DM2: The Legend of Skullkeep
FTL Games released Dungeon Master 2: The Legend of Skullkeep for IBM PC MS-DOS 5.0 in August of 1995.
Dungeon Master 2 employs Rational Systems' DOS/4GW Protected Mode Run-time v1.97.
Dungeon Master 2 is a laughably late second sequel to Dungeon Master of 1987.
Of course, the real sequel to Dungeon Master is not DM2 but rather Chaos Strikes Back of 1989, but CSB was not popular with the masses because -- wait for it -- it wasn't made for casual gamers but rather for DM veterans.
Dungeon Master 2 was first released on the NEC PC-98 in December of 1993, which is still six years after the original. There were even Sega CD and FM Towns versions released in 1994 before the IBM PC MS-DOS version. How odd.
Of course, there was no Atari ST version because the ST had been dead and buried for a couple years by the time DM2 of 1993 came out. I mean, the Atari ST didn't even get Eye of the Beholder of 1991, which it deserved.
In terms of technical graphics and graphics-style, it is immediately evident that DM2 is not a native IBM PC VGA game, but rather a port. The graphics are smudgy, thickly-outlined and overdone in general.
Also, imagine eschewing discrete flip-screen updates in favor of double-step ones, thereby slowing down gameplay and making movement imprecise. Awful. In addition, the shopkeeper interface is slow to interact with.
Westwood's Lands of Lore of 1993 fell into the trap as well, but at least you could disable interpolation in LoL. You can't disable the double-step in DM2.
Dungeon Master 2 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200. That FMVs can display in SVGA doesn't change that fact. The active drawspace is 224x136px, which is the same drawspace size of 1987 Dungeon Master. Thus, 8 years later FTL couldn't add a single pixel to the drawspace size of the original Dungeon Master.
In 1995 DM2 should have displayed in square-pixel SVGA 640x480.
Consider how advanced some other 1995 PC games were:
Dungeon Master cuts a poor figure against the above. To be fair, though, the cRPG genre of the early 90s was a joke in comparison to other non-action genre, and 1995 was one of the worst years in cRPG history, so perhaps one should be grateful that DM2 was even released: DM2 is not a bad game, afterall.
Dungeon Master 2 requires an i80386DX-25 MHz CPU and 4 megs of RAM. The original DM ran on 8 MHz M68K with 512K of RAM, yet is better.
Dungeon Master 2 was distributed on 9x 3.5" 1.44 MB diskettes or 1x CD-ROM and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Dungeon Master II Installer. The install size is 16 megs (23 files).
Dungeon Master 2 was programmed by Bill Kelly, Kirk Baker and Bert Huml; its graphics were headed up by Scott Bieser; its music composed by Rick Jackson and Allister Brimble.
- Dungeon Master 2: The Legend of Skullkeep manual: 52 pages
- Dungeon Master 2: The Legend of Skullkeep Clue Book: 68 pages
- Dungeon Master 2 skip intro: Delete or move FTL, Splash and Intro files
MIDI devices supported by Dungeon Master 2: Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Ensoniq SoundScape, Microsoft Sound System, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Gravis UltraSound, Gravis UltraSound Max, ESS AudioDrive.
Digital devices supported by Dungeon Master 2: Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 16, Ensoniq SoundScape, Microsoft Sound System, Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Gravis UltraSound, Gravis UltraSound Max, ESS AudioDrive, Toptek Golden 16, Media Vision Thunder Board, AdLib Gold, NewMedia WAVJammer, I/O Magic Tempo, ARIA Chipset, Sound Galaxy NX Pro 16, Reveal FX/32.
cf. Dungeon Master games:
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