The Tomb of Drewan originates from the United Kingdom and was developed and published by Audiogenic. It was released in 1982 for the Commodore VIC-20 and then later ported in 1983 for the Commodore 64.
There was once an ancient evil empire known as the Kartos Empire. The source of this empire’s power was a magical amulet. It came to be known as the Amulet of Kartos and it contained four powerful runestones of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water giving the possessor power over the four elements. As time passed, this evil empire eventually crumbled. The last survivor of the empire, Drewan, lived for many years after it’s collapse. He started to repent for the many evils committed by the empire but knew that eventually he too would die and so he constructed a repository for the powerful amulet and runestones. He populated this grand 400 room tomb with a variety of guardians to protect these objects of power. He also provided spells and a means to retrieve these artifacts in case one day a hero arose and needed the power of the artifacts for good. All of this can be learned in the manual which came shipped with the game.
At first blush The Tomb of Drewan is a bit reminiscent of The Sword of Fargoal but as you experience the gameplay and all of the various tools at your disposal you’ll realize it is a highly original offering.
There is a lot to unpack here. Firstly, The Tomb of Drewan is a very large game. The tomb itself consists of 400 randomly generated rooms. They are arranged in a 20 x 20 configuration. Each room is divided into four quadrants and each quadrant contains a treasure and a guardian. There are different kinds of treasures to obtain and there are both mortal guardians and magical guardians. There is a bit of an arcade or reflex factor in the game and only the most patient and driven of players are likely to complete this game.
The ultimate goal of the game is to enter the tomb, find the amulet and the four runestones, and then return to the top left corner of the tomb in the 20 x 20 configuration that is present. This is not an easy task. The guardians are no mere pushovers. An irritating feature of the game is that you cannot attack or cast spells at your adversaries from a top, bottom, or diagonal direction. You can only defeat them from an unobstructed left or right direction.
The guardians are identified by their different shapes and different colors. There are mortal guards and magical guards and there are three different types of each. Black represents the strongest of each type and blue is the weakest.
Mortal Guards
Death Master – Black
Soul Stealer – Yellow
Tomb Guard – Blue
Magical Guards
Dark Lord – Black
Sorcerer – Yellow
Spell Maker – Blue
Your health is measured as a percentage and is labelled WND which is short for wounds. Each time one of the tomb adversaries hits you this number decreases. When it reaches 0 you die. There is another component measured in percentage and that is called STR for strength. It represents how much weight you can carry and your fatigue. The more gold you have the more this percentage drops when you move. If this number reaches 0 you also die. If you stand still and do nothing this number will slowly tick back up and increase for you. The only way to improve your WND % once you have taken damage is to find a magical ELIXIR. This acts like a healing potion and it will restore both your Strength and Wounds to 100% Unfortunately you cannot stockpile these ELIXIRs. You are only allowed to carry 1 of each different item or spell.
Where the game’s further originality can be found is in the myriad number of options you have as a character. Each of these options can be accessed by pressing the corresponding letter on the keyboard. I played the game entirely on a keyboard and the keyboard controls did take some getting used. The movement cluster is @ = UP and \ = DOWN and then L = Left and R = Right. You have to be facing enemies in order to attack them so getting used to the movement cluster as well as all of the keyboard options was a bit of a learning curve.
