Thy Dungeonman

This article is about the game. For the character, see Thy Dungeonman (character).

"Quaff some serious mead"

400 page manual inside!

In an exciting Videlectrix text adventure, you are Thy Dungeonman, exploring the depths of yon dungeon. The game can be accessed from the Strong Bad Email video games.

This game has two sequels, Thy Dungeonman II and Thy Dungeonman 3.

Date: Monday, January 12, 2004

Page Title: Thy Dungeonman! Thy hunger!

Walkthrough

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

General Commands

• HELP - repeats area description.
• LOOK - repeats area description.
• HELPETH - repeats area description.
• DIE - "That wasn't very smart. Your score was: ___. Play again? [Y/N]" - Subtracts 100 points from your score.
• DANCE - "Thou shaketh it a little, and it feeleth all right."
• GET YE ___/TAKE YE ___/GET YON ___/TAKE YON ___/GET ___/ TAKE ___ - "Thou cannotst get that. Quit making stuffeth up!"
• GET DAGGER - "Yeah, okay." - Adds 25 points to your score. Usable infinitely.
• GO ___ - "Thou cannotst go there. Who do you think thou art? A magistrate?!"
• LOOK ___ - "It looketh pretty awesome."
• ___ - "That does not computeth. Type HELP is thou needs of it."
• TALK ___ - "Who is ___? Your new boyfriend? Somebody from work you don't want me to meeteth?"
• GIVE ___ - "Thou don'tst have a ___ to give. Go back to your tiny life."
• SMELL/SNIFF - "You smell a Wumpus."

Main Dungeon Room

"Thy Dungeonman - Click to enter yon dungeon."

THY DUNGEONMAN

YOU ARE THY DUNGEONMAN!

Ye find yeself in yon dungeon. Ye see a SCROLL. Behind ye scroll is a FLASK. Obvious exits are NORTH, SOUTH and DENNIS."

If you've asked to get the scroll more than once, anytime you look at the room (either by typing "LOOK", "HELP", or by returning to this room from another room, you'll see this message tacked onto the main message: "There is definitely no YE SCROLL, so drop it."

• LOOK SCROLL - "Parchment, definitely parchment. I'd recognize it anywhere."
• LOOK FLASK - "Looks like you could quaff some serious mead out of that thing."
• GET SCROLL - "Ye takes the scroll and reads of it. It doth say: BEWARE, READER OF THE SCROLL, DANGER AWAITS TO THE- The SCROLL disappears in thy hands with ye olde ZAP!" - Adds 2 points to your score
• GET SCROLL (again) - "Ye doth suffer from memory loss. YE SCROLL is no more. Honestly." - Subtracts 1 point from your score
• LOOK SCROLL (again) - "Ye seeth nothing wheretofore it went ZAP."
• GET FLASK (first two times) - "Ye cannot get the FLASK. It is firmly bolted to a wall which is bolted to the rest of the dungeon which is probably bolted to a castle. Never you mind." - Adds 1 point to your score each time
• GET FLASK (third time) - "Okay, okay. You unbolt yon FLASK and hold it aloft. A great shaking begins. The dungeon ceiling collapses down on you, crushing you in twain. Apparently, this was a load-bearing FLASK. Your score was: ___ Play again? [Y/N]" - Subtracts 1000 points from your score
• GO NORTH - Takes you north (see [#North_of_the_Main_Dungeon_Room below]).
• GO SOUTH - Takes you south (see [#South_of_the_Main_Dungeon_Room below]).
• GO DENNIS - Takes you to Dennis (see [#Dennis below]).

North of the Main Dungeon Room

"You go NORTH through yon corridor. You arrive at parapets. Ye see a ROPE. Obvious exits are SOUTH."

• LOOK PARAPETS - "Well, they're parapets. This much we know for sure."
• LOOK ROPE - "It looks okay. You've seen better."
• GET ROPE - "You attempt to take ye ROPE but alas it is enchanted! It glows a mustard red and smells like a public privy. The ROPE wraps round your neck and hangs you from parapets. With your last breath, you wonder what parapets are. GAME OVER. Your score was:__. Play again? (Y/N)" - Subtracts 1 point from your score
• GO SOUTH - Takes you back to Main Dungeon Room.

