Thy Dungeonman 3

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Revision as of 02:17, 16 October 2008

Behold Thy Graphics!!

Box art

"No man slays dungeons quite like the Thy Dungeonman from the Thy Dungeonman computer game series. Hi-res graphics improve on the no-res graphics from the previous text-onlyventures. Get ye flask, fool!" - Videlectrix

Thy Dungeonman 3 (also spelled Thy Dungeonman III) is the second sequel in the Thy Dungeonman franchise produced by Videlectrix. The most notable feature of this sequel is the addition of graphics, with imitation low-resolution still frames accompanying each room of the game. As with the first two installments in the Thy Dungeonman series, the game is a text-command-controlled adventure centered around a knight named Thy Dungeonman. However, the mission in this quest is to get Ye Flask, rather than to escape yon dungeon as in the previous games.

Page Title: Behold Thy Graphics!!

Games Menu Description: Text and graphics! Orange adventure!

Date: Monday, April 24, 2006

Commands

Main Commands

• north or n
• south or s
• east or e
• west or w
• leave (if you're in a room where you can only go the way you came)
• look
• get
• talk
• inventory or inv
• use
• save (1-5)
• load (1-5 or "auto")
• the UP arrow cycles through previous commands

See full list of commands
See full list of responses

Ways to Lose the Game

• Get crushed by the spikes (not escaping from Thy Dungeon before your twelfth action).
• Going back into the room with the monk after he attempts to eat you.
• Not getting out of the cauldron fast enough.
• Getting lost in the woods (wander around without a map, going EAST will save you).
• Trying to fight the troll (KILL TROLL).
• Trying to kill the bird at the monastery (KILL BIRD).
• Trying to kill the barkeep (PUNCH, KICK, or KILL BARKEEP).
• Attempting to steal barkeep's beard (STEAL BEARD).
• Attempting to steal barkeep's drink (STEAL DRINK).
• RETIREing in Westerberg.
• Choosing the wrong Kigalonian.
• Getting the answers wrong to the Hag's questions.
• Attempting to steal the Vegetable Cart Man's Corn. (STEAL CORN).
• Eating the fake ketchup. (EAT BLOOD, DRINK KETCHUP).
• By typing HANG OUT or QUIT (the latter causing you to exit the game entirely).

Fun Facts

Explanations

• The amber-only color palette is an homage to the many vintage monochrome monitors that were released during the 1980s. The concept is similar to the Tandy 400's green-phosphor monitor.
• The horizonal black lines simulate an effect on some old monitors, where the display resolution was low enough that the individual scanlines were visible.
• When you first end up in the cauldron, it says that the broth is getting "progreffively warmer." The Fs are supposed to be long Ss (ſ), which resemble lowercase Fs.

Trivia

• Each time a new graphic appears, it is preceded by the sound of a 5¼ floppy drive from the Apple II family of computers. The actual sound heard in the game is produced by the drive when the computer first boots or resets, or when there is no disk in the drive.
• You can flip over its box art on the Videlectrix website to read the back, which is a first for their games. The back cover features the Videlectrix logo as well as screenshots of the town, pub, and grabbing minigame. It also has the following text.

Back cover

Behold Thy Graphics!

Out of the dungeon
and into the pile!
Videlectrix has
added multi - bit
graphics to someone's favorite text adventure!
Visit LOCATIONS, get ITEMS, and interact
with PEOPLE-all in vivid monochrome color!

Short 4-page
manual! No more
novels! (Thanks
for all the letters!)

It's the final confrontation between Thy
Dungeonman and the elusive FLASK!!

Innovative FPG -first
person getter- action!
(actual gameplay-type
screenshots shown!)

• The photos for Thy Dungeonman, the Fat Friar, the Vegetable Cart Dude, the Disgruntled Cleaner Guy and the Old Hag are named internally as "mike", "matt", "matt" again, "me" and "ryan", respectively. Presumably they are photos of Mike Chapman, Matt Chapman, Jonathan Howe and Ryan Sterritt.
• The tombstone on the death screen reads "THY DEADGEONMAN".

Remarks

• Apparently Videlectrix has had a change of heart. When Strong Bad originally imagined Thy Dungeonman in the email video games, the game scoffed "Graphics, shmaphics".
• The "pwd" command has been modified, and it now gives your location as "Wastes of Time/Dumb Games/Dungeonman 3/{location}".
• This is the first text adventure on the site where the command "DIE" doesn't kill you - or do anything at all.
• Although the hag's clearing is west of the thickly thuckled woods, typing NORTH or SOUTH will take you there. However, you still must type EAST to get back to the woods.
• The name of the town is Westerburg. This is ironic, seeing as you get to it by going east.
• "This tis it" is improper grammar. "Tis" is a contraction of "it is". Therefore, in modern English it would be "This it's it."
• If you go south when there is no passage south, the interface will respond, "No puedo hacerlo. Lo siento, Dungeonhombre." This is Spanish for "I can't do that. Sorry, Dungeonman." Interestingly, the interface claims to not speak Spanish.
• This is an odd switch from Roman numerals to Arabic numerals.