If you’re facing your opponent you can choose to fire an (A)rrow if you have one and it will streak towards your opponent. It is nice in a pinch if range is an issue. The (C)haos spell can be used against all guard types and it obliterates them and then leaves an area of Chaos that the other guards cannot cross. (D)rop merely will allow you to select an item to drop; in most instances this is some gold because it is taxing your strength too much. The (E)lixer will heal your strength and wounds 100%. The (F)ire spell can be used against all guards and it inflicts 7 points of damage. The (H)elp key is a nice touch as it will list all of the inventory items for you and explain what they do and how much damage they cause if applicable. The (J)ump spell will teleport you from the chamber you’re in to a random chamber somewhere within the tomb. I never used this spell because I was concentrating on systematically mapping out the complex and I didn’t want to become lost or disorganized in the process. The (M)irror spell only works on magical enemies and only while they are casting a spell at you. It will reverse the spell and send it back to them. (O)verjump allows you to jump over guards or treasure and (P)etrify turns any guard white with terror and rooted to the spot as long as you are in that particular chamber. (Q)uit leaves the game AND probably the coolest spell in the entire game is (R)emove. Casting REMOVE will quite literally allow you to remove a section of the wall to avoid guards or to get to an unreachable treasure. Sometimes the randomization of chambers seals a treasure chest into an area that can only be reached by a REMOVE spell. When you find these spells as treasure they are to be coveted. (S)word represents the only item you never lose or that depletes itself. The sword will always do 3 points of damage to an opponent. I waited to talk about the (I)nventory choice because I wanted to talk about it together with the (T)ake option. When you find yourself next to a treasure chest you want to turn and face the chest much like you would the opponent and then press (I)nventory and that will let you know the treasure that is in the chest. It may be gold, it may be a spell, or it may be the Amulet itself or one of the four runestones. Once you know what is in the chest you then can pick (T)ake to place it in your inventory.
Gold can slow you down but it is in fact useful because if you should perish, a Tomb Lord will appear and attempt to resurrect you if you have enough gold. If you do not have enough gold then it is game over for you. The spells are extremely important because they help you to survive. You need their offensive capabilities to deal with the mortal and magical guardians in each room. Remember there are 400 different rooms and 4 guardians per room! You can only carry 1 of each spell type at a time which creates a lot of tension.
Where the game can change for you and become a bit easier is when you begin to find the amulet and runestones because they each bestow special powers upon you. If you find the amulet then when you enter each new chamber the different kinds of guardians that are in the chamber will quickly flash and reveal themselves and their location. If you find the fire stone it gives you a permanent Fire Spell; you never run out. If you find the Water Stone, this is the one I found first, it gives you a permanent Water Spell. The Earth Stone gives you permanent use of the Remove spell. I got extremely lucky and this is the second stone that I found and I found it early on. I had the Water Stone and the Earth Stone rather early and didn’t find the others until I had almost all of the rooms mapped out. The Air Stone gives you permanent Strength and your score doesn’t then decrease as you move.
In my foray into the tombs I ended up finding the Water runestone first and then shortly thereafter I found the Earth runestone AND the Amulet of Kartos. All within probably the first 80 chambers that I explored. Getting ahold of the Earth Runestone early was a game changer for me because it allowed me to get to treasure chests that were surrounded by stone walls. If you did not have the Earth runestone you would have to make a notation on your hand drawn map which chambers have treasure chests you could not access. If you find after having moved through all 400 chambers that you did not get all of the pieces that you need you would then have to backtrack to the rooms with notations.
I was hoping that perhaps having found three of the pieces early on that I may not have to explore all of the 400 rooms. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. I did not find the last piece that I needed until the very last room that I explored. I was beginning to become fearful that something was wrong because I had so much time invested in the game up to this point. Once I had the Amulet and all four runestones I then made my way back to the chamber in the upper left corner of my map. Once I arrived in the chamber I was greeted with the following screen:
It took me almost 17 hours to explore the tomb and to find all of the magical items that I needed. This game sports a lot of originality. It has small similarities to Dunjonquest and Sword of Fargoal but clearly stands on it’s own and is quite unique. Removing parts of the wall with the Earth runestone as you move about the map is reminiscent of Lode Runner too which wouldn’t come out until years later. I felt I went above and beyond to persist in finishing this one and my thought process is that not many can make this distinction. If you finished Tomb of Drewan yourself or have fond memories of it I’d love to hear from you.
Next up I’ll be tackling the AD&D Cloudy Mountain Adventure published for Intellivision consoles. Until next time…
I’ve never heard of this one, but it looks really interesting!