DDST

The main map of Eriador from DDST, using the Atari ST's default color palette

DDST is a fantasy role-playing game created by Bill Miller in the late 1980s. Distributed initially as a door game to be played on text-based Atari ST bulletin board systems, Miller later produced a standalone shareware version of game for the Atari ST.

Gameplay

In DDST, the players traverse the Land of Eriador, killing monsters, collecting scrolls and artifacts, and gaining experience. The goal is to find and defeat the "Evil Black Lord, Asmodeus."

Like Larn, Moria, and other roguelike games, DDST's world map and dungeon maps are composed of text characters arranged on a grid, showing a top-down view. The player character is represented on the map by the delta symbol (Δ), for example, while water is represented by tildes (~), and mountains are represented by carets (^). The maps were displayed in color for callers connected to the BBS using the Atari ST's VT52 terminal emulation.

The player can move around the map using the arrow keys, and will frequently encounter monsters as they travel. However, players will not encounter each other within the game. Gameplay is essentially single-player, though different players can compete for a high score on the scoreboard.

Screen capture of a DDST gameplay session in the Ruins of Mangrave. The level of the dungeon shown here is only partially mapped.

There are two main location types to visit in the game: towns and ruins. Towns offer a variety of services, such as buying and selling armor and weapons, or working at inn to earn money. Players explore towns using a standard text menu. Ruins, however, are explored using top-down maps. Like many roguelike games, the dungeons in DDST are shrouded in an "exploration fog" -- you must move around to reveal rooms, paths, and their contents. They are generally full of secret passages, traps, and monsters, but players will also stumble across items to obtain: potions to restore health, powerful weapons and armor, and important artifacts that unlock certain locations or abilities.

DDST has further similarities to classic roguelike games, such as being turn-based, but it is different in several key ways. First, DDST's world and dungeon maps are not procedurally generated, so they will remain the same over multiple playthroughs — unless the sysop edits them (an editor program was included for that purpose). Second, DDST provides robust save functionality without permadeath, which removes some of the potential frustration of exploring monster-infested dungeons.

Origins and influences

It's unclear when the first version of the DDST door game was released. The earliest extant version is v1.24, released Aug. 20, 1988. However the documentation mentions an earlier version, v1.12; and it's likely there were versions before that.

The story and map are full of names like Eriador, Angband, Valinor, Isengard and Brandywine, drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium. And, as indicated by its name, gameplay in DDST owes much to "Dungeons and Dragons," such as setting player attributes like strength, intelligence, and dexterity when the game begins.

A title screen from the standalone version of DDST

DDST was originally intended to be an online-only game for BBSes. But its popularity greatly exceeded expectations, so Miller decided to release a standalone edition of the game for the Atari ST. The standalone edition has the same text-based VT52 maps and menus as the BBS edition, but includes animated graphical title screens. The earliest extant version is v1.01, released June 26, 1988.

The standalone version of DDST was included in many Atari ST public domain libraries and was reviewed in various user group newsletters and e-zines. One user group president advised his club members in 1989 that if they liked D&D-style games, then DDST was "a must to pick up."

In 2025, Steve Gregory at AtariCrypt revisited DDST and other first-generation Atari ST roguelikes. He called DDST a "fantastic game" that was "incredibly easy to dive into," but also warned about its difficulty.