South of the Main Dungeon Room

"You head south to an enbankment. Or maybe a chasm. You can't decide which. Anyway, ye spies a TRINKET. Obvious exits are NORTH."

• LOOK TRINKET - "Quit looking! Just get it already."
• LOOK/HELP (Before GET TRINKET) - "Ye stand yeself close to a yet-unnamed escarpment. Nonetheless, ye spies a TRINKET. Obvious exits are NORTH."
• GET TRINKET - "Ye getsts yon TRINKET and discover it to be a bauble. You rejoice at your good fortune. You shove the TRINKET in your pouchel. It kinda hurts." - Adds 2 points to your score
• LOOK/HELP (After GET TRINKET) - "Ye stand high above a canyon-like depression. Obvious exits are NORTH."
• LOOK TRINKET (After you GET it) - "Just a bulge in thou pouchel at thist point."
• GET TRINKET (After you GET it) - "Sigh. The trinket is in thou pouchel. Recallest thou?" - Subtracts 1 point from your score
• LOOK/HELP (After you try to GET TRINKET more than once) - "Thou hangeth out at an overlook. Obvious exits are NORTH. I shouldn't have to tell ye there is no TRINKET."
• GO NORTH - Takes you back to the Main Dungeon Room.

Dennis

"Ye arrive at Dennis. He wears a sporty frock coat and a long jimberjam. He paces about nervously. Obvious exits are NOT DENNIS."

• NOT DENNIS - Takes you back to the Main Dungeon Room.
• TALK - "You engage Dennis in leisurely discussion. Ye learns that his jimberjam was purchased on sale at a discount market and that he enjoys pacing about nervously. You become bored and begin thinking about parapets."
• LOOK DENNIS - "That jimberjam really makes the outfit."
• LOOK JIMBERJAM - "Man, that art a nice jimberjam."
• GIVE TRINKET (or GIVE TRINKET TO DENNIS) - "A novel idea! You givst the TRINKET to Dennis and he happily agrees to tell you what parapets are. With this new knowledge, ye escapes from yon dungeon in order to search for new dungeons and to remain... THY DUNGEONMAN!! You hath won! Congraturation!! Your score was: ___"
• GIVE TRINKET (without actually having the TRINKET) - "Thou don'tst have a trinket to give. Go back to your tiny life."

Fun Facts

Explanations

• "Congraturation" is a reference to the bad Japanese to English translation (or Engrish) found in many old video games, especially the NES game Ghosts 'n Goblins. Japanese doesn't have an English /r/ or /l/ sound, but rather a sound which is somewhat between the two, which is transliterated as <r> in Latin script. Thus, English <r> and <l> are often mixed up by Japanese speakers when writing English words. The ending of Ghosts n' Goblins can be found here.
• A parapet is a low protective wall or railing along the edge of a raised structure such as a roof or balcony.
• A trinket is "cheap showy jewelry or ornament on clothing".
  • "Bauble" is a synonym of "trinket".
• A magistrate is a lay judge or civil authority who administers the law (especially one who conducts a court dealing with minor offenses).

Trivia

• The "get dagger" command is probably from the unreleased Strong Bad email E-mail Birds on the strongbad email.exe DVD, in which Strong Bad plays a text adventure and tries to get a dagger but fails. However, there is no way to confirm this at present, as it is unknown whether E-mail Birds was created before or after the email video games.
• The quip "you wonder what parapets are", as Matt reveals in the DVD commentary for the email video games, is based on his experiences playing a text adventure that had parapets and he thought that if he found out what parapets were, it'd help him win the game.
  • The game Matt is referring to is most likely "Vampire Castle", a short text adventure whose initial setting was limited to a few rooms, one of which was the exterior of the castle parapets. Since escaping the initial setting into the rest of the game required a very tricky twist of logic in one of the other rooms, many young players got stuck worrying about manipulating the castle parapets.

