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Deathtrap Dungeon: The Interactive Video Game is a different beast to the 1998 third-person action adventure which was saw model Kelly Brook involved in the promotion.
This one is more in-keeping with the original books by Ian Livingstone, who has also been involved in this production, and a number of those theemes and drawings are included in this. I can certainly remember a fair number of them as I used to read through the books when I was in school (instead of paying full attention to the lessons). You would make a decision, it would tell you to turn to a particular page, and technically, if you bought the farm, you would have to start again.
Of course, anyone sensible, would just go back to the page they were on and check out the alternative options.
As you proceeed, you’ll click on the options similar to how you’d select those pages in the book, but since it only has options to either quit or restart the game, there are quite a few checkpoints – and I always encountered these each time I kicked the bucket, but you can’t save as you go.
Eddie Marsan in the Dungeon Master, reading out the story in a slow and methodical style, going through the process of skill points, luck points and so on, so it’s very reminiscent of old-style Dungeons and Dragons, something I played very briefly as a kid and I wish I’d played more of. I remember playing it with a friend who’d be the DM while I rolled the dice, and I also remember once asking a dragon how many hit points he had, much to my friend’s puzzlement. How strong are any of us prior to death?
Oh, and at one point her said, “you touch something cold, hard and smooth.” Is it Pamela Anderson’s breasts? 😉
However, while it sets the atmosphere (the game, not Pamela Anderson’s upper bits), at one point, I was told the game was adding a stamina point, yet it didn’t add anything to my score, even though I had 22 with a maximum of 24. :/
Another time, it said my stamina would be increased by 4 points, but it only went up 1 to 24, as that was the maximum. It’s a shame the game is programmed with only so many stock phrases and doesn’t include that one, although it does refers to the rule at the start that you can’t go over the maximum. The first situation was an error by the game, though.
Also, even though it helped a lot that my skill/luck scores were 12 in some games I played, combat does get very repetitive at times. And even then, you can mostly let the combat run by itself, save for eating provisions to top up your stamina.
The biggest problem, though? At the first fork in the road, I went East, worked my way through to the end, and then started again and went West… how many completely new wonders would I witness? Well, after a couple of new encounters, I ended up back on the same path, so there isn’t the variety I expected.
The overall score would’ve been more if there had been more variety, but second time round (gameplay video coming soon), the game was approximately 75% exactly the same as the first time, so that is a definite disappointment. Yes, it’s an Early Access Game, but one that’ll still cost you around £8.
Score: 5/10
Deathtrap Dungeon: The Interactive Video Game is out now PC.
Important info:
- Developer: Branching Narrative
- Publisher: Branching Narrative
- Players: Single player
My rig:
- Intel i7 Six Core Processor i7-5820K (3.3GHz) 15MB Cache
ASUS® X99-A: ATX, HSW-E CPU, USB 3.0, SATA 6 GB/s Motherboard
16Gb Kingston Hyper-X Fury DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
4GB nVidia GeForce GTX 980
250Gb Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540Mb/sR | 520Mb/sW)
3Tb 3.5″ SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200rpm 64Mb cache
16x BLU-RAY WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
CORSAIR 750W CS Series Modular 80 Plus ® Gold, Ultra Quiet
Creative Sound Blaster Z 5.1 PCI-E Soundcard – OEM
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1
Zalman Z11 Plus Black Mid Tower Case
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.