Here is the complete graph for Deathtrap Dungeon.
You might want to open it in a separate tab or window for handy reference as you read this. Yes, it's very tall and narrow. You'll have to zoom in and scroll. This article does include some snapshots of the more interesting bits.
A word about how to read the graph: The vertices are story sections, which I colored as follows:
- Yellow: Combat, with the enemy named
- Blue: Obtaining an item or relevant experience, with it named
- Red: Death, or failure
- Orange: Not death, but an end to the story
- Green: A choice dependent on having an item or a relevant experience, with that thing named, as in "needs key" or "needs to have spoken to the old man"
The first section (1) is at the top, obviously. The victory section (400) is at the bottom.
I didn't mark sections that Test Your Luck or otherwise manipulate your statistics, because frankly that's most of them.
The green and blue vertices are particularly interesting since it's well known that Ian Livingstone enjoyed peppering his books with plot coupons. Simply put, bad things will happen if you hit a green vertex without being downstream of the corresponding blue one. For example, a green section might ask if you have a dagger. You'd only have it if you hit the previous blue section that granted the dagger. This game mechanic effectively lengthens the shortest path to success, which we might have naively found by using Dijkstra's algorithm. The Graphviz software does implement Dijkstra's algorithm but it's not much use thanks to the plot coupons.
Spoiler Warning
If you don't want the story spoiled, stop reading this blog. But seriously, do you need a spoiler warning for a book that's almost 40 years old?
Overall Impressions
Overall, it's more linear than I expected. Never having done this before, my intuition was that it would be wider, more tree-like. At the very least, I thought the initial T-junction would split the majority of the graph in two. What I found instead was that the story was episodic and routinely funneled the reader down into bottlenecks, sections that can't be avoided. The first bottleneck happens fairly quickly when the reader reaches the gem-eyed idol (37).
The next thing I noticed was the sheer number of instant death sections: 31 of 400, or 7.8%. So on average, you're likely to die on every 13th section. I suppose that makes sense for a book with "death" right in the title.
I've split the "episodes" that follow on the story's bottlenecks, so the story will force you to proceed from one episode to the next, in order, and you can't skip them.
The following synopsis is the fastest path to victory, or one of them. There are a bunch of encounters in the book that aren't described here (the MIRROR DEMON, the MEDUSA, etc.) because they aren't on the fastest path.
Episode 1: The Entry (1) to the Idol (37)
The only thing of consequence here is obtaining the rope, the gold piece, and the hollow tube, which you can only do if you go east at the initial T-junction. This rewards the character who's willing to be a rebel, since most of the other characters appear to have gone west.
So go east (56), scramble over the puffball (373), and drink the liquid in the bamboo pipe (147) to protect yourself against the upcoming heat trap (182 > 25). At 197, you must open the door (171) to get the rope. You'll fall into a pit and lose 4 STAMINA, but you need the rope to get the emerald. You can get 3 of those STAMINA back by eating the dried meat found on the first barbarian's corpse, which is coming up.
Next is the ORC encounter. There's no way to avoid fighting them, but at section 326 you obviously want to roll a high number to fight them without a penalty (380).
After killing the ORCS and taking their gold and hollow tube (a straw?), proceed to the wet corridor (164). Open the door (299) into the room with the dead barbarian. Walk over to search him (126), then eat the meat to replenish your STAMINA (226). At this point you can return to the alcove (41) to get the goblet, though it will involve Testing Your Luck, but the goblet does not appear to be useful. Eventually, you'll be herded off to the idol room.
Episode 2: The Idol (37) to the Closed Door (239)
The gem-eyed idol is the first bottleneck: You can't avoid reaching this point. The story immediately asks you if you have the rope. If you do you can get the emerald, which is good since you can't win without it. Otherwise you'll have another attempt at getting a gold piece. You'll have to fight the two FLYING GUARDIANS either way, a difficult battle.
