Author: professor6153

The Forest of Doom was developed and published by Penguin Books in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum. It is the second Fighting Fantasy gamebook that was adapted for the home computer. The Citadel of Chaos was the first adaptation. I found the story in The Citadel of Chaos to be quite interesting and the different encounters challenging. I remember that there were a myriad number of ways you could progress through the game and my experience was a relatively positive one.

I didn’t have such a high opinion of this second offering. I never read either of the Fighting Fantasy books that were adapted, so I can’t compare the books to the games and comment on that aspect, but I feel that in The Forest of Doom the player loses a lot of flexibility and there is something lost in the translation. While I enjoyed the writing of some of the planned encounters, I felt like I was bereft of any decision making and felt more than a little railroaded.

You begin the game rolling for skill, stamina, and luck characteristics much like in the first game. Your attribute scores seemed crucial in the first game, and you were allowed to pick from a selection of spells. Choosing the right spell list made the difference in winning or losing the game. Rather than choosing spells, Forest of Doom has you go shopping for magic items in the beginning of the game. Several of the items are absolutely necessary in order for you to be able to finish the game. If you do not choose correctly, you will discover much later that you are unable to win the game and will have to basically go back to the beginning.

What I found frustrating is that when you reach an encounter area, the game takes any decision making out of your hands. Instead of you having to determine which item might be best suited to solving your problem, if the game recognizes that you’re merely carrying the item, it has you press a key and then you read in a new text blurb how you’ve overcome the problem. This happened with almost every encounter, and I felt like I was merely along for the ride.

There were five or six combat encounters where dice are rolled to determine the outcome. This time around however the combat felt like window dressing. I won all of the encounters quite effortlessly and never really felt like I was in any danger. There were a couple of areas in the game where my health was fully restored as well.

In The Citadel of Chaos, I felt like my choices mattered and I often would not survive many of the combat encounters. In this second offering I felt like I was in a Visual Novel.

The map only allows you to move forward. You can never move south, nor can you backtrack in the game which only reinforced my feelings of being railroaded.

The ultimate goal of the game is to locate four different talismans and return them to the dwarves of Stonebridge. Once you do so you are rewarded with a gold winged helmet and a silver box of jewels as depicted above. If you enjoy interactive fiction the story and encounters are entertaining. I played the game on a C64 emulator, and the game took me three hours to beat. I strongly suggest pressing F7 for Fast Text Mode otherwise the game prints each description one painstakingly slow line at a time. It is much like watching an old dot matrix printer go to work. I enjoyed The Citadel of Chaos much more than this second offering.

Next up on the docket is Fortress of the Witch King.

Until next time…

Fame Quest was developed and published by BrainGames in 1984 for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. I played Fame Quest on a Commodore 64 emulator, and it took me a little over 2 hours to beat. The game was easy, but I found it had a certain charm and I enjoyed the time I spent with it.

You begin the game as a Grade 1 knight, and you leave the safety of the castle to explore the surrounding landscape. Your goal in exploring this 9 x 14 landscape is to earn fame points which, in turn, increase your fame. There is a certain threshold of fame points that you have to earn in order to move from a Grade 1 knight to a Grade 2. Your ultimate goal is to achieve Grade 10 status and with each level the number of fame points that you need to acquire increases.

There is no character creation to start the game, nor do you have the ability to name your character. The 9 x 14 map is a simple affair consisting of woods, homes, dark castles, and unknown areas represented by question marks. As you wander the countryside, you’ll encounter maidens in distress, pious monks, wandering old men, and both good and nefarious knights.

The knights that you encounter are not necessarily evil. It is wise to choose to talk to them first to determine their alignment. There are some who are friendly, others who will challenge you competitively, and also black knights who want to carve your heart out. If you slay a friendly knight, you can lose fame points rather than gain them.

Once you have earned enough fame points you can then make your way back to the castle and make demands for a new knight grade. If you made the appointed threshold of fame points, then you are granted the new grade. You can also have your sword sharpened and your shield hardened while you’re there. Once you achieve Grade 5 or higher, you’ll probably have enough gold to purchase a horse and then a lance. This will greatly improve your combat skills. In combat, you’ll then have the choice to fight by sword or on horseback with your lance.

The game has some simple animation sequences to represent the combat. I particularly like the charging horses and clashing lances. Each time you choose your equipment in combat your weapons will appear upon your person in a portrait.

There are two major foes that you’ll have to overcome: a demon and a dragon. You will likely not be able to defeat either one of these opponents until you are Grade 7 or higher, so I suggest running from them. In most cases when you flee you will lose a couple of fame points which is better than the alternative. Each time you lose in combat it lowers your strength which is a hidden attribute. If you lose more than a few times you will perish. You achieve quite a few fame points for slaying a demon or a dragon and will encounter more than one of each once you are Grade 9 and 10.

There is a lot of morality at play here in the game. There are several instances where you encounter medieval peasants who will ask you questions. If you answer truthfully you are awarded with a couple of fame points. If you are deceitful, you will lose fame points. You can lose fame points by losing combat, running away, and being deceitful.

Once you achieve Grade 10 you are awarded with the screen shown above. The game was actually remade in 2006 by John Adams . I will probably get to it when I’m 82.

The game may have been quick and easy, but I had a very positive time with it. I had never heard of this game before, and I always take pleasure in the fact that this is always a journey of discovery.

Next up on the docket is Forest of Doom.

Until next time…

Dungeons, Dragons, and Other Perils was developed by James Hurd and published by XLent Software. It was released in 1984 for the Atari 8-bit. It is an attempt at a remake of Brian Reynold’s Quest I from 1981. Quest I also inspired Jeff Hurlburt’s Super Quest in 1983 – which I enjoyed quite a bit.