Goofs

• The instructions on the death screen read "Press C to cnntinue or R to restart".
• When you go to the monastery, the room description includes these sentences twice: "Upon the table is a STEIN. The exit tis back SOUTH."
• If you attempt to get ye flask a second time without putting on the glove, when it says "Perhaps ye needs something to help ye get ye flask. Ye." it doesn't say "(PRESS ENTER)" after it.

Glitches

• While being cooked alive in the pot, type SOUTH on the turn you die and you will die and escape at the same time.
• When the hag asks how many children you have, the scrapbook photo may not correspond with her required answer. (eg: there are four wee hags pictured, but the correct answer may be two or three instead.)
• In the minigame where you press Enter to try to get ye flask, simply hold Enter the entire time and you'll automatically grab the flask when your hand moves to the correct position.

Fixed Glitches

• Some hours after its release, the game began in the Hag's Clearing where you have no points yet possess the Fake Ketchup, already used.
• There was a warp portal that took you directly inside the dungeon that was accessed by typing "GO IN LOG" or "ENTER LOG" at the creepy woods; however, if you have not yet gotten the flask-grabbing glove, you will be unable to win the game. VOIPing back out from this path would cause a gateway to the dungeon to appear at the crossroads, and then at the creepy woods.
• When the game was first released, if the hag had 4 kids, then any answer you give her (including 4) would be taken as incorrect. The only way to fix this was to restart. This was fixed soon afterward.
• Also upon release, it was possible to get stuck by grabbing the stein in the monastery, then escaping the cauldron and re-entering the monastery, then pressing C to continue. This was later fixed so that you now continue from outside the monastery.
• Originally, if you typed LOOK FLOOR while holding the bone, the picture of the bone would appear.
• Originally, if you typed LOOK BONE or LOOK FLOOR in Yon Dungeon after using the bone, it would say that the bone is still on the ground. New phrases were later added in place of this.

Inside References

• The dungeonman is wearing the horned helmet.
• The obsession with "getting a flask" has run throughout the Thy Dungeonman series. It originated with Strong Bad's earliest concept of the game in video games, in which "you'd just have to sit there and imagine why on Earth you can't get ye flask!"
• When flipping through the hag's scrapbook, if you see the town sign for Rottenscab, it reads "If thou lived here, thou would be home by now". This joke was also made in for kids.
• When you look at the stone bridge, it will tell you that it is notorious for its knife fights. This is a reference to personal favorites, where Coach Z and Pom Pom had a knife fight on a Stone Bridge.
• The "OMG!" when you get the coins from inside the log is another example of Internet Slang.
• If you try to talk to the disgruntled cleaning guy inside the sandwich shoppe through the window, the text refers to him as Disgruntor the Cleaninator, an obvious reference to Trogdor the Burninator.
• When in the town, type "Listen to music" to get the response "Sounds like the Peasant's Quest theme".
• Teleporting out of the dungeon is accompanied by the sound effect "VOIP". This sound effect was previously used in Teen Girl Squad Issue 1, the Videlectrix game Hallrunner, and the Strong Bad email alternate universe.
• The back of the box claiming "no more novels" refers to the previous two entries of the series. The first game's box claimed to contain a 400-page manual, while the second game's page title states that the game "Comes with 3 volume set of Thy Encyclopedias and Reference Guide!". This explains why, on the Videlectrix website, the box for Thy Dungeonman 3 is shown as being slimmer than the boxes for the first two games.
• If you look at the stein in the pub after using it, it reads "Thou'll never forget thy old sidekick, Steiny." This refers to Strong Badman's sidekick, Stiny.
• The phrase "ugly bird" may be a reference to helium, in which Homestar Runner refers to a flying The Cheat as such.
• The phrase "Lord Round Mound" is similar to Strong Bad's description of Strong Sad as a "round mound of gray fatness" in rampage.
• The phrase "shimmy all up on the dead dongrel" is another example of All up ons.
• The quote "AGH! My style!" is a reference to most of the Teen Girl Squad issues, where a character, when injured, yells "Ow, my (body part)."
• The promotion of graphics refers to the remark in "video games" about not having "precious graphics to help you out".
• "Visualize whirled peas" is a homophone.

