Eye of the Beholder: Greatest Old School Dungeon Crawler

[@Iffy50]

I loved Eye of the Beholder. I remember using a piece of graph paper to make a map.

[@jeallen10x]

Same😂

[@Hercio1B25]

Absolutely. Graph paper for the win.

[@Hobodeluxe960]

that map maker is cool. back in the day we had a pack of graph paper, a pencil and some tape to stick them together if they got too big.

[@Agnus78]

That automap thing is a gamechanger for me. Finally, i can finish entire trilogy now - i dont have much time in my adult life to draw maps myself, i just want to finish that adventure.

[@HazVsRPG]

There is so much information to be had there that I *never* knew before!

[@maerten9517]

I think Dungeon Master was the granddaddy. It came out years earlier and was the form that this game is based on. Unfortunately FTL, the publisher, took years to port it to the PC, thus leaving users craving a game they could play in this genre. Regardless, I loved both of these games.

[@priestfan81]

I still play Dungeon Master every year or two. It's atmosphere is really great, the levelling system is perfect and the enemies really stand out due to the choice of wall and floor textures. A classic.

[@Sonmz]

@@priestfan81 Wow! So I'm not alone! I also play DM1&2 once in a while. It's my all time favourite dungeon crawler.

[@Larkinchance]

It hooked me... I played it on the Amiga

[@maerten9517]

I played on the Atari 1040ST - Dungeon Master that is. Eye of the beholder I played on a friend's PC.@@Larkinchance

[@ToysintheStatic]

It’s like comparing pac man and ms pac man, one just has more scenery 😂

[@hikikomori6956]

Wow Caramon, Kitiara and Raistlin working as a team haha! Played this game waaaay back and I remember just throwing stuff at enemies and doing the square dance, and falling through lots of holes lol.

[@HazVsRPG]

Hahah classic!

[@Marlon044]

Forgotten Realms lore right there with Cattiebrie, nice vid dude, way more my style if I am going old school. The auto map makes all the difference.

[@HazVsRPG]

It's a brilliant addition!!! Makes the urge to play it again very high!!!

[@Larkinchance]

Old school! This cutting edge!... Where is my blood pressure medication

[@chyldstudios]

I used to play these games back in the 90s. Legendary!

[@HazVsRPG]

Same here, SO MUCH NOSTALGIA!

[@Dhalin]

This looks neat, though sadly it's missing the cool music the SNES port had, which is the first version of the game I played. I wonder, does the Beholder Trick still work in this, where if you lure the beholder back to a 3x3 room and close the door and rest you can melee him, step back behind the door, shut it, rest, and keep doing that until it's dead without having to worry about pushing him into the spike trap?

[@HazVsRPG]

Haha!! I just beat him up dodging in a circle!

[@rarepny]

Forgotten Realms! Haz man, you know my love of these gold box games. So glad that you're doing a play through of these, because nobody else could do it better!

[@HazVsRPG]

Awwwww shit man!!! The automapper would make the playthrough so fast!!

[@jeallen10x]

I played this when it came out. Used graph paper. Loved it. Lost count how many times I played through it

[@HazVsRPG]

Its a banger for sure haha!!

[@Se7enBeatleofDoom]

Eye of the beholder and the Shadowrun games on SNES/Sega genius help introduce many 90s kids into tabletop role-playing games.

[@jamesthompson6557]

Noperz, Dungeon Master was the grand daddy of this style of first person dungeon crawler, and that amazing game released years before Eye Of The Beholder.

[@jamesheyworth4370]

I played Dungeon Master on the ST (the game I sunk more hours in as a kid than I care to remember) Join the RAF and missed out on these games. Then got into Baldur's Gate on the PC (Sank most of my life in to BG2, still ply today over multiple platforms). Just bought the EotB on Steam, I'm only at the 3 level of the sewers and can already tell this is going to be an enjoyable time sink. I've stopped your vid at 2 mins as to not spoiler anything for me, but I will come back to it. Subbed. I mean, you have RPG in your channel name.

[@HazVsRPG]

Thank you brother, BG2 is definitely one of my favorites also!

[@LordofDungeons32]

Actually the grand daddy is wizardry proving ground of the mad overlord

[@flonkplonk1649]

Yes but it had random encounters.. Dungeon Master and EOB are different

[@Thunderhead1972]

I was always prone to The Bards Tale trilogy, on C64, back in the mid 80s. Love me some Dungeon Crawls.

