Feel free to comment and discuss this game here. Also, if you have any useful tips or tricks don't hesitate to share them with the others! Thanks!

Review & Screenshots

It looks very nice. I'll give it a try.

Och! this game hurts. I wanted to like it so much, but after getting lost all the time and walking for hours(real hours) I decided to make a map of all the towns and well.... I made one map and quit LOL.
But if you want to postpone the frustration until after you leave the first city I have a map!

How do I talk to people and buy stuff ?

You can click on Control Menu and select Buy, Conversation etc.
Now one stupid question: I tried running install but then it says insert disk 1, so I just extracted zip and ran DGate. DOSBox ofcourse. Now how do I save? If I click on load/save it says insert disk 1 again. What am I doing wrong?
EDIT: I got it now, you need to mount it as a floppy...

omg... i've waited so long for this game to be hosted here.. its my all time favorite since i was young. Good to see it actually got a good review, every other site slams it. theres several versions of the game out there, and theres actually a patch available.. i know the one that that other abadonware site hosts that they tried to "fix" didnt work right, maybe this is the version. There was also a cd-rom version which was about the same size as well.. if anyone would like i have the game manual and it has a "mini-walkthrough" to get out of the first town, i'd have no problem typing that up if you guys want it :)

EDIT: i've downloaded and tested this version on my machine now, i've found with this and other versions of it that if you dont extract it to C:\daemonsgate, it will give those disk insert errors. This is actually a pretty stable version, i think maybe its the european version, because it has a different company name in the intro than im used to. but, i ran it through XP straight up with no sound and it ran perfectly fine, and saved and loaded games fine. For sound i always used to use VDMSound with xp's dos prompt and sound set to soundblaster. Hope i helped someone :).


-Bluddy

this is straight out of the game manual, very basic hint/tips n tormis walkthrough:

HINTS AND TIPS WHEN PLAYING DAEMONSGATE:

1. GOSSIP! You will usually find much useful information just by gossiping to various people.

2. MAGIK! Whenever the opportunity arises to get your hands on something magikal or recruit a spellcaster, go for it.

3. COMBAT! Avoid wherever possible, if your foe is non too observant, and you are careful when you move, it is possible to sneak past many potential assailants.

4. MESSAGES! If a non-player character says something to you before you enter conversation it is usually important, make a note of it.


GETTING OUT OF TORMIS:

Do not read this section unless your sanity is severely threatened by your inability to get started in Daemonsgate.

THE GENTLE POINTER:

There is a secret way out of the city, but very few people know about it. Who would need to use secret passages?

THE SUBTLE NUDGE:

The Thieves Guild knows all about the way out, but you have to do a favour for them first. Hanri the Knife is scum, but you must trust him, for now.

THE 'SIX FOOT HIGH NEON LETTERS' SOLUTION:

Gossip till you find out about the SEWERS.
Ask about SEWERS.
Ask about THIEVES GUILD.
Go to Militia Headquarters and ask the Sergeant about THIEVES GUILD.
Go to the Harvester of Sorrow and find MOLL, ask her about the THIEVES GUILD. The rest is fairly obvious, honest.

note from me: That wasnt very good now was it, what the game designers were thinking, or drinking, is a mystery to me ;). Also a small thing i thought funny from the manual, since the game is about Daemons and the book/box has pentagrams all over it, they put a disclaimer kind of deal in the back, it reads as this:

Remember, Daemonsgate is a portrayal of a fantasy world. Daemons, Magik, and the Undead are part and parcel of this world. We do not in any way condone or accept the relationship between these fictitious creations and any such similar beings or practices associated with, in real life or current religious mythology. Its only a game, dont take it too seriously.

-Bluddy

Thank you for your great post and detailed instructions. I hate starting a game and getting lost right off the bat. Now I can give it a go. Thanks, Bluddy! :ok:

:help: HOW TO GET OUT OF TORMIS, THE REAL WAY: :help:

It seems to me that most people despise this game because they have so much trouble
getting out of the first city. I really cant see how a seasoned RPG/Adventure gamer
couldnt figure this out, but for this small FAQish text i'll give you the clearest
route that will get you on your way to actually playing the game and getting involved
in the story line, which if you ask me, is much better than a few other RPG's of the
early-mid nineties.


