Equin: The Lantern

Equin: The Lantern
Stable game
Developer	DXF Games
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	Dragon Quest, Dungeon Dash
Released	2012 ({{{relver}}})
Updated	{{{updated}}} ({{{updver}}})
Licensing	Commercial
P. Language	Multimedia Fusion 2
Platforms	Windows
Interface	Graphical
Game Length	Up to 3 hours
Official site of Equin: The Lantern

Story

From the DXF Games website: A young Xtoli adventurer learns of a mysterious dungeon near town ruled by an even more mysterious magic lantern. The lantern changes colors, but what does it actually DO? Take control of either Warrior, Thief, or Wizard and gain levels, stats, and mad treasure as you descend the dungeon's 50 floors to find out.

Features

• Single-player game with 4 equipment slots (head, body, right & left hands),
• Player's backpack can hold an additional 10 items,
• Randomized dungeon of 50 floors,
• Boss enemies to slay along the way,
• Champ enemies that are much tougher than regular ones and drop treasure chests as rewards,
• Hundreds of items and equipment to find or buy,
• Has food, yet no hunger restriction,
• Combat is turn-based and very similar to the Dragon Quest games,
• Weapons have different movesets- example a dagger gives both a slash and stab option in battle,
• Almost everything you do in the game consumes some stamina from general fighting to fishing and closing doors,
• Each class gains a unique skill and sprite upon reaching levels 1 (default), 4, and 7,
• Random events may happen during the journey like darkness floors, graveyard levels, monster infestations and more,
• Purchase items at random shops, get game tips from the guild leader or drink a beer to regain your stamina,
• "The Lantern" itself changes colors over 5 different phases and has mysterious effects on overall gameplay rules.

Character Classes

You begin the game and first must choose your character's class. Each has their own pros and cons, skills learned, and overall stat growth. Some equipment can only be used by certain classes. Unlike many games, every class is able to wear heavy armor and shields should they choose to.

• Warriors are hardy and very strong, able to use the largest of the 2 handed weapons with ease. They have extremely high strength and health and excel in melee combat situations. Warriors never gain any natural magic resistance ever so it's important to be extremely cautious when dealing with enemies that are magically inclined.

• Thieves are the weakest overall fighters but have some nifty tricks up their sleeves. They have very high rates of disarming traps sucessfully and further can equip special chest keys to help them avoid these traps. They are the only ones who can eventually steal from monsters and grab unique items along the way.

• Wizards have the lowest health and stamina totals of everyone but can cast the most powerful offensive magic known. As offensive magic NEVER MISSES ITS TARGET, they can be extremely dangerous in combat. Wizards also gain the highest natural magic resistance of all and can be real pains for enemy magic-users.

Items of Note

As you descend the depths of the dungeon, you'll find treasure chests, barrels, and other items of note. As a general rule the deeper floor you're on will yield greater rewards / dangers.

• Chests come in 3 types- wood, golden, and shadow. These can hold gold pieces or even items and other equipment for you to use. Often chests are locked and trapped. If you manage to disarm the trap you'll gain a small experience reward. If you set it off you'll take damage and the chest will be safe to open upon another try. Locked chests have a greater chance of better loot as a general rule. Shadow chests are incredibly rare, always trapped, and can hold some of the best items in the entire game.

• Barrels are very common and are never trapped. Unlike chests, many are empty when opened. Barrels can either have a small gold reward inside or food or potions.

• Ponds are small pools of water commonly found throughout the game. If a fishing pole is equipped in the left-hand slot the option to fish will appear on the game screen. Fishing consumes 1 point of stamina per cast and of course like real fishing you're not guaranteed to always catch anything!

• Wells can be drunk from to recover your stamina to max. Rarely, a well will have shiny magical water in it. Drinking from these waters instead permanently increases your magic resistance and grants a temporary bless effect. Each well can only be used once.

• Statues can be touched from any side to grant the player a random effect ranging from full health refills to invisibility. Rarely they will damage your maximum HP / STM levels though.

• Abandoned campsites can be used at any time to fully recover your health and stamina. A campsite can be used as many times as you wish, making them the best method of healing in the game and very valuable. As such, finding an abandoned one is exceedingly rare.

Buildings

Buildings can sometimes appear and will show up as windowed doors inside walls surrounded by a colorful banner. Upon exiting a building its door is forever closed so make sure you do your business with them fully before leaving.

• Shops will offer to sell 3 items to the player upon entering. A shop will only offer to sell the player items that are related to its character class (ex. they will never sell keys to a wizard because keys can only be equipped by a thief.) Make sure you have enough spare room in your inventory to purchase an item before entering a shop!

• Guilds are convienient places to rest up and gather information. Drinking a beer will recover your stamina to max while renting a room will recover both your health & stamina to max levels. It is here where tips about the game can be bribed out of patrons.

Traps

• Chest traps deal straight damage and are inflicted when a trap is sprung (disarm fails). The damage is greater the more special the chest is. The trap damage is not affected by depth of the dungeon.

• Poisonous grass is found on the floors and will inflict exactly 1 point of damage when stepped on. Grass that's been stepped on is dead for good and safe to travel over from there on out. The resist poison effect will protect you from taking any damage at all from the grass, however.

• Floor spikes appear from the middle floors onward. They will retract into their holes after several player steps and then pop out again after several more player steps. Walking over a spike trap that's retracted will not cause any damage at all- only when they're out of their holes will they cause 1 point of damage. Spike traps are unique to the game as they can never be destroyed by any means.

• Fires can sometimes appear at lower floors of the dungeon and will deal exactly 2 points of damage to the player's health when walked through. Unlike poisonous grass, the fire remains after being stepped on. Worse, any items the player has equipped that are made of wood will burn and be destroyed! Players under the resist fire effect will be protected from fire damage but unfortunately any wooden items are still burned away.

Tactics

• You have limited space in which to carry items around with you. Any extra inventory items you don't need can't be sold in a conventional manner- instead they can be scrapped (destroyed) from your backpack screen in exchange for some gold pieces at any time. Thieves will gain slightly more gold pieces than other classes this way.

• It's very wise to try and conserve your HP and stamina for those spots where you'll need them most. It's possible to run into champ enemies as early as the 2nd floor and fighting them when you're not prepared is usually a bad idea. One thing to remember is that enemies can't open doors so if one's following you try to run into a room and close the door behind you to lock them out. Like most actions in the game, closing a door requires 1 stamina point.

• It's a very good idea to always try to have a torch on you in case you run into a darkness level, as using it will light the place up again. Using a campfire set is another way to get rid of darkness areas.

• If you find a warpstone it's a great idea to try and save it until you get into a particularly nasty jam (surrounded by enemies while low on health, unable to get past a floor trap without dying, etc). It will warp you to another random spot on the floor and hopefully to safety.

• Warriors can use any of the game's 2 handed weapons (greatswords, battle axes, bow & arrows, etc) however if you're wearing a shield you won't be able to equip a 2 hander until the shield is off. Since you can't remove equipped gear without first putting another piece of gear on it's a good idea for warriors to hold an extra ring or glove in their packs to swap out the shield spot and then equip the 2 handed weapon.

• Save items with the invisibilty effect for times when you need to get past a monster that's much stronger than you. Invisible character can walk right THROUGH even the deadliest dragon this way unharmed.

• If you are new to the game it's a great idea to bribe as many guild members as you can to learn different aspects about the game. Write them down if you want for next time in case you forget!

Screenshots

Related links

• The DXF Games homepage