Escape from the Master's Lair

Escape from the Master's Lair
Beta Project
Developer	Kevin Wells
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	Nethack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
Released	April 21st, 2011
Updated	August 4th, 2012 (0.6)
Licensing	MIT License
P. Language	C++
Platforms	Windows, Linux, Source
Interface	simulated ASCII with SDL+OpenGL, keyboard
Game Length	1-2 hours
Official site of Escape from the Master's Lair

Escape began as a 7DRL for the 7DRL Contest 2011. Unfortunately, it was a failure. It did not even have a name at the time of the contest's end.

However, development continued on into late April, and an initial alpha release was made.

Since that time, development has continued, although at a lessened pace. Features are essentially frozen for the foreseeable future, and bug fixes/balance improvements are now the major focus.

Features

• Mindbending ASCII graphics!
• Myriad races, skills, attributes, and items to to choose from. Build your ultimate hero!
• Stop a power-hungry dungeon-dwelling madman from taking over the world, and beyond!
• The player and monsters can all be any race in the game.
• Games can be saved and loaded using bzip2 compression.
• A decent variety of dungeon levels: circular and rectangular rooms, caves, big open rooms, levels full of water, levels full of lava, and the very rare frozen level.
• A full experience system, with attributes, skills, and leveling.
• All creatures (the player and monsters alike) are governed by the same rules (more or less).
• A thirst system, with the need to keep finding water to survive. Water can be found in water bottles and fountains scattered throughout the Lair.
• A lighting system, using libfov. Be wary when your lantern goes out, for terrifying dark spawn and grues will spawn rapidly all around you. If you do get surrounded by such awful beasts, turn on a light, and watch them burn up!
• Rudimentary monster AI. Monsters can wander about, chase and attack the player with melee, flee the player when dying, heal themselves (with potions or just by resting in a safe place), and drink water to stay alive.
• Collect enough Runestones and escape the Lair of Loathing alive!