Step 1: You start in the pigge and ball-bearing, strike up conversation and gain as much
information as you can, especially about SEWERS, and THIEVES GUILD. While you are
here, grab Jeremiah Nameless and Anvil Sigmundson. They, along with you, will be
the biggest part of your fighting force for the rest of the game. Now leave the
Inn and take a left and go for awhile past the brown houses everyone gets lost in.
You will find another Inn called the Harvester of Sorrow, go in and convo again and
talk to Moll about SEWERS/THIEVES GUILD and she'll tell you to meet her tommorrow or
and when you do she asks you to leave all your weapons. DON'T DO THAT. There is no
need to even talk to her further. The Thieves Guild is a few buildings north of this
Inn and says "Aquisitions" when you walk by the door. We have other work to do before
we go there. Also above this inn is a Pawn Broker where we will be doing all of our
buying and selling, and a dirty Book Store where we will buy our books.


Step 2: Go back towards the Pigge and Ballbearing, and b-line south. Right near there is a
building surrounded by walls, this is the Miltia Headquarters. If you rested and
trained up your LOCKPICKING with Gustavus AND purchased Thieves Tools from the Pawn,
you can steal alot of armor and weapons from this place. DO SO, and sell it all at
the pawn brokers later. Onto more exciting endeavours, also you can talk to the militia
captain for more info on things.


Step 3: Elementalism is CRUCIAL to completing this town, and the game. Everyone always goes
bonkers on the forums because they "cant find a magic-user". He's right in the town.
Exit the Militia Headquarters and keep going south. You will go across a bridge and
at the end of it is the Tormis Grand Library. You only have to enter for a minute, go
up two rooms, and on the shelf is a Book of Lockpicking, Get it. Use that to read and
train Gustavus's skill to master whenever. Leave the Library, and to your right is a
few empty Hostels and Warehouses, and the Tormis University. Enter there, and in the
first or second room is a man named Arion Edmundson. Thats your first Elementalist,
rejoice. Also further into the university are teachers who can tell you about alot of
info, and ingredient lists for Potions for a PRICE. To clear this up now, when someone
says they will do something for a price, click on the AMOUNT and you will be prompted
yes or no. At the end of the University is a locked room with potion ingredients, and a
book entitled Ye Elements, which you get your ELEMENTAL LORE skill from. Take it all, and
sell everything but the book, you need as much money as you can get in order to complete
all of this.

Step 4: Leave the University, go back up the bridge and take a right. Up in there are shops and
warehouses, and the MERCENARIES GUILD. Enter there. Go loot all the rooms for some weapons
for more money at the pawn. Strike up Convo and gain CYLESS and DARKSKY. Now, your party
is complete for the time being. Exit the guild and head back to the Pigge or Harvester of
Sorrows.

Step 5: Now, sell all your stuff except your books. Sounds crazy, eh? We'll get to it. Go into
one of the inns and get ready for the boring part. Buy plenty of lodgings and start to
train your skills, have ARION read Ye Elements to gain elemental lore, and have everyone
else train up ONE HAND EDGE either from a book or teaching *save money and teach*. Gustavus
should also train up LOCK PICKING and HAGGLING, if he hasnt done so. Now that your skills
are up, which takes FOREVER, time to use that money you've been hoarding from your sales.
Buy a few ADAMANTINE SWORDS from the pawnbroker, and go back to the inn and start resting.
Click on ELEMENTAL LORE with ARION and enchant a adamantine sword with a GARGANTUAN FIRE
ELEMENTAL. you might fail on the first or second one, but these swords cost 120 gold each.
But, the key here is, when you sell a completed elemental blade, you can get upwards of 450
gold each. Thats the ticket, mass money. Repeat this process until you have a couple of the
blades, and sell and buy more blank swords. Before you know it, you'll be rolling in the
money. Make sure you make 8, one for each party member and extras for new characters. Buy
everyone the full PLATE gear and silver helms. Now, your party are well trained, well geared
and very rich. Now, that wasnt completely insane now was it?