[@HazVsRPG]

Legendary Games, I would love a modern one, with really fantastic lighting / graphics.

[@Thunderhead1972]

@HazVsRPG they did create a BT4 a few years ago that I enjoyed. It wasnt the same gameplay as the original trilogy, but there was still a lot of nostalgia in the references they had. Like a trip down memory lane......just in a modern RPG version.

[@lucal7756]

There is also an (unofficial) Amiga AGA 256 color version with automap. That's the best version ever: PC gfx + Amiga sound + automap

[@HazVsRPG]

Oh shit that sounds awesome actually - where is that available?

[@lucal7756]

@@HazVsRPG can't post links but try from google "eye of the beholder aga hobring"

[@lucal7756]

@@HazVsRPG YT censorship blocked any attempt to post a link or search phrase unfortunately... Try the game name with chipset and add "hobring"

[@dlfrsilver]

I was part of the people who did this version :) I teamed with CFOU!, i translated the game in french :)

[@galaxycraft0075]

How do you change keybinds? I saw that there is a function in the game on the steam and GOG version, where if you press Ctrl + F1, a menu pops up, but it looks really confusing to use. I'm not a huge fan of the keybinds it is set to, so knowing how to change them would be great. Also how do I bring that map up and switch between it and the game?

[@galaxycraft0075]

Figured this out a while ago (the keybinds. Still have no idea how the map is done). Turns out it's made significantly easier if you just search up and watch a video on how to do it.

[@CaptApril123]

Started playing this last week.. so fun, so old school. I was not aware you could right click the automapper for more options. Thanks!

[@HazVsRPG]

Hah! I found that by accident also!!

[@johnnytower6169]

It took me several years to finish this. I first played it at about 6, I think I finished it for the first time (out of 2) at 12. But to be fair I didn’t have a clue what I was doing for a while there. I also only played it on and off One night when I was in my early 20’s I had a weird urge to play it when I couldn’t sleep, I installed it, made a party comprising of a paladin, fighter, cleric and thief/mage, then hit the ground running. I think I took taghor and kirath as the additional 2 characters There was a window behind my monitor, just as I killed xanathar I saw the sun through the crack in the blind, I couldn’t believe I finished it so quickly. My ex was sleeping in the bed behind me and I went “ex-name, I just finished eob in one sitting!” She replies “why are you still awake, you’re an idiot, go to f@rkin bed” That was like 12 years ago… I’ve still never finished number 2…

[@HazVsRPG]

HAHAHAH Great story!!! Also, definitely play number 2!!!!! and 3 !!!

[@urfaes6878]

Thank you for this, Haz. Might I humbly suggest Dungeon Hack, which I think is in Forgotten Realms volume 2? It uses the same engine, but it is a rogue-like, randomized dungeon where you play ONE character instead of four and try to win your way through the scenario. Very addictive in that each iteration is randomly generated and uses the toolset that gave us Eye of the Beholder and Baldur's Gate. And, I should add, automapping is included in Dungeon Hack because, well, it's random. You can look at the map and guess at illusionary walls (which can be disabled or increased in the seed) and secret doors (same as prior and is dealt with distinctly from an illusion).

[@HazVsRPG]

Ooooo that sounds awesome, yes I might actually have a go!!!

[@urfaes6878]

@@HazVsRPG I look forward to it. I started Dungeon Hack last year (to my detriment as I slept on it so long), and I play through at least a couple times a week. The dungeon length is a known quantity from the seed; "easy" for example, is 10 levels deep. Increase the depth to challenge yourself. Turn enemy spell casting on or off. Illusionary walls are toggles. Pits are toggles. Food consumption can be scaled from slow to fast. Hints can be kept or disabled. It's a wonderful Eye of the Beholder experience adjusted by you.

[@DontStopCornPop]

@urfaes Is there a way to turn off enemies being able to damage your level? Once I got to those enemies I just wasn't having fun with Dungeon Hack anymore.

