GAME CHANGER

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

This is not, strictly speaking, a videogame adaptation of the book Deathtrap Dungeon. With a few tiny tweaks, it is the book Deathtrap Dungeon, albeit a version that allows you to pretend that you’re friends with the actor Eddie Marsan, who takes care of the reading and dice rolls for you. Every word is read to you by Marsan while he sits in a supremely comfy-looking chair. Although the setup initially feels rather weird, Marsan’s subdued yet nuanced delivery quickly places you squarely into a world of danger, death and avarice. He’s a very good storyteller.

The dungeon of the title is like a cross between Saw and The Hunger Games, but in a D&D-style world. You’ll need to make your way through a constantly challenging gauntlet of puzzles, traps and combat with the promise of wealth at the end. Success or failure is down to skill checks, so how you set your character out at the start is crucial.

Battles are simple. Your Skill value is pitted against that of your opponent, plus the value of two dice. If the totals are the same, nobody takes damage; if one side has a higher skill plus dice number, the other loses two stamina points. The random nature of the dice rolls means that, unless you begin with extremely high skill, surviving until the end is difficult, and even unlikely. Depending on the path you take and how your luck holds out for certain events, you can lose some or all of your stamina-replenishing provisions, and/or have your skill permanently reduced.

A perfect playthrough would take about two and a half hours. It takes me seven hours of trudging backwards and forwards before I finally exit the dungeon triumphant. While that doesn’t sound too bad, at least half that time feels more like work than play, and I skip a lot of skippable footage. Plus I eventually cave and search for a walkthrough for the original book, because I just want the whole thing to be over.