I have always gone out of my way to avoid negative comments towards an artist or author. I greatly appreciate all creative output. I also think it is not fair to judge ANY of these early games against what is being created today with today’s technology. I always strive to approach each game using a “lens” of whatever current year the game originated in. I believe you’ll find that most of my writings have a positive bent to them and I’ve always appreciated the historical “archaeology” in finding them. However, that will not be the case with this particular game. This particular game seems like nothing more than a crash grab by the author and in almost all ways is inferior to the original that it is trying to “remake”.

My impression after having completed the game is that this isn’t really a game, but the appearance of one. Have you ever heard the expression “putting lipstick on a pig?”. It certainly seems applicable here. The game seems to look and play fast and seamless, but it’s all really smoke and mirrors and what you have here is a product that is not only inferior to the game that it’s trying to remake but to other games released in the same year (1984).

Character creation SEEMS exciting with multiple character options but in reality, it doesn’t matter what class you select or what rolls you receive. None of the attribute scores seem to matter at all. When the screen switched my strength score swapped with my dexterity score. I, at first blush, thought it was a programming error and that the two scores got flipped. Once I started playing the game however, I realized that the scores were irrelevant. I’ll have more to say about this later.

There is no store in which you’re able to purchase items. In a bizarre twist, after the ridiculous character creation process, you’re find yourself at a screen entitled; The 9 Doors of Death. You choose a door randomly to see what you might be offered for purchase behind it. It’s sort of like playing Let’s Make A Deal. I was offered the opportunity to purchase regular arrows, magical arrows, a glow stone that is supposed to show trap doors, healing potions, etc. Once you choose a door, whether you make a purchase or not, you are then flung into the dungeon. You can use what is called a teleportation crystal which will bring you back to the 9 Doors of Death screen and you can make a choice all over again. I used what little gold I first found to purchase glow stones and guess what? They don’t work. You’ll find this happens often in the game. I found that the holy water never really worked either which was truly a shame because only Clerics and Paladins can (T)hrow holy water. So, while the class options may sound pretty cool, they are all for show. Wizards are the only class that can cast (S)pells, but all you have at your disposal is one all-purpose offensive spell which is much like a sword strike.

I chose a Fighter to explore the dungeon. The combat is relatively easy. You dispatch most everything quite easily – including dragons. Wraiths require magic arrows in order to destroy them – this seems to be the only game mechanic that works properly.

There is no quest or storyline associated with the game. Experience levels and hit point increases are non-existent. Yet another oddity is that after defeating monsters your Wisdom score keeps increasing. Wisdom is a useless attribute in this game – my thought process here is that the author should have been assigning an increasing value to experience points instead but was confused. The manual states that Charisma is a useless attribute but that they included it anyway. The same could have been said for ALL of the attributes.

The game does end when you clear the dungeon level of all of it’s monsters. You then get the following screen:

The only “other perils” that the game title alludes to are the attempts to make any sense out of the games several oddities. I’ve successfully completed this game because it was on my list and I’m glad I am now aware of its existence, but I can’t in good conscience recommend that you spend any time with it. Quest I and Super Quest are both much better games in my opinion. I played Dungeons, Dragons, and Other Perils on an Atari emulator and spent four hours with the game.

Next up on the docket is Fame Quest.

Until next time…

Dragon Slayer was published by Nihon Falcom in 1984 for the PC-88 and the FM-7. It was later ported in 1985 for the MSX and Sharp XI; in 1986 for the Epoch Super Cassette Vision; and then in 1990 for Game Boy.

I played Dragon Slayer on an MSX emulator, and it took me roughly six hours to beat it. I went through three different characters and then had to reload the game about a half dozen times with what would be my final character.

I find myself very fascinated by the study of how Western RPG titles influenced the Japanese market and vice-versa. Wizardry and Ultima were very popular with hardcore Japanese gamers, so very early attempts at Japanese RPGs were based on these games. I am a die-hard Wizardry fan which might explain my interest in Japanese RPGs. Wizardry would continue to be a huge influence in the Japanese market and enjoyed a longer life and over 32 different Wizardry related titles. You can see the influence in many of the early Japanese RPGs so, of course, I find myself wanting to play and study them.

In 1984 we start to see a broadening of the Japanese RPG market and their names begin to appear in my lists. I’ve already played three games that sprang out of 84’s Japanese market: Hydlide, The Tower of Druaga, and now Dragon Slayer.

You may be confused as to why I might include The Tower of Druaga with other Japanese CRPGs, it is after all an arcade game. CRPGs through the 80s will be defined by how hard they are to complete. The Tower of Druaga is perhaps the purest example of this. There are tales of arcade cabinets that had little diaries where players could share their experiences. Players would write clues to how to find the hidden items on each level and share the secret technique of how to beat Druaga at the end of the game. Up to this point, there was no equivalent to this in Western culture. Here was an experience that was completely unique to arcade culture. There are many RPG elements in The Tower of Druaga as you begin to look “under the hood of the car”. The character becomes stronger as he finds hidden items – many of these items are needed in order to face the big bad at the end. This video game played a huge part in the Japanese gaming culture and even inspired an anime series 25 years after its release. Its influence would have an impact on the Japanese RPG gaming culture. Designers would learn from this phenomenon, and it helped give rise to sprawling role-playing games. Lavish guidebooks providing clues and walk-throughs were immensely popular in the Japanese market and then later even in Western culture. If you’re fascinated by the history of computer role-playing games, don’t be so quick to dismiss The Tower of Druaga as “just an arcade game”.

