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The game is huge, clever, well paced, and entertaining. I agree with the high praise that DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold has gotten so far -- this is the best puzzle game of all time.

–Ed Pegg, mathpuzzle.com

the Deadly Rooms of Death games ... offer gameplay of a sort nothing in the conventional industry provides

–Greg Costikyan, CEO of Manifesto Games

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Deadly Rooms of Death is a turn-based puzzle game (or "stepping game") about a man with a sword, named Beethro Budkin, who kills monsters and cleans dungeons.

The first game was developed by Erik Hermansen in 1996. The rest of the series was developed by Caravel Games. All games are available for Windows, Linux and Mac.

What is DROD?[]

DROD gameplay

A room in The City Beneath
(click to zoom)

Deadly Rooms of Death is a turn-based puzzle game starring Beethro Budkin. His job is to clean out dungeons by killing every monster inside them with nothing but his Really Big Sword and his wits.

At its most basic, DROD consists of rooms: tiled grids the player character moves on. Each turn he can move to one of the eight adjacent tiles, rotate his sword, or wait in place. The goal of each room is to kill every monster and escape. However, rooms are fraught with pits, doors, bombs, pressure plates, traps, and countless other hazards. Although each element is simple, predictable, and deterministic on its own, they can be combined to make puzzles of fiendish difficulty.

Rooms are combined into levels, and levels are combined into holds. A hold represents a single "adventure" or "campaign" built by an architect for user consumption.

Each room is either conquered, or it is not. If the player leaves a room before killing every monster, everything will revert to its original state when he comes back. If the player leaves a room after killing every monster, everything but the monsters will revert to its original state upon his return.

At its simplest, DROD is about killing monsters with a sword, and many puzzles are based around just that. However, the range and flexibility of the elements available in DROD allows architects to create puzzles of enormous complexity. The player may find himself having to manipulate the movement of monsters, navigate mazes, find ways to kill monsters while unarmed, solve combinatorics problems, work out how to keep monsters alive, drop trapdoors in certain patterns, move platforms around, or cut fuses to influence the timings of bomb explosions. The possibilities are endless.

Player character[]

BeethroDeathScream

Beethro Budkin, a Smitemaster

Meet Beethro Budkin. Beethro is a Smitemaster, a professional one and a respected member of a guild. Beethro makes his living by clearing dungeons, holds, cellars, castles and other places of monsters. The monsters he encounters mostly vermin like roaches or spiders, but also more dangerous things.

For a person of great experience, character and smell he also has bottomless amounts of curiosity which lead him through various perils, the most important of which is his journey back to King Dugan's Dungeon where he not only meets new dangers, but he even encounters a whole empire making its home under the surface of The Eighth.

And while Beethro uses the power of his muscles and the keen tactical knowledge of his years of smiting experience, you, the player, need to use your sharp wit to solve the myriad of different logical challenges that await you in this game. No one can promise you miracles, but we can promise you a whole new world of experiences.


Gameplay[]

For further tips on gameplay techniques, see Smitemastery/Main Hall.

DROD is a turn-based puzzle game: whenever you make a move, everything else in the room moves next. Your objective is to clear each room of all monsters without getting stuck, and ultimately, clear every level to reach the end of the hold. At this point it still sounds like an action RPG, but you'd be wrong to think that. The game is about solving puzzles, discovering new interactions, timing your movements, seeing through red herrings, and breaking linchpins, all to proceed onward.

Nomenclature[]

  • Game refers to one of the two franchises release by Caravel - Classic DROD and DROD RPG.
  • Engine refers to a specific set of features of a game. Classic DROD had these engines so far: Webfoot DROD, Caravel DROD, DROD 1.0, DROD 2.0, DROD 3.0, DROD 4.0, DROD 5.0 and Flash DROD.
  • Hold is a DROD's way to name levelsets. Each hold was built in a specific engine and has to be played in that or higher version of the engine. Playing an older hold in a newer engine gives you the benefit of various interface improvements. Official DROD holds were most often released accompanying an engine.
  • Release is a combination of game, engine and hold which is packaged and sold to the user.