Step 6: You've talked to moll, you know where the thieves guild is *north of harvester*. Go there,
and talk to Hans the Knife about THIEVES GUILD and SEWERS and SECRET ENTRANCE. He'll tell
you to go under the place through the sewers and rescue TRAVIS SEWERBREATH. Go down there,
and follow the sewers right and down the whole way. You'll come to a locked door to the
Jail, pick it and go in, TRAVIS is in the room farthest down and to the right. Talk to him
and he'll have you meet him at the Harvester. Back through the long old sewers again to the
guild and go back to the harvester. SELL THE GUARDS HALBERDS YOU PICKED UP, and keep click
reject on items when you sell them to get the higest price, trust me.. hold out and do it.
Now talk to Travis, and talk about him and Hans and the guild and the entrance, and he'll
tell you to kill Hans and retreive the Guild ring. Back to the guild, Hans will confront
you after you walk around him a bit, kill him and retreive the ring. Go to the Harvester,
and heres where everyone gets confused, go to your INVENTORY screen, click on the portraits
until it goes to Travis's face, and GIVE him the ring. Exit the screen, and he will give
you the key to the entrance left under the sewers. He will want to join, let him for now
so you can gain the TOWN LORE and SEARCH skills. Let him go, and you are free to leave the
city through the sewers now. Now your on your way to the game!


this mini-tormis-walkthrough was exhaustive enough, see the one and only incomplete faq that is
actually on the net on EVERY game site for this game. it is good material to get you through the
rest of the game if you need it, and you most definatly will if you needed this. Hope this helps
everyone.

Written by: Charles Ashley / Bluddy

I actually had an opportunity to review this title when it first came out, and was sent a copy (in the US) by a distributor--from, surprisingly, Kentucky, as I recall. I also found the controls annoying, and the first city a problem. The game had a lot of seeming potential, but it did not feel like it had gone past the beta stage. The distributor knew nothing about it, provided no assistance, and seemingly only wanted reviews without queries. I sent it back, and suggested he send it on when it was finished. I don't recall any US publications at the time reviewing it, but I could well be wrong.

and this is my last post in this thread, hopefully for awhile, what more is there, right? i ripped and uploaded the movie that came with daemonsgate, its about 10-11 minutes long and is a total file size of 61.9mb. I've hosted it on a free file site if anyone would like to download and watch it for nostaligia purposes, that, and it cant be found anywhere else on the web :)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=27JFYBBD

Bluddy.

Where do I get a copy of the manual (to get passed the security whatsim)???

this copy appears to be already cracked, and you only have to hit enter when it asks for the password. :)

I was one of the graphics team for this game. All in all, I worked on Daemonsgate over a period of 4 years (though did work on other games in that time). The play area on this game is mentally big and I can understand why players got frustrated over the long haul. In hindsight, shrinking the cities and the areas between them would have served the game well.

The game also suffers from sloppy design in places, and insufficient play-testing (mainly because it took so bloody long to play the thing even if you knew the solution). It was a loooong time ago though. The way the graphics were implemented (i.e. a lack of transparencies on wall-corners, lack of animation frames for the NPCs/PCs etc.) was largely down to memory restrictions - their just wasn't room for the code. Other games we worked on at the time (e.g. Nightbreed) handled this better because the maps weren't so demanding. The maps were constructed in a unique hierarchical way that meant we could do an aweful lot of play area with a very small amount of bitmaps - each city was built from only about 1024 carefully chosen character bitmaps. This did tend to make the cities a bit samey, but each city had it's own character-set so they did at least all have their own character. I think this was the first game I'd seen where the roofs of building came off when you went inside.

The original design had called for more interaction between on-map objects (handles and things on tables etc.), but in the end we were able to add so little to the landscape that it was wasn't possible to add things to interact with, so in fact there's very little you can do other than talk and fight. For similiar reasons, all fighting takes place on one of a set of small pre-defined combat maps, as we didin't have the RAM to instantiate fights in the main game maps. You had to do some creative work-arounds for RPGs in those days :)

The video that came with the game actually had very little to do with the game itself - the style was completely different, and made little reference to the plot of the game. It was filmed in Australia by a friend of the publishers pet dog or something, not by the game development team.