Dragon Slayer takes place entirely within a dungeon and is technically referred to as dungeon-crawler. Like its title suggests, there is a dragon in there waiting to be slain. The player begins the game as a poor hero just outside of his home. Each time your hero returns to the house he has hit points awarded to him based on the monsters he defeats and gold that he finds.

The beginning of the game is extremely hard. You have no weapon and the weakest creatures you encounter have 1500 hit points. If you attack with your fists, you’re only doing 10 points of damage at a time. So, it is imperative that you find a weapon. I finally found a sword by traveling through the nearest Warp Zone. There are three of these Warp Zones and they transport you to different areas of the dungeon.

Once you have the sword, the game is still very difficult in the beginning. Once you find you’ve reached a point in experience and power where the monsters begin to run from you, exploration then takes center stage.

On the right side of the screen, you see statistics for hit points, strength, experience, magical power, and crown. What you want to amass more than anything is experience. You gain experience by defeating creatures. You can only defeat certain creatures by having a high strength so it is imperative you build your strength up so that you can keep amassing experience. The game is very “grindy”.

In the southern area of the dungeon lies the dragon.

The Dragon sports three heads. Each head breathes fire. You have to cut off each of the three heads in order to defeat the dragon. The only way to survive the breath weapon from each head is to have at least 550,000 experience points. Once you’ve built yourself up enough, you can then face the dragon. I love the “singed look” as a result of the dragon breath. This look visually stays with you throughout the rest of the game. Cute touch.

So how do we boost our strength to boost our experience so that we can slay a plethora of dungeon denizens over and over again?

As you explore the dungeon you find the following items:

Crosses – if you find a cross and carry it around the monsters will not attack you. I found the crosses very important in the beginning because they allowed me to roam the dungeon and explore so that I could develop a plan in my head of what I wanted to do

Keys – keys are extremely important because you need them in order to unlock chests

Chests – chest contain either power stones, gold coins, bottles, or a grim reaper – more on the grim reaper later

Power Stones – when you return a power stone to your house, it increases your strength. You’ll need to increase your strength to face certain enemies

Bottles – magical power which allows you to cast spells – more on this later

Rings – when you equip a ring you can push wall blocks around as long as there is free space to do so. I found the rings to be somewhat useless because I could just choose to break the wall instead of worrying about carrying a ring. What the rings were integral for? You can push your house around like it is a block – this becomes important in terms of game play as I will soon illustrate.

Gold coins – for each gold coin you return to your home, you get 500 extra hit points.

The problem with each of these items is that you can only carry one at a time – except for the gold coins. There are ghosts that traverse the dungeon which constantly pick things up and then deposit them elsewhere. The ghosts are impervious to your attacks. So, when you’re carrying something back to your home, quite often the ghost might whisk by and steal the item from you. Trust me, it is very aggravating. So hence, if you can move your home around the dungeon, and reduce the distance that it takes to carry items back to your home, it is to your benefit to do so.

There are a number of spells which soon begin to have at your disposal. Each spell expends a magical bottle.

Map – this allows you to get an overhead view of the dungeon. The view does not last long.

Freeze – freezes your opponents in place so you can thump on them

Return – returns you immediately to your home – a useful spell

Fly – allows you to take the form of a bird and fly quickly through the dungeon. This becomes very useful near the near the end of the game – more on that later.

When you unlock a chest sometimes it unleashes a grim reaper which has the appearance of a skeleton. The grim reaper attaches itself to you. While the grim reaper is attached to you, you cannot cast any spells, or physically break any walls. The only way to separate yourself from this menace is to return to your home. Once you return to your home base the grim reaper becomes unattached.

One of the hardest parts of the game are the different enemies and their levels they attain. Scattered all throughout the dungeon are tombstones. The monsters respawn from these tombstones. So, when you kill a particular creature type, a new one respawns from a tombstone to take the place of the old one. The NEW creature is tougher and harder to kill. Once you’ve eradicated that creature type with all its assorted levels, you are introduced to an entirely new creature. If you’re strength isn’t yet adequate enough, when one of these creatures comes in contact with you, it deals damage in the thousands. So quite often, your life balance hangs on a thread.

Sure, one of your biggest goals in the game is to defeat the dragon. But in order to win the game, you need to find four crowns and return each crown to your house. The dragon guards all four crowns. When you defeat the dragon, the four crowns are scattered throughout the dungeon. I found that it was easy to cast the Fly spell and traverse the dungeon looking for the crowns. Here was the wrinkle however, when you defeat the dragon, your home, regardless of where it was located, returns to a new location, surrounded on all sides by tombstones. Monsters constantly emerge from these tombstones. Now, once your experience points cross 650,000, they roll over to zero. Once this happens, you are very susceptible to being instantly killed by ANY of the creatures present in the dungeon. So, after you slay the dragon and begin hunting for the crowns, you have to be very careful to avoid killing too many creatures and yet still make your way to your home now surrounded by tombstones. It proved to be very tricky.

I did eventually find all four crowns and return them to my home.

Once you win the game you receive the message; PHASE 1 CLEAR!

You then begin a Phase 2 where the dungeon layout is a bit different with items in different locations so that the game can have some replay value.

It took me roughly 7 hours to beat this game and I enjoyed my time with it. This game is considered one of the progenitors of the action RPG genre. This is the game that heavily influenced Dave Shapiro’s The Caverns of Freitag.

Next up on the docket is Dungeons, Dragons, and Other Perils.

