1980 boasted such an eclectic group of CRPGs that you just never knew what you were going to experience with each one. Doom Cavern was a diamond in the rough for me and might have been in the running for an absolute favorite if not for the fact that it was so short or, some might even argue, unfinished.
Doom Cavern was published by Synergistic Software and even comes packaged with Sorcerer’s Challenge by Robert Clardy himself. I suspect the packaging was to make up for the fact that Doom Cavern was indeed too short or even unfinished.
I was not able to find anything about the author known as Morwe but what I do know is I would have liked to see additional levels or expansions of this particular game.
The plot involves an evil necromancer who has killed the king. A court wizard placed a protective spell around himself and the young prince. The necromancer imprisoned both of them in Doom Cavern and is holding them in the lowest level until he is strong enough in power to break the wizard’s protection spell. A party of three heroes have arrived to attempt to rescue the wizard and young prince.
The game begins with character creation and rolls randomly for each of the character’s attributes. The game adheres to what appears to be a Dungeons & Dragons ruleset (strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, charisma). You get four random rolls or chances with each character but if you refuse the first four rolls you must take the fifth. Clerics do not receive any spells until second level and the magic user gets to choose between the spells: Read Languages, Read Magic and Sleep. A party format like this is a first for home computer role playing games. Robert Clardy’s three offerings had you managing a group but they more or less took the place of hit points and were expendable up to a point. Here you are naming three characters that are based on a Dungeons & Dragons ruleset and they have different strengths. If this game had been properly finished I feel it would have made more waves and fared much better.
Once inside Doom Cavern is where the game really begins to shine. I loved the overhead representation of the dungeon level as you explore each corridor and room. Each room description had depth to it as well as the narration. I extremely enjoyed the puzzles and scenarios that had to be worked through on this first dungeon level.
The encounters are quite diverse and very entertaining. You’ll have to deal with a mysterious scroll, a frost giant, a room full of skeletons, orcs who have captured a princess and a holy sword with a personality! None of the puzzles are too particularly tough but you will find that they do need to be solved in a particular order. I’m not going to provide any spoilers for the encounters however if you do need any help with them do not hesitate to ask.
This entire experience with this first dungeon level was an incredible amount of fun and felt extremely close to sitting down to a tabletop session of Dungeons & Dragons. I enjoyed myself immensely with this game and could not believe how good it was, that is, until I reached the stairway descending to the second level.
The game ends at level one and the manual does indeed inform the player that the game only comes packaged with level one. I do not believe there were any additional levels that were created for Doom Cavern. If there were, I cannot find them. I do not know if this was done purposefully to be followed by several expansions or if this was an unfinished game that was published with another Robert Clardy offering to make up for it. I was very disappointed because this first dungeon level and the start of this game is very very good.
There are a lot of unanswered questions with this game and if anyone knows the true story I would love to hear from you. Who is this author known as Morwe? Why does this game end at the first dungeon level and if it was purposefully done why were there not more levels produced? I loved my experience with this game and was crushed when it ended at the end of level one.
There really were only two combats in this game that play out much like the combat does in Eamon. The rest of the encounters required special solutions to overcome the problem. The text was very well written and extremely interesting as were the puzzles and encounters. If you’re a text adventure fan I could see you liking this game even if you are not a fan of computer role-playing games. The first dungeon level IS a cohesive whole from start to finish that you need to complete before moving on to level two. It is good enough that even though it is unfinished I do urge you to give it a try.