Tower of Doom/Walkthrough

Adventures

There are 14 different Adventures to choose from in Tower of Doom, as follows:

Adventure	Number of Levels	Randomly generated mazes?	Colors randomized?	Win condition & notes
Novice	6	No	No	Generic (exit via lowest level of tower)
The Tower	8	No	No	Generic
The Tower	12	No	No	Generic
The Tower	20	No	No	Generic
The Catacombs	12	Yes	Yes	Generic
The Catacombs	18	Yes	Yes	Generic
The Catacombs	32	Yes	Yes	Generic
The Fortress	6	Yes	Yes	Generic or find and kill Wizard
The Fortress	12	Yes	Yes	Generic or find and kill Wizard
The Fortress	18	Yes	Yes	Generic or find and kill Wizard
The Fortress	24	Yes	Yes	Generic or find and kill Wizard
The Challenge	14	Yes	No	Generic (new monster added with each floor)
Wizard Hunt	32	Yes	Yes	Find and kill Wizard
Grail Quest	32	Yes	Yes	Exit via lowest level of tower with the Grail in inventory

The manual claims these are in ascending order of difficulty, but in practice some of these Adventures are much harder than others, especially long, randomly-generated Adventures.

Some also offer curveballs when playing as the weak, unarmed Waif. For example, Tower/12 has an almost unavoidable battle with a dangerous Stirge on the first floor, but that floor offers no melee weapons with which to fight.

Tips and tricks

General tactics

Food is paramount. Even the mightiest adventurer will soon die without food. Try to have at least two food items (or an alternative like the Grail or Rosary) on hand at all times, and wait to use them until absolutely necessary.

He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. Combat against strong enemies can easily turn disastrous. Unless you're extremely powerful, it's better to avoid many combats and focus on collecting treasures and staying well-fed.

Three strikes, you're out. Most enemies won't attack you instantly until the third time you encounter them -- the first two times, they'll wait for a bribe, and will hesitate before pursuing you if you flee combat. Use this to your advantage.

Don't kill weak enemies. As long as there's a weak enemy in the room, a stronger enemy won't replace it. Giant Rats are the perfect pets, since they're slow, do little damage, and can always be bought off if necessary with a Boot.

Bribing monsters is mostly useless. Few strong enemies will pay any attention to your offerings, and the ones that reliably do -- the Giant Rat or Skeleton -- aren't much of a threat.

It's easier to run away to the West or South. If you don't want to fight a monster, pressing Left or Down exits battle, and you'll start running in that direction as soon as the screen changes back to exploration mode. This makes it much, much easier to flee to the west or south, whereas fleeing north or (especially) east takes very fancy footwork with the controller -- especially since pressing Up or Right brings you closer to the monster once the battle resumes.

Open doors and take stairs quickly. If you've got an empty room and a door to open, do so immediately, as it's often impossible to navigate the menu in time when a fast monster enters the room. The same goes for stairs: if you dither when deciding whether to go down a level, it can ruin your plans when a Stirge or Wraith enters the room.

Trap monsters inside rooms. Open a door, lead a monster into that sub-area, and then leave the room. The monster will be trapped behind the door when you return. This can be quite handy!

Cyan items are bad -- except when they're not. Magical Artifacts that are normally Cyan are almost always bad for you. However, there are exceptions: the Cyan Key can help you avoid an annoying Teleporter, and the Cyan Grail is an extremely powerful item that confers permanent haste and a huge boost in abilities.

Magenta items are good -- except when they're not. Most Magenta items are the most powerful in their class, including the Magenta potions which temporarily give you loads of extra health, and the Magenta Ring which makes you immune from Wand backlash. However, the Magenta Book and Magenta Mortar & Pestle are cursed items that lower your experience and stats (respectively).

He-Man should go downstairs before having dinner. If you've recently used a Magenta potion, eating food will instantly the temporary HP boost you just got from it. Don't use a Magenta potion on an empty stomach -- unless you're starving, that is!

Dealing with traps

Traps can be incredibly dangerous in Tower of Doom. A Paralysis or Confusion trap that stands between you and where you need to go can instantly wreck even the best game. Fortunately, there are some countermeasures that work well, many of which depend on the fact that the game won't trigger a trap as long as another sound is playing:

• Use a treasure - When using a treasure, a long chime sounds. As long as that sound persists, traps are ineffective.
• Get into a fight and escape - If you can get a monster to engage you in battle right next to a trap, then you can often duck past the trap by escaping the battle and running through the trap while the monster's snarl is still audible.
• Use a Wand or Holy Hand Grenade - Fire one of these items against a distant wall, and duck through the trap while the explosion sound is still trailing off.
• Use a Key - Not always a viable option since it temporarily disarms you, but traps can be avoided by wielding the corresponding Key in place of a weapon.
• Dodge them - The Gas traps and Poison (tan ring) trap can be dodged with good timing, and the Fire trap only harms you 10% of the time.
• Use a Scroll of Trap Removal - This scroll that's normally bright green, whether large or small, will remove all traps in a level.

The most dangerous traps in the short term are the Paralysis and Confusion traps, both of which can't be dodged and can render your character incapable of self-defense.

In the medium to long term, the Life Eater (red ring) is extremely dangerous, since it drains 20 points of Life Force and makes starvation more of a danger.

By contrast, the Fire trap usually doesn't harm you, the Green Gas Cloud does relatively little damage, and the Transporter is merely inconvenient (and can even be helpful).