Until next time…

The Tower of Druaga was released in arcades in June of 1984. It was developed and published by Namco Limited. It would eventually be ported to no less than 13 different home systems.

Namco is known for their worldwide arcade hits like Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug. The Tower of Druaga is one of their most interesting releases because it presented a completely different experience from anything the Japanese arcade culture had ever seen. The game would prove to be a huge influence going forward and spawned four different sequels or spin-offs.

The premise of the game is that the priestess Ki has been kidnapped by the evil monster Druaga. You control a heroic knight, who is actually prince Gilgamesh, who must attempt to rescue the maiden from Druaga. You move from floor to floor, which are constructed of mazes, searching for the key which will unlock the door to the next level.

I can see how this would seem like a very simple setup to many. This action arcade game however is subtlety wrapped in rogue-like, CRPG trappings. Yes, you navigate through the mazes, claiming each key, so that you can exit to the next floor, but what is not apparent is that there is a secret item that you can procure from each level that aids you on your quest. Some of these items are absolutely necessary to venture deeper into the game, and if you miss them, there is no going back. You are soft-locked from finishing the game. What really makes this game insane, is that the conditions for finding the hidden items are different from floor to floor.

For example, on the very first floor you can obtain a pickaxe. It will only appear for you to claim after you’ve defeated 3 slime creatures. The pickaxe allows you to break down two walls per level. As you progress from floor to floor, every item is different and unique and the conditions for getting that item are different. On the second level, you can obtain Jet Boots. These allow you to move much faster throughout the game. In order to have these appear to you, you must defeat two of the BLACK oozes which are tougher than the green slimes on that same level.

The conditions get much harder as the game progresses. A lot of the challenge is trying to figure out how to get that level’s treasure to appear while still staying alive. What makes all this even more challenging is that you are on a timer. If the timer hits zero before you exit the floor, you perish. On the sixth floor, the treasure is a magical candle that allows you to see the ghosts that roam the next few floors that are normally invisible to you. In order to get the candle to appear, you have to touch the top outer wall.

I spent hours with this game. It completely sucked me in. I was addicted to see what new item I might obtain and then pulling my hair out over how to get that item to appear. In some cases, you have to pass through something or move a particular way in order to get the treasure to appear. Sometimes you have to kill the enemies on that floor in a particular order which becomes time consuming through trial and error.

Floors 52-60 get particularly difficult. I had to resort to looking at a walk through to see how to perform the sequence of events for levels 59 and 60.

There are stories that exist about this game that tell of arcade cabinets that had little diaries where players could share their experiences and give clues to other gamers for finding the hidden items on each level and the secret technique to beating Druaga at the end. I have never heard of anything else like this before. What a fascinating phenomenon. Beating Druaga is a very difficult to do – it took me almost 3 hours to master level 59 and beat Druaga and this was using the rewind feature found in the Steam version of the game!

Early role-playing games in the 80’s seemed to be defined by how hard they were to beat and The Tower of Druaga is certainly an example this. This would be a trait of the genre that would also increase with time. Many of today’s new CRPGs now require 100+ hours of playing time. I would argue that there ARE RPG elements in The Tower of Druaga. You may not have an obvious hit point meter or life bar but the items that you find throughout the game make you stronger. If you don’t collect some of the items you’ll never be able to finish the game. There were many times while playing this game that reminded me of Sword of Kadash. Underneath the surface there is much more to this game.

I found the game to be very addictive as well. I’d complete one floor and then say to myself; ‘Just one more floor’. Then I’d find myself stuck on that particular floor and having to play it over and over again in an attempt to solve its puzzle. I’d then remind myself that I had best get to bed.

I spent several hours with this game and enjoyed every minute of it. I had always heard stories about the game and was glad that I finally got to personally experience it and spend significant time with it.

Next up on the docket is Dragonslayer.

Until next time…

Mike Singleton wrote Lords of Midnight for the ZX Spectrum in 1984 and allowed Beyond Software to publish it on a gentleman’s handshake. Singleton took a turn as a theoretical physicist, taught English for a decade, and then turned his attention to the home computer market. To say that Singleton was a smart guy is an understatement.

It is obvious that Singleton was heavily influenced by Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Before he started coding the game, Singleton spent three months developing the world, story, and characters. He began by first working on a large map using felt tip markers. Once the map was complete, Singleton then worked on the story. The story that Singleton wrote wound up included with the game as a novella. Then he began the process of coding. He finished the game in only three months! He started in January and finished in April, working 12-hour days.

The Lords of Midnight sold 10,000 copies in the first two weeks and was a smashing success. In Crash magazine’s 1984 year-end poll it was voted Best Text/Graphical Adventure by 51% of the voters. In 1991 the same magazine called Lords of Midnight and its sequel “the two best computer games ever written”. Lords of Midnight still carries the distinction of quite possibly being the greatest game to ever be created for the ZX Spectrum. I think what I’ve enjoyed most during my investigation of this game are all of the former ZX Spectrum owners waxing nostalgic over their many long hours spent with the game. I really enjoyed reading the many love letters by fans to the game and to Mike Singleton.

Beyond Software really pushed the word “epic” when marketing the game. I must admit, when you’re playing the game, it certainly has an epic quality to it that other games in this era have been lacking. Perhaps it was Singleton’s background as an English teacher, but his process of creating world, characters, and story before coding certainly seemed to work.

In the past, I’ve talked about reciprocity when playing these older games. I discovered that a novel had been written based upon the game.

