MON
The whole dungeon
All 14 levels with their monsters, items, texts and sounds – read from your Atari ST disk image of Dungeon Master 1.2.
How to play
Five minutes on a Lynx I: every button lights up when it is pressed, and the screen shows what it does – walking, classic or smooth movement, fighting, choosing actions, the mouse mode, magic, eating and drinking, saving.
What the port does
Not a remake: the original game, read from your own disk and rebuilt for a handheld.
KU
Real-time combat
The monsters do not wait for you. One tap on A and the champion under the combat cursor strikes, then the cursor moves on to the next one who is ready.
FUL
Magic with runes
Power, element, form and alignment: cast the spells of the original with up to four runes in the rune window.
BRO
Inventory
The full inventory of every champion: weapons and armour, chests and scrolls, food and water.
IR
Smooth or classic
Real-time 3D in-between frames when you walk and turn – or step by step as in the original. You choose in the pause menu.
RA
Colours and sound of the ST
The palette and grey tones of the Atari ST, the light of your torches – and the sounds in stereo on a Lynx II.
DAIN
Save and load
Save your game from the pause menu and continue later – RESUME on the title gate loads it.
LYNX
Made for the Lynx
A new interface for the small screen: the champions on top, their hands at the side, a rune window over the dungeon – and a mouse mode to click everything as on the ST.
Speak the runes
In Dungeon Master, magic is a language. A spell is a word of up to four runes: first the power, then element, form and alignment. Try it – the spells below are the ones of the original game.
The rune panel needs JavaScript.
Choose a power rune …
A few words of power
- FUL IR – fireball
- OH KATH RA – lightning bolt
- OH IR RA – light
- FUL – magic torch
- DES IR SAR – darkness
- OH VEN – poison cloud
- YA IR – party shield
- ZO – open door
Always start with a power rune: LO is the weakest, MON the strongest.
On the Lynx
Screens of the current build, recorded in the Felix emulator. Click one to see it large.
The way in
How it works
The ROM Builder turns your own copy of the game into a Lynx cartridge image. It contains no game data: graphics, levels, texts and sounds are read from your disk image on your PC, and nothing is sent anywhere.
- You need your own Dungeon Master 1.2 (English) for the Atari ST as a disk image (.stx, .st or .msa) or a .zip that contains one of them.
- Start the builder (or drag your disk image onto it). It checks the game files, converts them and compiles the port in about a minute.
- The .lnx file is saved next to your disk image. Play it in a Lynx emulator such as Felix or Handy, or on a real Lynx with a flash cartridge.
Download the ROM Builder Pre-Alpha v0.2 (14.6 MB, Windows 10 / 11).
Controls
| Walk mode | |
| D-pad | Up / down: step forward / back. Left / right: turn. |
| B + left / right | Step sideways |
| B + up / down | Move the combat cursor to the previous / next champion who is ready, without an action |
| B tap | Touch the wall in front: mirrors, buttons, levers, door buttons |
| A tap | The champion under the combat cursor does their remembered action (at first the first one, melee first); then the cursor moves on to the next champion who is ready. |
| A hold | The actions appear in the text line: up / down chooses the champion, left / right the action. Release A to do it (it is remembered), B cancels. |
| Mouse mode (Option 1, again: back) | |
| D-pad | Move the pointer (it speeds up). B + direction jumps to the next click spot. |
| A | Left mouse button: take and put down items (floor, alcoves, both hands, inventory), press buttons, click the arrow panel; on a portrait: open the inventory. |
| B tap | Right mouse button: on an action hand (right) its actions; on a portrait: this champion leads; in the dungeon view: the leader's inventory. |
| Magic and inventory (Option 2) | |
| Option 2 | Spell window: the D-pad chooses the row and the rune, A sets the rune or casts, B takes back the last rune (with no rune: closes). Again: inventory. Again: back. |
| Eat and drink | In the inventory take food or a water flask with A and click the mouth. |
| Pause | |
| Pause | Pause menu: movement (classic steps as in the original, or three levels of smooth in-between frames), sound volume, save game, load game, back to the game. RESUME on the title gate also loads the saved game. |
| Pause + Option 1 | Restart |
This is a Pre-Alpha
An early test version, so that you can try the controls, the look and the feel on a real Lynx or in an emulator. You can play the original intro, the Hall of Champions on level 1 and the first part of level 2 up to the first mummy – the gate behind the first mummy is still locked and opens in a later version. Everything in it should work: walking, fighting, magic, the inventory, eating and drinking, saving. Found a bug, or something feels wrong? Please tell us with the feedback form.
