The premise of Dragon Fire is simple: Make your way through 10 dungeon levels to reach the lair of the dreaded dragon, defeat said dragon, and escape with it’s treasure hoard.
If this screenshot of the first dungeon level looks familiar; it should. Dragon Fire is an update or successor to Rodney Nelsen’s Super Dungeon from 1979. I enjoyed Rodney’s first attempt quite a bit and I liked his update even more.
When the game begins it asks you to choose between five different character types: warrior, huntress, wizard, elf, and dwarf. You are given a brief description and benefits of each character type.
I chose to be a warrior and then got to select between a variety of weapons and equipment at Winsome Willy’s Weapon Shop.
You’ll choose two weapons and them move on to Fliver’s & Sons where you’ll select your armor type.
You then will go on to purchase rations and water or wine for your foray into the dungeon. Combat mechanics are hidden in Dragon Fire and I am sure your choices that you make here somehow affects the calculations made in combat but at no time in the game do you get to access your inventory or character. It was exciting to create a character with such detail in 1981 but much of this seems to be window dressing.
One huge improvement over Nelson’s prior game are the rooms that you explore in Dragon Fire. The blue areas on the map above represent doors to rooms located within the maze. When you enter a door a room description is randomly generated as well as the guardian in the room.
I found the room descriptions to be extremely entertaining and fun to read and through ten dungeon levels they never got too repetitive.
You can elect to fight the creature in the room or flee. Once you choose combat the game switches to a combat screen.
You can elect to have the game take the combat through a rapid progression where the outcome is very quickly determined or you can go manually round by round. I elected the rapid progression as you will experience a large number of these combats.
When you reach the end of one level and begin another you are awarded a number of points based on the creatures you’ve slain on that level and the treasured you’ve accrued. You can then spend these points either on your constitution score or your life points. Your constitution score represents your hardiness or hit points. When you are in combat and struck by a creature your constitution score suffers. Your life points are like a timer. Each time you take a step or action on a dungeon level your life points tick down. So you are on the clock. You never get to exceed 150 life points for your character but your constitution score can become quite high. You can also “backtrack” from one level to another and grind for a higher constitution score or to replenish your life points.
There are magical keys that you can randomly find on each level. They are sometimes found randomly in a hall or can be found as the spoils from a particular encounter. You are supposed to collect as many of these magical keys as you can before encountering the dragon on the 10th dungeon level. More on these magical keys later.
There are special events which can trigger at any time within the game as well. You can experience an earthquake which can then block off certain sections of the dungeon level to you. Sometimes this can trap you on a level and “softlock” your game and you’ll have to start all over. You can also encounter a bat which hunts you down on the particular level you’re on. If it catches you it drains 50 of your life points! I fell into a pool which lowered my scores dramatically. Once I started to explore the 9th and 10th dungeon level a random blue fog would always appear and teleport me to the previous dungeon level again. This happened often to me on the final two levels and became a bit frustrating.
I spent a lot of my time on the 10th level. I discovered that the dragon’s lair is not a particular spot on the map but it is only accessible by finding the secret entrance off of one of the walls on that dungeon level. It made searching for the secret door both tedious and dangerous. Remember that you are on a timer (your life points) and so when they started to become low during my search I’d quickly have to backtrack to level 9 and build them up again to start my search once again. I did finally find the dragon’s lair.
I do not think I would have beaten Salmadon if it were not for all of the magical keys that I picked up exploring the ten dungeon levels. I am going to credit these keys for providing the “key” to the win. When I encountered the dragon it’s constitution score was much higher than mine. I thought that I was going to be chewed up and spit out like bad food but I somehow miraculously beat it quite easily despite being very overmatched. I believe it was the keys the game alluded to. In the introduction it said to collect as many of these keys as you can before you face the dragon so they must have had a huge affect on combat mechanics.
I also wanted to add that I liked that the treasures you find in the game also have creative descriptions. You’re not just awarded coins but much like the rooms you explore the treasures sport colorful descriptions ranging from statues to art to jewelry etc.
I think this would have been a favorite game of mine in 1981 and it would have kept me coming back for more. The randomness and the ability to try and achieve a higher score gives it great replay value. I won the game on the Novice setting and there are more difficult settings that add even more replay value. If you can find it; you have to play this one for the experience.
I could not find whether Rodney Nelson went on to develop any other games. Perhaps one of my readers has some information to share there but if these are his only two offerings I certainly appreciate both of his contributions to the RPG genre.