Use your rope (396) to climb the idol, then you must only try removing the left eye (151). Removing the right one (34) will release poison gas, killing you instantly. You can Test Your Luck after climbing down (89) to see if you can pull the rope down, but I haven't seen that it's used again.
Episode 3: Closed Door (239) to T-Junction (267)
It's possible to pick up three things along here:
- A gold ring that grants wishes (251)
- A poem read by a spirit girl (229)
- A dagger (94)
All three are used later. To get the dagger you'll have to fight the GIANT FLY.
First, open the closed door (102) and insult Baron Sukumvit (251) to get the ring. Proceed down the hall (344) and walk through the shaft of blue light (229) to hear the poem. At the arched doorway (107), open the door (168) to find the dagger stuck in a pit of worms. The worms are harmless, so pull the dagger out (94). Proceed to the GIANT FLY (174). You'll have to successfully Test Your Luck to fight it without penalty. After killing it, proceed to 267.
Episode 4: T-Junction (267) to SKELETON WARRIOR (381)
Obviously, it's ideal to head east (68) from the T-junction to skip the pointless ROCK GRUB battle.
The trip from 68 to the bottleneck at 237 is inconsequential except that you don't want to lose your shield at 271 since it helps defend you from the MANTICORE later. Oddly, I haven't found where you received that shield. It's not mentioned in the intro and I haven't seen where you pick it up prior to this. There is another chance to find a shield in Episode 8, though.
The ruby orb gained at 285 has no further use that I've found.
Episode 5: SKELETON WARRIOR (381) to ORC Bodies (338)
It's not worth tangling with the SKELETON WARRIOR since you'll only pick up a warning about the MANTICORE (a shield will help you beat it), so just tiptoe over to the alcove (128). Don't eat the mushrooms; go down the steps (35) and jump through the door while waving your sword around like the psychopath you are (124). You'll scare the hell out of the GOBLINS at 124, giving you an advantage. You have no choice but to fight them.
At 81 or 307, you want to go north (136) so that you can obtain the sapphire, the second essential gem.
If you go in the door with the hand nailed to it (210) you'll see Ian Livingstone himself chained to the wall. If you let him go he'll tip you off to having to collect gems to get through the dungeon before he suddenly exits stage left.
You'll inevitably come to an open pipe (78). Go inside to get the iron key and the sapphire (162), but beware of going too far!
Episode 6: ORC Bodies (338) to the DWARF (60)
This is an especially linear bit of the tale in which you're given the opportunity to team up with Throm, another competitor. The book rewards the reader who gives Throm the benefit of the doubt, because doing so is the only way to get forewarned of the BLOODBEAST (via an article in a book) and to find another book containing a health potion.
First, put on the necklace (123) which is really a strength amulet. Your stats will get updoots and then you'll go to 282 to meet Throm. Go west with him (22) and accept his offer to lower you into the pit (63). He'll join you and you'll find some books on a stone ledge (194). Open the red leather book (52) to read about the BLOODBEAST and the black leather book (138) to get a potion.
Next, you encounter CAVE TROLLS (369). You fight one and Throm fights (and always kills) the other. You find a bone ring necklace on one. You can either put it on or not; if you do, whether it helps or hurts you depends on your current SKILL score (64).
Regardless, you wind up in the stalactite room (221). There's nothing to gain here, so proceed through the archway (60) to find the DWARF.
Episode 7: The DWARF (60) to the Tunnel (213)
This next bit is a beautifully symmetric bit of the graph.
First, persuade Throm to not kill the DWARF (365). You'll shoot some craps and either win (152) or lose (121). If you win, he'll make you grab a cobra bare-handed (some reward!). You have to continue trying to grab it, losing 5 STAMINA each time you fail. If you lose, he'll produce two pills: one with an S and one with an L. They'll sap your STRENGTH or LUCK, respectively, and then you'll have to grab the cobra. So either way, you're cobra grabbin'.
