Thor's Hammer

[AutoAdmin]

Feel free to rate and discuss this game.

[MrFlibble]

The game makes an overall very good impression with good graphics and music. Some level design solutions like pits you can fall into or water which is not traversable are pretty clever, taking into account that the engine is comparable to Wolfenstein 3-D or Blake Stone at best. Even though the dungeons aren't very densely populated with monsters compared to other games of first-person action and/or RPG genre of the era, it creates a particular style and atmosphere to the game. There's also some sort of "persistent world" feature, in that unless the current quest objective is completed, returning to a previously visited area of the dungeon will reset all monsters (and, thankfully, items too).

However, there are certain moments in the game that call for criticism. First off, I was very disappointed with the design of the village the player interacts with. All villagers use the same sprite that looks vaguely humanoid (even though some of them have fixed roles like a healer or the village elder who gives quests), and weird yellow blocks that are supposed to represent houses aren't convincing at all. The same level of technology has been used to create very lively towns and villages, as in Legends of Valour or The Elder Scrolls Chapter I: Arena. In fact, while the graphics in the game are generally quite good-looking, they are also quite often of a very low resolution, even for the standards of similar games like Wolfenstein 3-D, Blake Stone or Shadow Caster. While this does not actually spoil the playing experience, it suggests that the development was on a rather tight budget.

Another thing to note is that the action part is clearly dominating over the role-playing part. The interaction with NPCs is limited to receiving new quests, and character development consists of obtaining new, more powerful weapons weapons, spells and armour, as well as boosting the player's stats (max health and mana) by finding chests with appropriate potions. Offensive spells basically function as an equivalent of ranged weapons, but there's also the option to use throwing axes which can be picked up after they hit something.

All of that said, Thor's Hammer is actually a very well done, entertaining fist-person fantasy action game with RPG elements that has both complexity and atmosphere. Worth checking out, especially since there aren't all too many games of such genre from that era.

[MrFlibble]

Note that Thor's Hammer has some noticeable speed issues when run in regular DOSBox. However, its performance is a lot better in DOSBox SVN Daum.

[MrFlibble]

Note that Thor's Hammer has some noticeable speed issues when run in regular DOSBox.

I have just tried the shareware version 1.1 with the regular DOSBox v0.74 build, and it works fine with the following settings:

Code: Select all

memsize=8
core=auto
cputype=auto
cycles=auto 16000

Setting CPU core to dynamic seems to degrade performance. The FILE_ID.DIZ recommends a 486, but setting cycles to 26800 (which DOSBox Wiki suggests as an approximation of a 486) results in music stuttering, which is a symptom of CPU overclocking.

[chickenpee]

Curious, what kind of machine are you running Dosbox on? My Athlon XP also starts stuttering above 20,000 cycles, but there is no stutter at all on my i3.

[failuration]

Being an independent DOS programmer for 5 years I find the routines to enlarge the letters rather hot. The 3D buildings are low resolution however is fine for the speed at 3000 cycles. I usually use 3000 cycles (about 25 mhz) because I prefer to bench it on an original 4.77 mhz machine. The intel 8086 and 8087 chip was intel's original chip for DOS. Some generations later it was increased from 4.77 mhz to 25 mhz that is where you get the 25 mhz on the old machines that are vintage.

I find increasing the cycles beyond 3000 cycles to be a form of cheating and so is using DPMI for DOS extenders. I prefer all routines to be set to 3000 cycles for a standard myself. The graphics have been heavily worked on it seems and very well done in my eyes. I have only gone a couple steps into the zone when I exit the game so congratulations.

Personally I give it a 10 out of 10 considering I am a newbie programmer who is just mastering programming techniques. Thank you for giving out something that you worked hard on. Please know this is just my personal opinion and I do not check out many games currently!