[@johnnytower6169]

I desperately wanted the sequel when I was like 13 or so, I looked everywhere online but I kept getting results for “baldurs gate” which made me so angry. Eventually I saw it was apart of “the silver box” or something similar, it came with a tonne of forgotten realms games, I begged my dad to get it and eventually it came along I played every other game before the baldurs gate demo that was included (out of spite), dungeon hack was one of them. I had a blast with all of them Then I gave in and played the demo, well I ate my words, it ended up being my favourite game. God damn all these old forgotten realms titles bring back memories

[@michaelmorton6566]

Forgotten Realms with Dragonlance Characters :)

[@MechDutch]

13:30 That Mage Scroll of Detect Magic, you shouldn’t have used it. From the Menu, there is an option to Scribe Scrolls. If your mage doesn’t know the spell, he’ll try to write it down into his Spellbook. You’ll lose the scroll, but if successful, you’ll be able to learn the spell and cast it, just like your Magic Missiles, etc.

[@Fyshtako]

I finally clicked on these dungeon crawler RPGs last year with LoG 1 and then this year I absolutely loved LoG2. Since then I've played a few of the more recent ones but I think with the slow game releases lately and nothing else in the actively playing list I'm gonna commit and fully play this game finally. The only thing that made me avoid playing this is the lack of smooth turning/sliding. Gives me a bit of a headache but if I can get through that wall of not liking that I'll be prepared to play all the other classic blobbers

[@HazVsRPG]

It is quite snappy I know, those little quality of life things made a huge difference later on, particularly in the late 90's 2000's things started to transition to smoother movement etc!

[@ArcangelZero7]

I had the window behind some others for a minute while I was listening to you play, and around the 12:00 mark, through your accent I could've sworn I heard "There are 3 LICHES in there." I was like "In the sewers less than 15 minutes into the game?! Wow THAT sounds like a bold design choice!" hahaha

[@playersdream592]

Crazy, cool! Didn't know they had made games out of the legendary Dragonlance charaters! I'll definitely watch to see if i recognize any story line memories from the series

[@TheRPGChick]

This isn't a Dragonlance game, it's Forgotten Realms. The character names are just chosen by the player. For Dragonlance, check out Champions of Krynn. Some of the characters from the books show up and help you out or give you quests.

[@sligacheese6470]

I play it on Super Nintendo emulator 🎉

[@MaybeLater82]

Legend of Grimrock i think it's called.... modern version of this type of game....all are mega!!

[@andreasheiss8441]

Thanks a lot for the Inspiration to Go back to EOTB!

[@HazVsRPG]

I really should do a FULL mapped playthrough of this for the channel!!!

[@DIEGhostfish]

Waaait a minute, those are Dragonlance names, what are they doing in a Forgotten Realms set!?

[@HazVsRPG]

Lol good catch!@ These are typical names for me in party based games!!

[@dfailsthemost]

Wow, I never knew that about the halfling bones.

[@HazVsRPG]

What did you do with them????

[@dfailsthemost]

@HazVsRPG I don't actually remember. Maybe I did take them and resurrect the halfling, but I have a bad feeling that I just left them there lol. But I could be very wrong. It was like 25 years ago, I think.

[@SlowSpyder]

Have this one on Sega CD... great game!

[@HazVsRPG]

Oh that is classic! Definitely hold on to that copy!

[@CosmicCosmo1]

Ravenloft Strads Possession is another early SSI crpg that is similar to eotb in case you haven't given it a go yet.

[@alnegociante5294]

16:04 What happens if you open another door down there? I opened another one, did not find a zombie like you did on 17:00 . I don't see any other path available to me. I'm stuck.

[@alnegociante5294]

I managed to open the next door. What I was missing was to place a dagger in the wall to get the next key.

[@HazVsRPG]

Nice! Glad you got that sorted, there was no way i could know what you have and hadnt done so i wasnt sure how to answer this one! haha!

[@smokumjames6510]

How did you get the gold key without going to the death section?

[@HazVsRPG]

I think one dropped off a skeleton?! I'd have to watch or go back and see again, its been so long since I didn this I cant remember hah!!

[@hasfidanken]

Eye of the Beholder can kiss the balls of Dungeon Master. It's superior in every way.

[@HazVsRPG]

Definitely wasn't superior graphically that's for damn sure lol.

[@hasfidanken]

Honestly I think it was superior even graphically. Much cleaner and crispier graphics, bigger play window, better interface, more atmospheric@@HazVsRPG

[@nekononiaow]

@@hasfidanken The 3D view is much smaller in EOB : it takes only half of the screen horizontally and there is a huge block taken by the compas at the bottom. DM's 3D view takes 2/3 horizontally and only lacks a small slice at the top taken by characters. As for the interface, combat buttons in DM are large and offer multiple strikes whereas EOB's are much smaller and offer only one strike type, that's much more limited and less practical. I agree about graphics though, EOB's are much better but 4 years after DM that's the least they could do.