A lot of the PC characters in the game were digitised faces of the development team, that were then touched up. The one in the screenshots on this site is the ugly mug of Nigel Kershaw, the game's senior designer.

Over the development time, the development team for Imagitec came and went, but the key players as far as I can remember were: Senior Coder - Lee Garnett, Design - Nigel Kershaw and Martin something, Graphics - Jules "Jolly" Holtom, Colin Jackson, Steve Lodge and some other people, Music probaby by Barry something or other. Heh, it WAS 20 years ago.

Cheers
Colin Jackson

If I remember this game right, you can get skill books from the open market near the main gate. Your party can be pretty much maxed out skillwise before you leave the first city. The "buy sword, enchant sword, sell sword, repeat" method works for getting enough cash to do it.

I know I remember that videotape that came with the game. Could someone repost the video file, I'd love to see it again.

I loved this game as well. In hindsight it was quite incomplete, with around half the skills being unimplemented, such as Townlore, Search, Polearms, etc.

The character with the most magick, that is, best suited for enchanting, is TwoEdge, which I believe you find in Dryleaf. But I don't really know why anyone would play this game, considering how broken it is. The real value of it is in the manual and the midi music.

I actually located the music designer and emailed him to see if he still had the music, but he could barely remember the game let alone have the midi files, so playing this game and leaving it on the title splash will have to do!

Believe it or not, I still play this game from time to time. I am even debating making some maps of all the towns.

You make them - we publish them as extras :)

I finished maps of Burpe and Garnette, which are the two smallest towns. It's a work in progress. How can I upload the images to you on here?

Usually the staff would send you a private message with upload details for the incoming server. Maybe if you put them on dropbox or mediafire?

I figured I would register since I'm going to do this project. :OK:

Nice. Welcome! :)

Here's your first map. It's of the village of Burpe. For future reference, the shaded buildings are tenement houses or private residences and cannot be entered. Inns and shops will be labeled accordingly as will anything else of note. Green = grass. Blue = water.

Here's two more: the towns of Halfway and Blotche.

Did you considered any mapping tool? I am, for example, the big fan of Grid Cartographer Pro. (It's good in "free" form too, but too limiting in selection).

That is going to be awesome for the big cities.

Thx, keep 'em coming, regardless of tool you use :)

Although I gotta admit I wish I knew this tool years ago... if it existed back then

I caved and purchased the pro version of the grid cartographer. It's an awesome tool. Thanks again for the referral.
Here's a map of the hamlet of Morgan.

You are welcome. :)

Has anyone used these maps yet? If so, what do you think?

I got around to doing one of the mid-sized cities. Here is Trade Town. You can find two mercenaries in this city: Twoedge Deadspeaker (the best magic user in the game) and Gunwald Gunwaldson, who is located in the Jacob's Ladder.
Cilla Seamstress will make Black Tabards for you, so when you visit Hajak later in the game, you won't have to kill Svien McDoogal.

There is something wrong with the last attachment. I cannot see anything. (Actually, previous one is too little too, but it is at least readable).

Yeah, in the last one letters are too small.

Could it be that forum resizes the pics to reduce the size? If so, then it is best to upload the maps on FTP directly... or on dropbox and share us the link.

Also, could you recreate the first maps in this tool also, since it does look better? No offense, off course :)

Let's try these.

Trade Town: http://www.mediafire.com/view/jik15v...Trade_Town.png

Morgan: http://www.mediafire.com/view/1eo9b7...v9d/Morgan.png

EDIT. Uploading to a server then sharing the links is a way better idea. Thanks guys. No pixelation when you zoom in on the pics this way. I'll start working on the other maps tonight since you prefer the cartographer files over the drawings.

Looks much better this way, thank you. :)

To the person who was looking for the music to Daemonsgate, check this out.

http://vdj.fm/?song=Ian+Howe%2C+Barry+Leitch

I hear that this game for sale on Steam and is no longer abandonware.

It's actually on GOG for $6.99