Moraff's World - Gameplay

Gameplay

Like most games of its genre, the player creates a character, choosing between several different races and classes. This character will explore one or more dungeons that are 202 levels each. The level maps are constant for each floor and never change.

The player's objective is to kill monsters, gain experience, find treasures, and kill the evil Red Dragon King. The topmost dungeon level is always a monster-free town with services such as an inn for regenerating spell points, a bank for converting stones into jewel pieces (the currency in Moraff's World), shops for weapons and armor, a temple for curing, and access to the wilderness.

The wilderness leads to other dungeons in Moraff's World. Since other dungeons provide only different layouts, traveling beyond the original dungeon serves little purpose. Also, the boats required to cross overland bodies of water are expensive. The wildnerness is absent in the sequel, Dungeons of the Unforgiven, where simple teleporters are used instead.

Traveling to and from dungeon levels requires locating ladders that lead to other floors. Some ladders skip a few floors for the player, and certain up ladders send a player several floors higher, but disappear after, preventing the player from climbing back down again. Alternatively, a player may use a "floor slosher" (down to level 75), use a "descend" spell (down to level 123) or, failing all else, dig through the floor (down to level 120) to go down a level. There are also "ascend" spells to go up, although they only work down to the 64th level. When traversing a ladder, monsters do not get a free strike, so ladders can provide refuge for casting healing spells or, if the character has a ring of regeneration, regaining hit points by waiting around. Chutes are a one-way means of traveling down if the character steps on one. They are hidden, but are revealed in any explored squares when the player leaves the level.

Combat in the dungeons is turn-based. One of the distinctive features of all of Moraff's RPGs is that the main screen is divided into four mini-screens that allow the player to view creatures and hallways in all directions (but also allow them to be attacked by up to four different creatures in open spaces). Damage is dealt through standard RPG rolling systems and checks (i.e. armor class, weapon strength).

Although all monsters die when they hit zero hit points, the character must go below zero in order to die. When the character dies, he immediately rises from the dead (with a loss of one point of constitution) if in possession of a raise dead contract with a town temple.