https://filthydrawings.itch.io/dungeon-mori

Dungeon Mori (formerly known as Text Quest) is an Adventure Game inspired by the classic Dungeon Crawlers/RPGs of the old days. It's gameplay is simple, yet fun, featuring a turn based battle system combined with a dungeon that is entirely textual, yet offers you choices to explore and build your character along with the adventure.

Time to go back to the early days of RPGs and experience --

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No, I'm not talking about Final Fantasy VII. It's got a seven in its name, it's clearly not the --

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Again, no, I'm not talking about Dragon Quest, though at least you're moving in the right --

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I can talk about the Ultima series for hours, but no. Map graphics? Four continents? A minigame? Those are advanced features.

We're talking about early CRPGS. Games with simple line graphics (if they had graphics at all), navigated with a menu. Shapes tables and keystroke commands in beautiful amberchrome. The absolute minimum you needed to get your single-player Dungeons & Dragons on.

Dungeon Mori is one of THOSE. It's got a lot of extra conveniences added, like mouse navigation and some nice graphics for towns and items.

You start out in a nicely detailed town with basic equipment and a mission: enter the nearby goblin cave and prove yourself a worthy adventurer. (Seriously, the shopkeepers won't even talk to you until you've gained a few levels.)

Inside the cave you have few options: continue forward, search the area, or leave the cave. Advancing through the cave triggers random events, anything from stumbling upon a crossroads, discovering a secret chest, rescuing a damsel in distress, or -- most often -- running into some variety of goblin.

The combat system has a few twists and turns. Different weapons offer advantages and disadvantages, favoring certain play styles. Each weapon also has a special attack that costs MP, which recovers only slowly. You can also scrounge magic items while exploring, and use them in times of desperation.

And, ultimately, while Dungeon Mori isn't going to give you the sweeping story arcs of a Final Fantasy, the massive variety of a Dragon Quest, or the fleshed-out worlds of the later Ultimas, it gives you the kind of simple, minimalist experience that's at the core of the computer RPG.

Dungeon Mori is still a work in progress. It's been five years in development but things are still progressing, with a creator responsive to feedback and its most recent update only two months ago (as of this writing). It's still worth playing in its current state and, while DM is a lot prettier and flashier than Eamon or dnd, it's still a callback to a long-gone era of computer RPGs.

Play in browser.