[@MegaDoggyBag]

Another game that needs a remake nice choice can't wait to watch. There are some decent mods for it.

[@HazVsRPG]

Mods for eye of the Beholder????! I need to see this!!

[@alnegociante5294]

Which is the resolution of the screen you used to make this video? Mine is 1366 x 768 and there is not enough space for the map to be shown properly, unfortunately.

[@HazVsRPG]

2560 x 1440p is my monitor size! You can adjust the size of the map / render window when you run it - hopefully you were able to sort that out!

[@PeterRichardsandYoureNot]

Now, commenting on this title specifically, I believe I was very disappointed in the graphics. It had so much potential at the time, but look at the interface. It uses wayyyy too much real estate for the automap when display it…and who needs a compass that is literally 1/4 of the screen size…yet player avatars barely have any info in them. It just seems poorly thought out for what you had the potential to do.

[@johnnytower6169]

Pc’s at the time we’re wildly limited, rendering the entire screen would have created crazy lag on a lot of systems. The limited perspective and huge interface that lacked much of anything was a way to make it look pretty while still keeping it playing at a reasonable rate I think we had 16mb of edo ram, less than 200mhz of processing, a 4mb video card when I first played this. That was a high end system post release and you’d experience lag, then it would catch up and you’d get the “boop boop boop” noises come through like a machine gun from the actions you tried to take Believe me this was great for a mid tier pc at its release. Around the same time I had Ultima underworld and wing commander 2. I could get eob working on friends computers (off a 3 and 1/4 inch floppy) but even friends who had a cd rom couldn’t get UW or WC2 running on their “average systems”

[@nekononiaow]

​@@johnnytower6169 Dungeon Master on Atari ST and Amiga in 1987 had a bigger 3D view 4 years earlier than EOB though so I doubt the reason was performance. And that huge compass at the bottom was frankly ridiculous. Most likely the reason was lack of floppy disk space to store all those varied colored graphics, but still that was disappointing in terms of what DM provided 4 years earlier, even if obviously, the graphics look much better in EOB, no doubt about that.

[@nekononiaow]

I agree, the inventory is much less practical and usable than the one from Dungeon Master. I don't understand why they chose to make the inventory appear on the side of the 3D view instead of in place of it : a simple right click to pass from one to the other just like in DM would have allowed a much larger inventory area and be more practical while also displaying stats instead of having to go through multiple pages. IMO they fumbled the UI compared to what DM had done 4 years earlier.

[@ibrahimturan28]

Do you play this on modern pc or pc from 90'? with modern mouse dpi is high my mouse moves crazy

[@HazVsRPG]

I played it on my modern PC! It's runs perfectly fine??!

[@johnnytower6169]

If you’re using dos box lowering the cycle rate can sometimes help

[@raggeragnar]

Oh Yeah ! My all time favourite genre. My top three is : 1. Black crypt 2. Eye of the beholder 3. Dungeon master

[@CosmicCosmo1]

Where is lands of lore or eotb2 showing up on your list?

[@raggeragnar]

@@CosmicCosmo1 : Hihihi , I kind of cheated. In my turniquetted brain , I included eobt2 with the first one , as a series. LoL came out for the PC when I only had an Amiga500. When I upgraded a few years later , the game was nowhere to be found. I’ve wanted to play it for years , but never got around to it. I’ll give you a promise though , here and now ; I will play that game before this year ends.

[@CosmicCosmo1]

@raggeragnar you wont regret it

[@raggeragnar]

@@CosmicCosmo1 : I’ll send you a comment right here when I’ve played it.

[@raggeragnar]

@@CosmicCosmo1 : Hello again ! Now I’ve finally finished LoL. I had a little trouble finding my way in the castle and died a LOT of times in the final battle. Looked up a couple of maps and a few fighting tips online , but it was worth it. I lift my hat for you. You were 100% right about the game. It pushes down Eotb and DM to take 2nd place after Black crypt. Thx 4 tip.

[@toonarmy8524]

class

[@DIEGhostfish]

10:01 Can you do it more than once?

[@HazVsRPG]

Im not sure!!!

[@Trendle222]

i cant get my map to work =((

[@HazVsRPG]

Did you manage to get this resolved!?

[@Trendle222]

@@HazVsRPG Yep !

[@johnnytower6169]

I mis you