Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder is a real-time RPG dungeon crawl that borrows heavily from the mechanics of Dungeon Master. It’s a completely mouse-driven experience in which the objects in the environment can all be used, picked up or thrown with a click. Combat is also real-time and is generally just a mad scramble backwards as you click your various party members’ weapon hands and hope for “good rolls”.

While the fights are frantic and fun, the real meat of the game-play is exploration, mapping, and puzzle solving. I went through a dozen sheets of graph paper drawing out each floor knowing full-well I could just grab the maps from the Web (the GOG.com version even includes a complete hint book). As tedious as it might sound to modern gamers, the act of plotting out the layout is oddly satisfying. I wish it could be done in-game ála  Etrian Odyssey, but, if it’s any consolation, I now have 11 floors worth of half-erased, taped together graph paper maps that are suitable for framing. Perfect for any lair!

In the end, I suppose there was a plot to follow too. Probably something about an evil wizard. dwarves and elves. None of that matters. You just need to keep going deeper and deeper. Eventually you’ll find the big boss monster and hope you have enough experience to hack it to death.