15, 2013 by oldschool
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Starmaker: AoD is not a sandbox survival game. It doesn't even have spawns. Which means you're better off swording everyone and casting healing on yourself, while being super careful with RotL if you ever use it (making sure it doesn't hit enemies and subtract from their precious HP tracks). That's the big one. Separate magic and weapon skills in the absence of randomness mean you're rewarded for guessing (or knowing) the loot beforehand. Finally, separate weapon skills would punish experimentation, except there's none to speak of, because everything is 100% swordable.
Could you explain this logic please? What exactly are you trying to maximize by minimizing magic use to healing? I found playing an earth magic caster quite fun.
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fooziex: Awesome! This is one I've been waiting for. Next up, Dungeon Hack? Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession / Stone Prophet?
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RaggieRags: Oh, I wish!
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GeeLW: FINALLY! Listen not to the haters at all, as AoD is pretty cool beans.
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RaggieRags: What haters? There's one person in this thread who admits to not liking it.
I was also referring to some reviews that went up on the main page. Sure, you can look at the game with a hindsight view, but I say give it a go at least once from beginning to end before posting something that might turn someone off of this.
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hunvagy: As for Dungeon Hack.. curses to those who decided it's "sequel" Slayer was only released on the 3DO.
Yeah, that's too bad, as Slayer is REALLY damn awesome. it's one of the reasons I bought a 3DO back in 1996 and still break it out every so often.

Hell, I'd LOVE to see a Kickstarter for a decent remake one day but using the same or similar graphics as the original game just to make the graphics hounds scream but also allow for the game to run on many platforms with a smoother frame rate plus a lot more art assets and creatures. Granted, the variety in Slayer is pretty impressive, but it woyuld be nice to see different terrain height, pits to fall in to and some other stuff that would make it even more interactive...

g.
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deonast: The only problem I have with dungeon crawlers is I get lost and the next player will find my body takes some loot and continues hopefully not also getting lost in the process. :)

I'm generally speaking of course, I'm sure there must have been a dungeon crawler I didn't get lost in.
Well, it's impossible to get "lost" in AoD because the mapping is great and well implemented. I think the only problem you may have is figuring out which direction to head in on some of the more open maps, but even then, it's a matter of starting out and heading in one direction until you can't go any further, then circling back to where you started or taking a route off to the side you may have bypassed.
Post edited May 15, 2013 by GeeLW