Next, this fun-loving DWARF gives you some lame anagrams and the situation boils down to three options:
- Fight a MINOTAUR (40)
- Fight a GIANT SCORPION (143)
- Not die, but end the story as the DWARF's lackey (347)
If you fight and survive, you'll have no choice but to fight a (drugged and/or out of it) THROM, and if you're feeling vengeful, the DWARF as well. Beating the DWARF will earn you a coat of chain mail.
Episode 8: Tunnel (213) to the BLOODBEAST (90)
This is the most complicated episode since it splits into three, and sometimes four, threads that interlink. Unfortunately, there is a single correct path that you must follow to have any hope of succeeding. The critical junctures are as follows:
Go west at either 108 or 394 so you end up at the sound of approaching footsteps at 59. This winds up being another poor sucker who's stuck in the tunnels. If you quiz him (367) and give him some gold (244), he'll tell you there's a doppelganger potion in the bird-of-prey chair.
Go north at 109 to end up at the bird-of-prey chair at 24. Sit in it (256) to get the doppelganger potion.
At 188, you need to have heard the spirit girl's poem from Episode 3 in order to proceed to 155. Her words will encourage you to dive into the water, taking you to 378. After Testing Your Luck, you'll hear a girl's voice crying for help (356). Enter the room (170) to find the Elf locked in battle with a BOA CONSTRICTOR. Kill it (170) and with her dying breath she'll reward you by telling you to find some gems, including a diamond. Her stash includes some bread (+ STAMINA), two daggers (useful for defending against the BLOODBEAST), and a monkey charm (saves you from the PIT FIEND). Not bad!
Walking along the tunnel (192), you'll come across an iron grille in the floor. Lift it (120) to reveal the grappling iron and leather pouch. Reaching down for them (228) means you'll have to Test Your Luck, but either way you'll wind up with them.
At 292 you come to a door. You have nothing to gain from opening it, so continue to 230, where you'll encounter some TROGLODYTES dancing around a "large golden effigy." Drink your doppelganger (aka polyjuice) potion (385) and run across the bridge (318). You'll come to a locked door, but fortunately you have the iron key you found in the pipe with the sapphire. Use it to unlock the door (86) to the four-way intersection. You'll hear the voice of the author beckoning you forward to 187.
And there he is, Ian Livingstone, once again, but now with a regrown hand! (For those without the book, the joke is that the illustrator keeps drawing Ian Livingstone as prisoners.) He'll reward you for bribing him (360), naturally, by putting you on the path to getting the diamond. You get in a basket that he raises off the ground by pulling a rope. This bit reminds me somewhat of the Shaft Room in Zork I. Let's hope he's using multiple pullies for maximum mechanical advantage -- ol' Ian doesn't have much upper body strength.
Unfortunately, Ivy, who happens to be a TROLL, is in the room above. She demands a bribe too. Try to talk your way out of giving her anything (328). She'll namedrop Port Blacksand, aka the City of Thieves (FF5!) and get understandably distracted. Continue the conversation (99) long enough to smack her over the head with a stool. Searching the room (266) reveals an old bone, which you take. What sort of creatures might want an old bone?
Walking downstairs (305), you conveniently hear the sound of barking dogs. Throw them the bone (253) and run past (315). You reach a high wall with a door, but inexplicably decide to use your grappling iron and rope to scale it (129) and catch your first glimpse of the PIT FIEND, which is really a tarted-up T-Rex. Throw him your bone monkey charm (361), which he'll chomp on, as T-Rexes do. It'll oddly expand to fill his mouth, which will distract him enough for you to Test Your Luck.
This is a consequential Luck Test, since if you fail (377) you'll have to fight the PIT FIEND, a murderous SKILL 12 STAMINA 15. The one upside to being unlucky is that you get a replacement shield (95) if you lost yours in Episode 4. As stated repeatedly, a shield is handy when fighting the MANTICORE.