It is obvious that Drew Wagar, himself an English teacher as well, is a fan of the game. This shows itself in his adherence to the game material and the world that Singleton created. The book weighs in at a whopping 552 pages and I took it with me on our vacation to St. Thomas. I didn’t do much reading on the island itself but devoured the book on our travel days. I found the book to be entertaining and it was probably responsible for helping me to defeat the game in a timely manner.

There are two ways in which you can play The Lords of Midnight. You can choose to play the game as a strategy/war simulation in which you try to enlist allies and then maneuver them about the map, trying to defeat Doomdark’s forces of darkness. The second way is more of a story and adventure format. You focus on Morkin, the son of Luxor, and his quest to find the Ice Crown. If Morkin can find and destroy the Ice Crown, the source of Doomdark’s power, then the forces of good instantly win.

I have never been a big fan of tactical simulations. I like the “idea” of an epic fantasy battle, but I don’t enjoy the application of it. I’m more a fan of (obviously) role-playing games, text-adventures, and even graphic adventures. So, I chose to concentrate on Morkin and his quest to find the Ice Crown.

The joy of exploring dungeons in a CRPG is in finding hidden items and locations, uncovering the secrets that the labyrinth jealously guards. The overland map of Midnight pays homage to this very experience. There are many hidden locations and objects to be found which are not on the map. So, a player can spend hours going over the grid of the overland map and mapping everything out by hand. Fortunately, because I chose to read the novel just before playing the game, I knew that I had to enlist the aid of a fire-breathing dragon to destroy the Ice Crown. I also knew where the dragon had been encountered. Assuming that the author was staying true to the source material, I concentrated my explorations to the northwest portion of the map and was quickly rewarded.

Once I allied myself with the red dragon known as Farflame, we began to make our way towards the Tower of Doom. It was there that I found the Ice Crown and we were able to destroy it.

The innovative landscape views and the popularity of the game turned Mike Singleton into a rockstar. Magazines were frequently fighting to interview him. He created a sequel shortly after entitled Doomdark’s Revenge and then hinted for years at a third game to be entitled; The Eye of the Moon but it never saw the light of day.

I can see how ZX Spectrum owners could have spent countless hours with this game. If you wanted to map out the lands of Midnight and uncover its secrets, you would have to painstakingly do so by hand. No easy feat.

I am not going to attempt to win in campaign mode, however after having read the novel, if I were to attempt to do so, I would enlist as much aid as I can and send them all to Xajorkith to make a final stand there against Doomdark’s forces. I am going to remain content having beat the game in story mode with Morkin.

I spent roughly four hours with the game, probably quadruple that number had I not read the book beforehand. The epic feel to the game is not exaggerated. It’s two different types of play, the game’s AI, the large scope of the map with all of it’s hidden secrets, makes it seem astounding that all of this was crammed into a 48k ZX Spectrum. Quite an accomplishment. I believe that if you want to consider yourself a historian of these games, that playing The Lords of Midnight is an absolute necessity.

Next up on the docket is Doomdark’s Revenge which was also released in 1984. I may as well dive right into the sequel.

Until next time….

I completed 27 role-playing games in 2023. I’ve noticed that the games are getting longer and more complex. There are a couple of reasons for this: 1) designers were sort of feeling around in the dark when it came to CRPGs – experimenting to see what worked and what did not. The definition of a CRPG continues to evolve at this stage but one characteristic begins to emerge: the time commitment needed to finish a role-playing game is much more than that of most other genres in this era. We now know this wiill continue to increase dramatically with the roll of years with many requiring over 100+ hours to complete.

2) the technology of home computers is now starting to advance. Thus far developers have had to deal with harsh technology limitations when crafting these games for the home computer user.

We’re also seeing the birth of the JRPG which quite literally just means “a role-playing game from Japan”. In the coming years however we’re to see it become the name of a sub-genre whose evolutionary branch creates quite a different product from Western RPGs. The Black Onyx wasn’t the first original role-playing game out of Japan, this distinction belongs to The Dragon & the Princess, but it WAS the best selling.

We also were introduced to Courageous Perseus and Hydlide in 1984. Both of these titles also came out of the east. Hydlide would later be dubbed as a pillar that greatly influenced the Japanese RPG scene. Hydlide ushered in what would be known as the action RPG. It set down the formula for the Y’s series as well as The Legend of Zelda. We are still in the 80’s computer era but we’re very close to crossing the line into 8-bit territory shortly.

The Sword of Kadash was a bit of a genre buster in 1984. The game featured 250+ rooms of dastardly traps, monsters, and puzzles. While it was spiritually close to a couple of others that came before it, I felt that it started to push the envelope a bit and give us a glimpse of what would be called metroidvania-style of play, a bit of open world, side quests, and a taste of what would become the action RPG subgenre. I died many times and spent many hours getting to the end of this one.

It’s really difficult to pick a favorite from this list of 27 games. The Dungeon Master, Dragon Quest, Questron, Xyphus, and the Sword of Kadash are five that proved very difficult and ate up much of my time.

I think my favorite game that I played in 2023 has to be Questron. I remember seeing the box on the shelf as a teenager and I just never had the time or opportunity then to devote to it.

It did not disappoint. I know there are some that call this a blatant Ultima pastiche, but I still really enjoyed my time with the game.

I found that, other than the lone Eamon adventure I played, that I had gotten away from playing text adventures and stayed firmly rooted in CRPGs. I was happy to do so and I may find myself continuing along this same avenue in 2024.

As I look ahead, there are upcoming Japanese RPGs and a lone French RPG that may create a bit of a conundrum for me but I’m going to see if I can muddle through. The technology and programming required to get some of these older games to run will continue to be a challenge for me but thus far I am lucky that I have had some support from colleagues in this area.