Remarks

• Despite the game not telling you "why on Earth you can't get Ye Flask" in video games, this time you are told that "it is firmly bolted to a wall which is bolted to the rest of the dungeon which is probably bolted to a castle".
  • Also in "video games", the message is "Ye see a FLASK". In the actual game, the message is "Ye see a SCROLL. Behind ye scroll is a FLASK".
• When you receive the "Play again? [Y/N]" message, pressing N does nothing.
• Yon dungeon actually means "That dungeon over there".
• Adding "-est" or "-st" to a word indicates in Early Modern English that it is a present tense verb in the second person singular.
• Adding "-eth" or "-th" to a word indicates in Early Modern English that it is a present tense verb in the third person singular.
• According to the Wiktionary, "deau" is a Middle English alternative spelling for "dew".
• "Ye" is derived from þe, with the letter thorn replaced by the letter Y due to Romanization. It also means "the", and was usually pronounced as such. It is often confused with a different "ye", which means "you" (usually plural) and is pronounced as spelled.
• "Thy" in Early Modern English actually means "your".

Goofs

• When you enter the embankment/chasm, the game will always say you can see a trinket, even if you have picked it up already.

Glitches

• After you lose, press the down arrow a few times repeatedly and your score will go down. But this also messes up the text making the same text appear below 'Play Again[Y/N]'.
• When you type "drink", a reply is supposed to be displayed that says, "Thou aren'est thirsty, last time thou checked." However, an error in the Flash file's script doesn't allow it to recognize the command.

Inside References

• The rat featured on the game's box art resembles The Sneak.

Real-World References

• The text "You smell a Wumpus" (from the command SMELL) is a reference to the game "Hunt the Wumpus", one of the very first text adventures. If the player was one room away from the Wumpus, the game would give the warning "You smell the Wumpus." It is also used as a floppy disk in the Floppy Disk Container in HomestarRunner.com PAY PLUS!.
• When you type "get flask" three times, the text "You unbolt the flask and hold it aloft" is a possible reference to most The Legend of Zelda games, where after Link got an item from a chest, he would hold it above his head for the player to see.
• The page title, "Thy Dungeonman! Thy hunger!" is a reference to the old arcade game Sinistar. In Sinistar, you battled a large spaceship shaped like a head that would say, "I hunger!".
• "Bauble" is a common inside joke in text adventures relating to Zork I, in which someone would wind the clockwork canary, resulting in the creation of a "bauble".

Fast Forward

• Thy Dungeonman II features a magistrate.

External Links

• play "Thy Dungeonman"
• play "Thy Dungeonman" on the old Flash site
• view the Flash file for "Thy Dungeonman"
• listen to the game music

Thy Dungeonman
Games	Volume One, Volume II (responses), Volume 3 (commands, responses, walkthrough)
Miscellaneous	Thy Dungeonman (character), Ye Flask, Dongrel, Longrels, Hongrels, and Mongrels, Dennis, Minor Characters, Instruction Manual

Videlectrix Games
Playable	50K Racewalker, Awexome Cross, Dangeresque Roomisode 1: Behind the Dangerdesque, Duck Guardian One, Duck Pond, Gel-Arshie's Pro Fruitboarder, Hallrunner, Kid Speedy, Limozeen's Hot Babelien Odyssey, Math Kickers, Peasant's Quest, Pigs on Head, Population: Tire, RhinoFeeder, Secret Collect., Snake Boxer 5, Space Circus Catastrophe, Stinkoman 20X6, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, StrongBadZone, TROGDOR!, Thy Dungeonman, Thy Dungeonman II, Thy Dungeonman 3, Where's an Egg?
Non-playable	Butcher Bros., C.H.E.A.T., Cheat Commandos Tactics, Dangeresque Roomisode 2, Duck Guardian 2, Fluffy Puff Mayonnaise Game, Halfathlon, King Dingo, Lewis Rudkin SX: england, Planet Alert!, QWERTY, Rabbit Algebra, Salad Daze, Shploitz!, Spaceshipper, Spirits of '76, Sundae Drivin', Trogdor: Let's Burninate Phonics