Mr Lizard, your butt is not going to break the Internet.
YOU become meat for the grinder…. Baron Sukumvit is a sick weirdo, who lavished a fortune on building a maze, filling it with traps and exotic monsters, then sending his retinue of guards into it. Encouraged by the total extermination of his squad, he hung out the sign: Open for business. 10,000 GP if you survive!
What sort of dummy would walk into a deathtrap dungeon? You!
Review and Opinion
This is possibly the most successful FF book of the whole series. Baron Sukumvit is mentioned in dialog in other books, and your conquest over the Deathtrap Dungeon is the setting for Trial of Champions and Armies of Death. They made a video game of Deathtrap Dungeon way back in the 90s, and later in Fighting Fantasy Legends Portal.
But I’m not sure why it gets the high praise. It wasn’t a bad book, but was a real no-frills dungeon crawling adventure. It’s not an epic magically-assisted epic quest spanning a continent; it’s a dungeon crawl with one winning path and a scavenger hunt. If you’re lucky you’ll find your way to a gauntlet of five monsters in a row and just have to slaughter your way through them in sequence.
Not awesome, not awful, but a fun way to spend a few afternoons.
Maps
Publication
Written by Ian Livingstone
Illustrated by Iain McCaig
1984
Book 6 in the series
Links
- PJ Montgomery at Sidekickcast
- Justin Parallax reads Deathtrap Dungeon
- Deathtrap Dungeon playthrough by Seven Fourteen Seven
- A review by Pestridge on YouTube
- A spoilerific walkthrough over at FF Proboards
Hi, I stumbled across your site after playing through Deathtrap Dungeon. Thanks for the map! I also own The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and I’ve been reading your reviews to figure out which book to try next. I enjoy dungeon crawls, and I liked making friends with Throm (RIP). Any suggestions?
From my childhood, Citadel of Chaos was one of my favorites. I had a vague memory for 30 years of some of the things in that book… It brings in a magic system, which I really dig, and has multiple ways to win the boss fight.
Then again, Forest of Doom also brings in a new mechanic of buying magical items to get out of certain scrapes AND a possibility to get to the end, go back to the start with your gold, resupply and start over again!
But if you like making friends & allies like Throm, go for Island of the Lizard King. It has one of FF’s memorable friend scenes.
Thanks! Just beat Citadel of Chaos. It was a well thought out and dynamic setting – social encounters and transactions, guards, kitchens, sewers, daycare, even laundry. The boss fight was fantastic, too! Sadly, no enormous gems to steal, but there were still plenty of mysterious liquids to drink.
I will check out The Island of the Lizard King next. A lot of these books are available to borrow on archive.org these days, which is way better than buying books on eBay sight unseen and hoping for the best, which is what I tried in high school, with middling success.
I appreciate the recommendations! I’ve been reading fan blogs since I picked these books back up, and I’ve been having a good time drawing cartoons of my own encounters.