I am really enjoying the thrill of discovery of these older games and feel a little bit like an archaeologist in the search of old tombs in that regard. I also enjoy studying the history and development of games and how they influence each other so in that respect it’s a bit like taking on the role of historian as well. I continue to update the game database section of the website and it is more of a labor of love for me than anything else.

I do have a Twitter account that I use for the website Retrogamestrove.com (@OldManGamer12) / X (twitter.com) and I encourage you to follow and interact with me there and I will try to do more with the twitter account as well. I also have a Discord room in association with the blog and website and you can join here. Join our Discord server! I’d really like to see a greater response and discourse to the blog postings, especially on the website itself in the form of a reply. My audience is still quite small, but again, I’m getting a lot of personal satisfaction playing these games and maintaining the site. It’s a labor of love.

My goal for 2024 is to see if I can play 12-24 CRPGs at a minimum and report on them to you. Thank you for taking the time to read me and I look forward to gaming with you in 2024. Happy New Year everybody!

Pendragon: Water of Life was released in 1984 by Abacus Software for the Dragon 32/64. It was written by David Jenkins and it seems this is his only credit.

I looked far and wide and could find no documentation for the game. This was unfortunate because the player has the ability to cast spells but when you choose this option the game wants you to type in and provide the name of the spell. Since I was unable to do so I always resorted to physical combat. The lack of documentation will also prove a problem at the very end of the game; more on this later.

I played this game on an emulator, and it took me roughly 4 hours to finish. It is not too terribly difficult, but it is not easy either. The world that you’re exploring is slowly being overtaken by the forces of evil, led by the Warlocks of the Eye. You can elect to move about the map using the four cardinal directions. You can review your status as well as the map of the land you’re exploring.

You can also review your statistics at any time from the main screen.

You gain experience by battling the different creatures that you encounter in the game. These include: the living dead, a mercenary, a hunter, Warlocks of the Eye, a troll, dark birds, a giant spider, and a few others. Your health and strength are easily depleted through combat. There are two ways to regenerate these attributes: by finding food and water as you explore the map, and by choosing to rest. For some odd reason, regardless of what terrain you are in, you can only rest if you have gold in your possession. The objects that you find in your travels are not fixed but are completely random from one game to the next. Finding gold, food, and water is very rare which makes survival difficult. I probably played close to 30 games before I was able to reach the end of the game because of this random factor. Whether or not you reach the end of the game is NOT based on any skill though there is a strategy involved.

The map is a very simple affair but traveling across it is not. The random encounters are quite numerous, and combat is an odd affair. When choosing to attack the game will quickly, in the corner of the screen, flash a number from 0-9. You have to very quickly react and hit the key. For example, if the number flashed is a 5 you have to press 5 as quickly as you can. If you are quick, then you deal a Mighty Blow. If you’re able to respond in a timely manner than it is a Swift Blow. If you hesitate slightly or hit the wrong key, you are informed that you are Too Slow and you then suffer an injury and take damage. When you defeat an opponent, you gain experience and your health and strength increase based on your experience. When you move across the map however it constantly depletes your health and strength requiring you to constantly rest. If I cannot randomly find food, water, or gold (the latter allows me to rest) then you will die, and your game will end.

The objects that you can find are found on the inventory screen up above. A rope, lamp, boat are the common items that you can find. They are necessary in order to access various locations on the map. You need the lamp to enter the Caverns of Doom. Inside the Caverns of Doom, you’ll find the Ring of Power. You’ll need the boat to reach the Island of Chaos which hides the Shield of Life. You’ll need the rope to climb the Wizard’s Tower which contains the Necromancer’s Map. Your wandering across the map will hopefully allow you to randomly find a Cloak of Invisibility. You will need the Ring of Power, Necromancer’s Map, and Cloak of Invisibility to access the Castle. The Castle harbors the Water of Life which completes your quest. The Shield of Life allows your character to be resurrected, if killed, while keeping the items in your inventory.

So, there is a bit of strategy involved. I found that you have to hope that you can find a boat to reach the island so that you have a means of resurrecting yourself. Getting to the island should be your first order of business. Then you have to hope that you find the lamp and rope so that you can obtain the other items that you need. You also have to randomly discover the Cloak of Invisibility in your travels. While all this questing is transpiring, you’re besieged with random encounters. Even when those encounters go well, your attributes are constantly being drained due to travel AND said combat, so if you’re not finding gold, food, or water, you DIE!

Once you’re able to storm the castle you find the Water of Life, however you need to cast a particular spell in order to be awarded the prize. This is the equivalent of entering a password. I mentioned up above that I could find no documentation for the game, so I was not able to cast spells during combat, which is an option always presented to you, and so as a result I was not able to provide the password at the end of the game. The game afforded me six guesses before kicking me out of the castle.

I wasn’t able to provide the password due to the lack of documentation, but I WAS able to finally reach the castle after obtaining all of the quest items. I am thus going to chalk this up as a win and declare that I’ve finished this particular entry. If anyone reading this reached the end years ago, and you can remember the name of the spell which awards you the Water of Life, I’d love to hear from you, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Next up on the docket is Lords of Midnight and this will be the first game that I tackle in 2024 as our year draws to a close.

Until next time…

Computer role-playing games in 1984 began to usher in what would become known as action RPGs. The Tower of Druaga, Courageous Perseus, Hydlide and Sword of Kadash heralded what would become an entirely new subgenre where reflexes and arcade-like play are combined with role-playing elements. Admittedly, this has created some problems for myself, and it will continue to do so. Why? While I am enjoying this subgenre, I am just not that proficient at it. I struggle a bit when reflexes are called upon. It is this very reason why many gamers prefer turn-based role-playing games. In these types of games there is a much greater time commitment requirement but the threshold to be able to play these games is low compared to a Dark Souls. Perhaps my skills will increase over time but as of right now it is a concern.

