Dungeon Construction Set

Dungeon Master was designed a “data-driven” game, which means that FTL Games could create entirely new scenarios just by changing the dungeon data file on the disk. These dungeon data files were created with a program called ‘Dungeon Construction Set’ (DCS) that was developed by Mike Newton. DCS ran on Atari ST and was never ported to any other platform. All dungeon files for all versions of Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back and even Dungeon Master II were created with DCS on Atari ST.

A screenshot of DCS was published in magazines:

The ability to load any dungeon is a feature that was implemented in all versions of Dungeon Master and Chaos Strikes Back but was never actually used: when you run the game, click on ‘Resume’ just like you would do to load a saved game, but instead of inserting a saved game disk, insert a disk containing only a dungeon file named DUNGEON.FTL. This actually starts a new game using that custom dungeon instead of the default DUNGEON.DAT file provided on the game disk.

Initially, Chaos Strikes Back was designed to be released in that way, as a “mini-adventure” consisting of a new dungeon file supplied on a floppy disk. The project later evolved to a full game that included updated graphics and code.

Wayne Holder said in an interview for British magazine ‘Retro Gamer’ (Issue #105 July 2012 on Page 81): “The biggest business mistake that I made was not realising that we should have sold the Dungeon Constructor Set as a separate product and let people create their own stuff. I was afraid it would dilute the whole cache, and that people would come up with tacky stuff, but people like to author stuff. We did it with Oids later, and that was a big hit.”