No save chip on your cartridge? Then Save game shows your saved game as a few code pictures. Take a photo of each and keep them: a page that puts the saved game back into your ROM file follows soon.
Windows may show “Windows protected your PC” the first time, because the program is not signed. Click More info and then Run anyway. The builder checks its result: “identical to the reference build” means your ROM is exactly the one the port was tested with.
SHA-256 of the Windows download: 049b60726091ec18b63db386cbb2afbc81abd24c761c461084bf7b5683e7bc61
Linux command line
dm-lynx-builder-0.2.pyz (3.1 MB) runs on 64-bit Linux on x86-64 and ARM64
(for example a Raspberry Pi with a 64-bit system) and needs only Python 3.8 or newer:
python3 dm-lynx-builder-0.2.pyz "Dungeon Master.stx". Without arguments it shows its help;
--info IMAGE only checks the disk image.
SHA-256 of the Linux file: c5f8334f90dabe37bd0ca15e8d58d6bfb3b0edba4d20f9f6f96a022b27b9b227
Version history
Pre-Alpha v0.21 November 2026current
- Saving on cartridges without a save chip (EEPROM): SAVE GAME shows the saved game as code pictures to photograph. A page that puts the saved game back into your ROM file follows soon.
- Saving no longer hangs when the cartridge has no working EEPROM.
- The bread looks light brown instead of white.
- First public test version. It builds the Lynx cartridge image of Dungeon Master from your own Atari ST disk image of version 1.2 (English): .stx, .st, .msa or a .zip that contains one of them.
- Playable in this Pre-Alpha: the original intro, the Hall of Champions and the first part of level 1 up to the first mummy. The gate behind it stays closed for now.
- Walk mode with a combat cursor, a mouse mode that clicks as in the original, the spell panel with the runes, and the inventory with eating and drinking.
- Classic steps as in the original, or smooth movement in real 3D (pause menu).
- One saved game in the cartridge EEPROM: SAVE GAME and LOAD GAME in the pause menu, RESUME on the title gate.
- Colours and grey tones of the Atari ST, the original sound effects, stereo sound on the Lynx II.
- Also a command-line version for Linux (x86-64 and ARM64, for example a Raspberry Pi with a 64-bit system).
Made by a human and an AI
The author
Had the idea and decided step by step what the port should become: one to one with the original data, smooth movement in real 3D, a mouse mode, stereo sound, the colours and grey tones of the Atari ST. Played every build, looked at every frame and said what was wrong, what to try and what to leave out.
For the teaser: the story, the scene after the credits, and the final word on every shot, sound and texture.
Claude, the AI
Analysed the original program and wrote all the code: the Lynx game in 6502 assembler, the data converter, the builder, the tests and these texts. Proposed the technical solutions and made every change the author asked for.
For the teaser: the edit, the music, the sound design and the 3D scene after the credits, all made with code.
Using AI is no secret here. The AI did most of the work, and fast – but the ideas, the taste and the patience to look at every frame once more came from a human, and the heart of the game is still FTL's Dungeon Master from 1987. The project summary (PDF) tells in detail who did what.
Teaser credits
- Music: composed for the teaser, played with samples from VS Chamber Orchestra: Community Edition by Versilian Studios (CC0).
- “Boo!”: BOO AND LAUGH by metrostock99 on Freesound (CC0).
- Bandages of the mummy: the Rough Linen texture from Poly Haven (CC0).
- Atari Lynx photos: Evan-Amos, Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
- The player's hands: cut out of a picture generated with Google Gemini.
- 3D scene: rendered with Blender.
This page
- The mummy: our own 3D model from the scene after the credits, rendered with Blender – also walking through the corridor at the top of this page.
- Lynx logo: the Atari Lynx text logo from Wikimedia Commons (public domain as a simple text logo). Atari and Lynx are trademarks of their respective owners.
- Design and code: Claude, the AI – the idea and the final word came from the author.
- Runes: the rune signs on this page are drawn for it; the game on the Lynx shows the original ones.
- Fonts: Cinzel and Cinzel Decorative (Natanael Gama, The Cinzel Project Authors) and IM FELL English SC (Igino Marini), SIL Open Font License – licence text.
Feedback
Questions about the port, thoughts on the teaser, or an idea? Let me know.