Sword of Kadash in an action RPG that was developed by Dynamix and published by Penguin Software. It was released in 1984 for the Apple II, 1985 for the Commodore 64, and 1986 for both the Atari ST and Macintosh. The game was written by Chris Cole who finished it at the incredible age of 17. This is a game that is quite a bit different than anything I’ve played to this date. It is a little reminiscent of the Caverns of Freitag from 1982 in terms of style, but the similarities end there.

The Sword of Kadash is an extremely difficult and challenging game featuring a sprawling dungeon of 250 different rooms. Each of these rooms are filled with monsters, diabolical traps, secret passages, useful items and/or treasure. I think I perished in this game more times than any previous game to date. Every single room requires constant experimentation.

I played the Commodore 64 version of Sword of Kadash on an emulator, and it took me over 20+ hours to beat the game. There were moments where I thought that I might never win the game. The map can be extremely confusing, and it is filled with its share of secret passages and hidden rooms. It took me hours of exploration to find the hidden passages that would take me deeper into the game. My first time through the dungeon, when I entered the dragon’s lair near the game’s end, I had 2400 hit points and discovered that these were woefully inadequate in order to defeat the dragon. I started the game all over again. When I next faced the dragon, hours later, I now had 5500 hit points, and discovered to my dismay, that this was still not enough. I started the game over a third time, and I took my time with every single room and in this run through I liberally used save states. I waited until I fully mastered and stripped each room of its possessions before moving on. When I next faced the dragon, I had over 11,000 hit points. This finally proved to be enough. Once I vanquished the lich who guarded the Sword of Kadash, I then learned that the sword protects me somewhat from the dragon’s fiery breath. The sword made the encounter with the dragon much easier whereas before it seemed a nearly impossible task.

The game begins with you wandering about the desert with very little water left. You are wondering how long it will be before the sand covers your bones when you are suddenly surprised and captured by brigands. They offer to spare your life if you will complete a task for them: which is to enter the deadly catacombs of the Fortress of the Dragon and retrieve the enchanted Sword of Kadash. They march you to the Fortress and force you to enter..

Your character gains experience as a result of your victories in battle and treasure that you find. When enough experience points have been gained, your level increases. When I defeated both the dragon and lich and retrieved the Sword of Kadash, I was 66th level.

There are various weapons, some that are magical in nature, that you can acquire. These range between axe, dagger, morning star, and sword. You can also find shields and rings which help to improve your armor class. The highest, or best, armor class which you can achieve is 50.

The various items or treasures that you can find throughout the Fortress are symbols, keys, scrolls, chests, and healers. The symbols resemble an Egyptian ahnk and they can help to remove a curse. The keys represent experience and money and are NOT necessary to open any doors or passages. Scrolls contain magic spells. The only spell you possess in the game is a Fear spell. When you cast the spell, it causes the monsters to move away from you for a short time. You can then use this reprieve to flee or to blast the hell out of them. The healers are boxes that heal up to 300 of your hit points. They are rare and much sought after.

The best shield that you can find in the game is a +4 shield which is hidden in one of the fortresses towers. This is a very hard to find area and I only found it on my 3rd time playing the game from the very beginning. The best sword I could obtain without sacrificing a lot of hit points was a +3 sword. Some of the creatures can be dastardly to kill. Ghosts and Wraiths in the very beginning and middle of the game can be particularly deadly.

The map with all of its secrets is the biggest challenge of the game. There are myriad hidden passages and rooms and hidden trigger bricks. The picture up above shows the dragon. You must get past the dragon, obtain the Sword of Kadash which is guarded by a powerful lich, and then use the sword to come back and defeat the dragon. Once you do, you are rewarded with this screen:

I really enjoyed this game even though I also found it to be very frustrating. This game is so much different than any of the other action RPGS thus far – that I feel like this game is somewhat genre breaking. I am surprised that it doesn’t get more recognition. Between work and preparing for the holidays, this game consumed much of my free time in December. I highly recommend it.

Next up on the docket is Water of Life.

Until next time…

DnD was developed and published by Bill Knight as shareware and released for DOS in 1984. The game would later be updated, retitled, and released as Dungeons of the Necromancer’s Domain in 1988. This was to avoid legalities and lawsuits, which seems a convoluted tale.

Once you’ve generated your character and the game begins; the graphics and mechanics seem very familiar to two of the very first games that I covered when I started this blog: The Dungeon and The Game of Dungeons. I had to access the PLATO system by remote terminal in order to play these games. There is a reason why these games all seem so very similar. A game called “dnd” was written in TUTOR programming language for the PLATO system by Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood in 1974 and 1975. Another dungeon crawl, called “DND” was written in BASIC for the DECSystem-10 mainframe computer’s TOPS-10 operating system in 1976 by Daniel Lawrence. The games were very similar and territorial arguments about source code still exist today. DND had three dungeons – Lamorte, Shvenk’s Lair, and Telengard – and Lawrence eventually ported DND to home computer systems, whose limited RAM forced him to drop two of the dungeons and forced the character into a single class. The game was commercially sold under the name of the surviving dungeon, Telengard. The source code for the mainframe version of DND was ported to other computer sysems. Bill Knight discovered one of these ports while working at Digital and created a DOS port, adding two new dungeons – The Cavern and The Warren.