Real-World References

• When you attempt to "take spoon" or "take knife" from the Fat, Fat Friar while you are in the cauldron, the game informs you, "Twould be like removing the sword from the stone. 'Whoso pulleth out the utensils of this meaty palm is rightwise King born of England and privy to my secret recipe for cupcakes.'" This is a reference to the legend of King Arthur of Camelot.
• The phrase "It's all about the ... who the heck is that on these coins?" is a reference to the Puff Daddy song "It's All About The Benjamins", meaning the portraits of Benjamin Franklin on U.S. hundred-dollar bills.
• The response "I don't understand you..." is an excerpt from the song Fingertips by They Might Be Giants.
• The screen shown when you get the flask for the first time is a reference to the opening sequence of Myst, which features the silhouetted Atrus plummetting through the Star Fissure. In the Myst series, it is possible to teleport to other worlds or 'Ages' by touching linking panels found in certain books.
• The "internal or external command" error message is the message you get in the Windows XP command prompt if it doesn't recognize what you type.
• While musing on thoughts of her dead husband, the hag is said to be 'ferngullying' and 'landbeforetiming', both references to early '90s animated movies.
• The response "Ye taps the bottle and twists the cap" is a reference to the song "Tap the Bottle" by the rap group YBT (Young Black Teenagers).
• One of the possible presents that the hag might have gotten is a Nintendo 64 Controller (called an N64 Paddle in this game). The controller is popular for being the first in console gaming since 1982 to use the analog stick. It is also popular for its rather unusual but successful three-handled design.
• Just before you begin answering the hag's questions, she says "If ye answers questions three..." This is a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which the old man at the Bridge of Death proclaims "Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, 'ere the other side he see."
• If you answer the hag incorrectly, the game refers to her as "Hagatha Christie", a reference to crime author Agatha Christie.
• The error displayed when you type "Go West" when there is no west exit is a reference to the lyrics of two songs: "King of Wishful Thinking" by the band Go West, and "Go West" by the Village People.
• When you've beaten the game, the line "The sanctum begins to rattle and hum" is a reference to the U2 album "Rattle and Hum".
• If you try to pick up the log in the woods west of the crossroads, it says "Painful memories of finishing last in the World's Strongest Dungeonman contest are dredged up." This is a reference to the World's Strongest Man competition, an annual tournament which involves completing difficult strength-based challenges.
  • In addition the text mentions "Magnus and Junko". Magnus is a reference to either Magnús Ver Magnússon or Magnus Samuelsson, who were both World's Strongest Man Champions. Junko is a reference to Jouko Ahola, who was another World's Strongest Man Champion.
• "Lonely Dungeon: Westerburg" is a reference to the Lonely Planet series of travel guides.
• "Westerberg" is also a reference to Paul Westerberg, rock songwriter and singer from the 80s punk band "The Replacements".
• If you don't escape from the cauldron in time, it says "Next time, Try Hard 2: Try Harder." This is taken from the film title Die Hard 2: Die Harder.
• The "Franken Brand stein" is a reference to the famed novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
• "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" is a novel written by Czech novelist Milan Kundera.
• The first picture in the hag's scrapbook sometimes reads Zork, and claims it is a "Krill-free community". Zork is a long-running series of (mostly) text adventure games by Infocom. Krill was the name of the villain in the first Zork book, as well as Enchanter.
  • In addition, the opening sequence, which transitions from text only to graphics, is similar to the opening of the first graphical game of the Zork franchise, Return to Zork.
• When asking to look at the barrel in front of the "sammich" shop, it replies "A very small barrel. Maybe made by a small man. A mini cooper if thou will." A cooper is a barrelmaker. A Mini Cooper is a small British car.
• The ending screen is very reminiscent of the ending to the Nintendo game Faxanadu.
• The picture for the veggie cart dude looks strikingly similar to Kevin McDonald, a member of the comedy troupe Kids in the Hall.
• After buying corn from the veggie cart dude, he'll say one of a number of parodied slogans, such as:
  • "Visualize whirled peas" parodies the common motto, "Visualize world peace", often found on bumper stickers. This parody itself has also appeared on bumper stickers.
  • "Think flatly, act locally" parodies "Think globally, act locally." This refers to the popular misconception that everyone in the Middle Ages believed the Earth was flat, not a globe. (While most scholars knew better, we have little evidence of what unlearned common folk believed).
  • "Kill your scrolls" parodies "Kill your television" which is the slogan of a movement to get people to watch less TV.

See Also

• Thy Dungeonman 3 Walkthrough
• Thy Dungeonman 3 Commands
• Thy Dungeonman 3 Messages

External Links

• Play Thy Dungeonman 3
• Play Thy Dungeonman 3 (Flash file)
• Forum thread re: "Thy Dungeonman 3"