Release history[]

Icon Release Hold Engine Year Author Description
Kdd King Dugan's Dungeon Original hold (Webfoot) 1.0 1996 Erik Hermansen Delver Beethro Budkin is hired by King Dugan to clear his dungeon of monsters.
Caravel variant 1.5 2002 Erik Hermansen
Lucas Swineford
Architects' Edition 1.6 2003
Updated 2.0 hold 2.0 2005
Cover FlashDROD Flash DROD KDD Lite 2.0 2012 Maurycy Zarzycki & team KDD's Adobe Flash port, with smaller room size and free-to-play
Jtrh Journey to Rooted Hold JTRH hold 2.0 2005 Erik Hermansen & team Beethro Budkin and his nephew Halph finds a mysterious passage and explores the Beneath beyond King Dugan's dungeon.
Tcb The City Beneath TCB hold 3.0 2007 Erik Hermansen & team Beethro Budkin discovers the mythical Rooted Empire in the Beneath, and its nefarious plot to enslave the people of the surface.
Tendry's Tale DROD RPG: Tendry's Tale TT hold RPG 1.0 2008 ?? Tendry Dimpalm's attempts to return to his homeland after his battalion of Stalwarts was annihilated by the Rooted Empire's military.
GATEB Gunthro and the Epic Blunder GATEB hold 4.0 2012 Erik Hermansen & team Beethro Budkin recounts the adventures of his grandfather Gunthro Budkin and Gunthro's attempt to prevent all-out war between the nations of Rasarus and Tueno.
Tss The Second Sky TSS hold 5.0 2014 Mike Rime & team The grand finale to Beethro Budkin's adventure to save his world, both above and below.
Smitemaster's Selections Various SS holds ?? 2005–2011 ?? Various official level expansions to DROD.


The first entry in the franchise was Webfoot DROD, also known as DROD 1.0. It was created in 1996 by Erik Hermansen and published by Webfoot Technologies. Webfoot DROD featured the first ever hold, King Dugan's Dungeon, in which the smitemaster Beethro Budkin has been hired by King Dugan to scour every monster from his legendary dungeon.

In 2000, Erik was given permission to release the game as open source. With help of several people, DROD 1.5 (or Caravel DROD) was released in October of 2002. It had a number of additional features, such as checkpoints and the Restore function.

In October of 2003, DROD 1.6 (or Architects' Edition) was released. This version introduced a level editor, with which people could create their own puzzles to share with the community.

In April of 2005, DROD 2.0 was released. It featured a new hold, Journey to Rooted Hold, which follows the story of Beethro after he returns to Dugan's dungeon with his nephew Halph to investigate a mysterious passage. The 2.0 engine also presented a graphical overhaul, many new elements and monsters, and new music. It was the first DROD game to be a shareware. King Dugan's Dungeon was updated with new content and released as a separate purchase.

In April of 2007, DROD 3.0 was released. It featured a new hold, The City Beneath, which continues Beethro's story after discovering the mythical Rooted Empire and its nefarious plot to enslave the people of the surface. The 3.0 engine contained more elements, monsters, script commands, graphics, and music.

In September of 2008, DROD RPG 1.0 was released. It featured a new hold, Tendry's Tale, which follows Tendry Dimpalm's attempts to return to his homeland after his battalion of Stalwarts was annihilated by the Rooted Empire's military. DROD RPG has a different style of gameplay compared to the other entries. It focuses more on the tactics of managing resources as the player explores a hostile environment.

In April of 2012, DROD 4.0 was released. It featured a new hold, Gunthro and the Epic Blunder, which follows the story of Beethro's grandfather Gunthro Budkin and his attempt to prevent all-out war between the nations of Rasarus and Tueno. The 4.0 engine contained yet more improvements to elements, monsters, script commands, graphics and music.

In June of 2014, DROD 5.0 was released. It featured a new hold, The Second Sky, which concludes Beethro's grand adventure to save his world, above and below, from an ancient cycle of destruction. The new engine brought with it additional elements, monsters, script commands, graphics, and music.

Playing official holds in TSS[]

At the moment, in order to play an older hold in the latest version of the game engine (and to have features like unlimited undo, new artwork and some UI improvements) you only need a full version of the older game, demo of TSS and a few days of CaravelNet (You can request it by contacting Caravel support). Unfortunately, demo version of TSS does not come with all of the room styles, so your experience will be a little less full. If you own a full version of TSS this problem no longer exists.

Story[]

Deadly Rooms of Death takes place on a world known as the Eighth. For the most part, it follows Beethro Budkin on his quest to uncover the mysteries of the Rooted Empire. Some games star other characters such as Gunthro Budkin and Tendry Dimpalm.

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