Dungeon Lords Q&A - Polishing and Finalizing

Dungeon Lords is the latest game to come from role-playing designer D.W. Bradley, whose resume includes some of the classic Wizardry games from the late '80s and early '90s. His newest effort promises to be a hack-and-slash-style role-playing game, but one with a considerable amount of depth. You'll create a character, choosing from a variety of races and character classes, and then you'll explore a whole new fantasy setting, from towns, swamps, dungeons, forests, and more. Dungeon Lords is packed with combat, and you'll have no shortage of monsters and bad guys to slay. With the game in the final stages of development, producer Mark Harwood answered some of our questions.

Dungeon Lords is about swords and sorcery, as this fireball-casting fighter demonstrates.

GameSpot: Tell us about the character development system, which, as we understand it, lets players choose a specific character class but gives players access to pretty much all schools of magic and other skills. Why was this structure chosen, and what does it add to the game?

Mark Harwood: Dungeon Lords is designed for players to enjoy rather than lock them into an early decision, the consequences of which they might not fully understand. For example, you may start the game out as a fighter, hacking and slashing your way through a few hours, when you see your friend throwing some really cool wizard spells. Why should you have to completely start over again to get that same enjoyment? You can play Dungeon Lords however you want to, allocating experience where you think it will do the most good. And if you decide to go in a completely different direction halfway through, why shouldn't you be allowed to? Role-playing games are really about the customization of your play experience, and in Dungeon Lords, you've got the freedom to do that.

GS: Where did the story for Dungeon Lords' single-player game come from. Any inspiration from classical fantasy novels or even modern motion pictures?

MH: D.W. Bradley is known for crafting great, intricate stories and has done so again on Dungeon Lords. As far as how he comes up with them, I can only guess. But I'm glad he does.

GS: We understand that part of the goal behind using a simple keyboard-and-mouse control scheme (with only a few clicks to handle most of the combat) was to make the game accessible to new users. Now that the game has been in development for some time, can you comment on what it will offer beginners? And what will Dungeon Lords offer role-playing game veterans?

MH: The idea behind the interface was to make it accessible to as many people as possible, not just beginning gamers but fans of other genres as well, such as first-person shooter fans who are very familiar with the WASD-and-mouse layout. The reason for this is so you can start playing the game quickly, rather than spending time trying to figure out the control scheme. For veteran action players, they get the same advantage of an easy, familiar control set and can start in immediately deciding how they want to use the extremely flexible character system to make their heroes.

The game takes place in third person, so you can admire your character's form-fitting armor.

GS: We've noticed that although the game takes a very modern approach to much of its presentation, it also has more than a few references to classic dungeon crawls, such as the chest lock-picking system (which plays out a bit like a puzzle game). Does the game have any other classic RPG game features you'd care to share with us?

MH: Dungeon Lords is a classic dungeon crawl in many ways. But it doesn't limit you to just dungeons. There are vast outdoor areas to explore, including forests, swamps, towns, mazes, etc. We've also got lots of the hack-and-slash action that you'd expect in a classic dungeon crawl, but we bring it all together with a great story.