At 214, you're asked to relinquish your weapons. Ignore that and proceed to 181, where you'll overtake another competitor, the NINJA. You'll have to Test Your Luck again to see if you can fight him without penalty; in this case, the penalty is a shuriken in the back that not only takes 4 STAMINA but also 1 SKILL. The fight is difficult since he's SKILL 11 STAMINA 9, no slouch compared to the PIT FIEND, but defeating him is the only way to get the diamond, the third gem required to succeed.
It's a bit silly that the only route out of this space is to take a chute (127) down to the BLOODBEAST's room.
Episode 9: The BLOODBEAST (90) to the End (400)
Fighting the BLOODBEAST will go as well as possible if you were forewarned by the book in Episode 6. At least then it's a straight battle (172), albeit against a SKILL 12, STAMINA 10 opponent coming off fights against a NINJA and possibly a PIT FIEND.
It is technically possible to pass without fighting it, but it requires a lot of luck. You'll have to first claim to not have the forewarning (357) then either throw in a gem (332, but not the essential emerald, sapphire, or diamond!) or take a swing at it with your sword (180). Either way, it'll respond with toxic gas and you'll have to Test Your Luck to avoid getting killed. If you live (53), it'll be pawing (tentacling?) at you. Make a run for the door (370) and roll two dice. If you roll lower than your SKILL score, you'll jump away from it and escape without a fight (104). Otherwise, you'll need a dagger to fight it (294). If you don't have a dagger, you die (334).
There's enough luck needed for the non-combat path that it might be easier to just fight it straight up (172).
The option to throw an unspecified gem into the BLOODBEAST's slime pit is interesting. One would hope you'd throw in something other than the essential diamond, sapphire, or emerald, but would a 10 year old kid playing this game make such a distinction? Doubtful. The book is littered with other non-essential gems, to be fair: A couple topazes, a pearl, and a ruby orb, at least, none of which have any purpose except to possibly be thrown into this slime pit.
A dagger is essential if the BLOODBEAST grabs you (159 or 234).
The next and final unavoidable battle is the MANTICORE, another SKILL 11, STAMINA 11 bruiser, though it helps if you have a shield, in which case you can at least fight it without suffering a penalty (196).
This book really is ridiculously difficult and probably not at all possible without memorizing the one correct path after countless attempts (or using a graph!) as well as having tremendous luck with the dice.
Finally, the endgame: You have to have the emerald, sapphire, and diamond. If you don't, you become a slave in the dungeon (3).
If you are lucky enough to have them, you have to arrange them in the correct order. Of course, there are 6 ways (3 factorial, or 3 times 2 times 1) to order three items, so the graph enters an interesting section where five vertices are mutually-connected, allowing you to keep choosing different orders, though you're taking a penalty each time you get it wrong.
Graph theorists call this sort of mutually-connected subgraph a clique. They're interesting because they're so tightly coupled. Finding a graph's large cliques, or the largest clique, is computationally difficult, meaning even the best known algorithms take a number of steps that scale exponentially with the number of vertices. However, it's often useful to find large cliques. Consider a graph in which vertices are phone users and edges are calls made between them. A service provider might want to identify large cliques to offer them special deals or discounts.
It's frustrating to think a player might have come this far throughout the book only to fail by having to guess which of the six possible orders are correct. Each failure costs 2-7 STAMINA points from a player who was just weakened by two unavoidable and difficult battles. You are given hints when you fail, Mastermind-style, telling you how many gems were in the wrong place, but with a legit shot at just one or two guesses it still feels pretty cheap. Might've been more sporting to offer the player a hint at the order earlier in the book.
Even if you guess the order, you'll have to Test Your Luck a final time to avoid losing 3 STAMINA to poison gas.
Otherwise, you win.
Final Thoughts
Deathtrap Dungeon is arguably the most popular FF title, and for good reason: It provides the purest dungeon crawl in a way that's more sophisticated than earlier books like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain or The Citadel of Chaos. It's also incredibly difficult, which rewards replays. The player can try it over and over, building up an arsenal of strategies that didn't work and exploring new ones, until they finally succeed.
Of course, having an annotated graph can help.
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