Knight apparently wouldn’t learn who the original author of the game was until many years later. This topic is thoroughly covered in both Matt Barton’s Dungeons & Desktops book, which I highly recommend, and in CRPG Addict’s post: The Final Word on Daniel Lawrence’s DND. Of the five dungeons, only Lamorte and Telengard list as “Ready for exploration”. I chose to explore the Lamorte dungeon. I find the drama of this very fascinating from a historical perspective. I feel like I’m sometimes playing the role of archaeologist as I play each of these early games. There is a tremendous influence involved regarding the growth of the home computer and in technology from year to year. Much like the Gold Rush, there was a tremendous rush by many to get a piece of this pie and in the 70s and early 80s publishing and developing was a bit like the wild west.

Bill Knight’s DnD is the closest iteration to what I experienced on the PLATO system. When you’re generating your character, you get to choose between 3 different classes: Fighter, Magician, or Cleric. I elected to play as a Cleric only because this class is usually a rare to non-existent option. I chose the name of Cadderly based on R.A. Salvatore’s Cleric Quintet.

Where this game appears to be quite robust is in the number of spells you can choose from. Magicians have four levels of 24 spells to choose from while Clerics have four levels of 16 spells to choose from. We haven’t had spell lists like this since Wizardry. I almost abandoned my Cleric character when I discovered that Magicians had access to a 3rd level spell called Pass Wall. The spell shifts the molecular structure of the desired wall and allows the spellcaster to pass through it. This spell was absolutely necessary to in order to reach the end in The Caverns of Zoarre and I was fearful that this might be the case with this game as well. I did decide to stick with my choice of Cleric in the end.

I really enjoyed experimenting with the various spells. Two spells that I couldn’t have survived without were the Continual Light and Hold Person. Continual Light is a 3rd level spell that mimics the affects of a magical torch. This allows you to see surrounding permanents, encounters, and treasure areas in the dungeon. Hold Person causes your opponent to be held in place while you basically thump on it. This spell worked against much tougher opponents which helped me to both survive and gain experience at a faster pace.

There are 15 different types of monsters that you can encounter in the game: kobold, goblin, orc, dwarf, harpie, troll, bugbear, doppleganger, ghoul, minotaur, ogre, giant, vampire, balrog, and dragon. I have listed the monsters in order from weakest to strongest. The vampire, balrog, and dragon are particularly deadly. The monsters, however, also have a level attribute. So an 8th level balrog is a much tougher opponent than a 1st level balrog. While the kobold is the weakest opponent in the list, a 12th level kobold can be deadly as well.

In the beginning, the game is balanced quite well and staying alive can be extremely difficult. You gain experience by slaying creatures and finding treasure. Early on, it was particularly rewarding to gain a level. When you achieve a new level, it gave you access to more hit points and spell slots. This game balance begins to go “off the rails” once your character begins to move past 7th level. The magic items that you find on each dungeon level, increased hit points, and greater number of spell slots begin to make you almost invincible.

I started the game by mapping out each of the dungeon levels. I would explore each level, making sure that I found all staircases leading up and down as well as any other exits. There are elevators also which always take you UP one level. There are also pits which always take you DOWN one level. There are also teleport squares which randomly teleport you almost anywhere. I always tried to avoid these. There is also something called the Excelsior transporter. This takes you to any dungeon level you want, for a price. Once you obtain the ORB, more on this later, the Excelsior transport will not work and is no longer an option. You will have to use stairs and elevators to reach the surface. I found that once my character was 9th level and I had mapped out the first 10 Lamorte dungeon levels, that I was beginning to get bored and restless with the game’s balance.

So, I decided to shake things up a bit. There is no story or quest associated with Bill Knight’s version of DnD. However this plays very closely with The Game of Dungeons from the PLATO system. Much like Game of Dungeons, there is an ORB located on the last level of the dungeon, which equates to the 20th level. So what I did was I used the Excelsior transport to take me down to the 20th level and I started playing it blind. The 2oth level was tricky because the area that the Excelsior transport takes you to is sealed off from the rest of the dungeon level. If I had played with a Magician, I could have just cast Pass Wall and moved on. Since I did not have access to that spell. I had to go back up to Level 19 and pray that I find a stairway or pit down to a different area of the 20th level. I WAS able to find this, as well as the location of the ORB, however getting the ORB proved to be extremely tricky.

You can see from the image above, that the ORB was surrounded on all sides. South of the ORB had been a 35th level Dragon! You can see by my spell slots that my character was exhausted, having searched most of the 20th dungeon level for the orb. Luck was with me, I hit the ancient dragon with a Plague spell, causing it to contract a combination of several deadly diseases, which killed it instantly. I moved forward, obtained the ORB, and made my way all the way back up to the 1st level. There is no end sequence or congratulatory screen when you return with the ORB. The magic item makes you Immortal. If you should die while playing the game you automatically revert to half of your hit points, thus making it impossible then to kill you.

The image above shows my final character stats, having returned with the ORB.

The 20 dungeon levels were in a 20 x 20 format and contain permanent fixtures that are always found in the same place on each level. These include: stairways, altars, elevators, the EXCELSIOR transporter, fountains, Djinn, Dragon Lairs, Mirrors, the ORB, pits, thrones, teleporters, and treasure troves.

This game certainly felt like a reskinned version of others which have come before it. Out of all of the games that have branched out from the original source material, this one felt the closest to the original game that I played on the PLATO system.

I played the game through DOSBox and it took me about 8 to 9 hours to complete.

Next up on the docket is The Sword of Kadash.

Until next time….