DROD
| Deadly Rooms of Death (Webfoot) | |
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DROD Cover art
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| Developer(s) | Webfoot Technologies |
| Publisher(s) | Webfoot Technologies |
| Producer(s) | Dana Dominiak |
| Designer(s) | Erik Hermansen |
| Composer(s) | Lars Kristian Aasbrenn |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Linux, Mac OS |
| Release | 1996 |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD) is a computer puzzle game. It was created by Erik Hermansen in 1996 and has been regularly extended since then. The original version of the game published by Webfoot Technologies is no longer available. In 2000 the author reacquired the rights to DROD from Webfoot and released the source code; he continues the support and development as "Caravel DROD".
King Dugan has a problem. He let his guards eat their meals down in the dungeon, and they spread crumbs all over the place, so suddenly his lovely dungeons are swarming with cockroaches, not to mention goblins, serpents, evil eyes, and other nasty things. It's really gotten out of hand. Beethro Budkin, dungeon exterminator extraordinaire and the main protagonist, is called to the castle and, after a short briefing by Dugan, thrown into the dungeon with the doors locked securely after him. With only a "Really Big Sword™ at his disposal, it's up to our hero to clear the place, so that the prisoners can receive their torture in a clean and safe environment.
The game is entirely tile-based and takes place on a 38×32 rectangular grid. Most monsters and objects take up a single tile, though some monsters (such as serpents) take up multiple connected tiles. Each room is a separate puzzle, and to solve it the player must defeat all the monsters in the room and exit it. The player controls the movement of Beethro Budkin, a dungeon exterminator equipped with a "Really Big Sword". In the fictional world where the game takes place (the Eighth), his job as a Smitemaster is to clear dungeons of invading monsters. Most gameplay stems from, or elaborates on, this concept.
Since the game is also turn-based, monsters or objects will only move once per turn. Each type of monster has a different algorithm for its movement, depending on its location relative to the player. As a result, Deadly Rooms of Death requires logical problem-solving rather than reflexes. Each turn, the player can wait, move Beethro into any of the eight bordering squares to his current one (if not already occupied), or rotate his sword 45 degrees. Some rooms simply require finding a sequence of moves that allows Beethro to defeat all monsters without being killed; other rooms require solving more complex puzzles, thanks to game elements such as orbs that open and close doors, trapdoors that fall after being stepped on, and so forth.
The game was developed by Erik Hermansen in the end 1990s. In 1996 the game was commercially released by Webfoot Technologies as version 1.03 of the game. The release was followed shortly after with versions 1.04 and 1.11 to fix some bugs with unsolvable rooms and levels. This early version is commonly known as Webfoot DROD. As the game was commercially unsuccessful, the publisher stopped distributing the game around 1999.
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