Has ANYONE ever finished this game without using an exploit or cheating in some way? Be honest.

If you have, perhaps you would care to elaborate?

I just finished it using the LIzard Man exploit. I cannot fathom how anyone could complete this game without an exploit or cheating. Even if some people did, I would think they would have to be masochists.

I would also like to know how many versions there are of this game. I know there is the original insanely rare game that was sold by Computerland and then California Pacific Computer Company, but I'm pretty sure no one is playing those. So that leaves the Apple II version, the original MS-DOS port, and the 1998 remake that added a save feature and some colors and music. I played the 1998 version after messing around with the black and white DOS version with no sound or save feature.

I watched some walkthroughs on YouTube and some people were playing the game that was either a different version or they had modified the game. For instance, I saw one walkthrough where the person entered a dungeon and just strolled around finding chests with good stuff in them but the monsters were few and far between. I was swamped by monsters throughout the game and the chests were not as common and had fewer quality items. Someone even commented on the video saying the game was boring because there were hardly any enemies. Does anyone know of a version of the game like that?

I remember reading something about the number of enemies possibly being related to higher CPU cycles in DOSBox. It might be worth reducing the number of CPU cycles (CTRL + F11 , I believe) to see if that makes a difference.

Thanks, but I think there's more to it than that. Anyone doing a YouTube walkthrough avoids the fighter class like the plague. Even without there being so many enemies, they just seem much stronger even though it's the beginning of the game.

That would be inconsistent with my knowledge of how the game works. From my understanding, if you start the game more than once, using the same version, and give the game exactly the same input (timing doesn't matter), you will get exactly the same results.

The thing is, the game doesn't call the RNG before you enter your lucky number, and once you do enter it, the game uses the lucky number as a seed for the RNG; hence, the same settings (including lucky number) and the same input will give you the same results every time in this game.

(Yes, this *does* mean that you can exploit the RNG; I have seen a speedrun do this.)

(Side note: This mans that it would be possible, as a fighter, to make use of the amulet; you just need to determine whether you're in a spot where the RNG will give you a favorable result, just like when a mage uses it for a stat boost.)

I must have been thinking of a different game in the series.