Intellivision hit the scene in 1979 and sold for the steep price of $275 which is over $1000 today adjusting for inflation. Atari had already released the 2600 in 1977 and had a two year head start to this competitor. Mattel’s delayed launch of Intellivision however allowed it to outshine with better graphics and better audio. The Intellivision Pac-Man port was far superior to the Atari 2600’s and a fairly faithful reproduction. The Atari 2600 used an 8-bit MOS Technology 6507 running at 1.19 MHz. Mattel equipped the Intellivision with a 16-bit 2 MHz CP1600 built in a partnership between General Instruments and Honeywell in 1975. It also had a 3 channel sound chip. It’s superior performance caused it to sell out it’s entire first year production run of 175,000 units. The following year in 1980 it sold 200,000 units and in 1981 it sold over 1 million consoles. By 1983 sales had exceeded 3 million units.
In a world used to joysticks Mattel decided to take an entirely different approach with a controller that looks more like a television remote. The home computer market through several generations will never see another controller quite like this one.
The unique design allowed developers to add more interfacing options but it also required each game to provide a plastic overlay that slid over the keypad to display what each button does. These overlays would often get bent and become hard to insert.
There were not many role-playing games produced for the Intellivision during it’s lifespan. I believe there are a total of five that, God willing I live long enough to get to, we’ll cover in this blog.
The first and a fan favorite was the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons cartridge. Mattel licensed it from TSR and it was the first licensed AD&D video game ever made. It was written by Tom Loughry and he wrote the later sequel to this game as well. He would then move on to work for Accolade but these were his only two role-playing games.
Mattel would later release a sequel under the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license which led to them renaming this first volume in the series Cloudy Mountain.
The object of this game is to acquire the two halves of the ancient Crown of Kings, hidden deep within the caverns of the legendary Cloudy Mountain. To reach the treasure you have to cross an overland map of obstacles. Below is straight from the game manual:
When the game begins you choose your skill level of the game that you want to play. The easy version is called the Sightseer option. The medium version is affectionately referred to as Weekend Adventurer. There is a medium/hard version with the moniker Soldier of Fortune and lastly the hard level is called Hero. The harder the skill level you select the faster the monsters will move on the screen towards you. There are also fewer arrows in each quiver you find. For example, on the easy version the quiver contains 11 arrows but on the hard version they only contain 5.
The color of Cloudy Mountain reflects the skill level of the game. Gray is easy, blue is medium, red is medium/hard, and lastly purple is hard. I played on the Easy level as my reflex / arcade skills are not the greatest and I still found the easy level challenging.
I found this game to be a lot of fun and found it to be very addictive as well. I can see why it was a fan favorite in 1982. You begin on the left side of the overland map and have to make your way across the map to Cloudy Mountain. When you come into contact with the mountains you can choose to enter them and explore a maze of caverns underneath them. Each mountain or obstacle has a color associated with it as well. Your warrior is armed with a bow and starts with a quiver of only 3 arrows. It is imperative that you explore the underground warrens and find quivers as quickly as you can. They are your only means to dispatch the monsters you encounter. Gray mountains are easy and have quivers of arrows only. You might choose a gray mountain range first to stock up on ammunition. Blue mountains are medium difficulty but contain a boat (which you’ll need to cross the river in the overland map) and arrows. Red is hard and contains an axe (to get through impenetrable forest) and arrows. Purple is extremely hard but contains the key you’ll need to access Cloudy Mountain and arrows.
The Sword of Fargoal was a game in which the sounds were an integral part of the game. AD&D Cloudy Mountain might be the first RPG game cartridge where the sounds were just as integral. A big part of the enjoyment of Cloudy Mountain was the tension created when you heard the sounds of the creatures coming closer to you within the caverns. You could hear the flapping of bat wings or you could hear the hiss of the snake or the roar of the dragon. The closer you got to the creature the louder the sounds become until suddenly the creature charges out of the darkness (fog of war) towards you and you have to quickly react. There is also a button you can press and the game will beep at you once for each arrow you have left in your quiver. Sounds were not only a real treat but integral to the game.
Once you find yourself in an underground warren of caves you have to find the exit ladder or the way out located somewhere within the complex. There is not really a need (nor would you have time to) map the complex out and you’ll find that top to bottom and left to right will eventually loop and continuously connect with one another.
There are objects that you pick up that you must have in order to traverse left to right across the map. Your goal is to ultimately reach Cloudy Mountain so that you can search for the two halves of the crown. You’ll need to find a boat in order to cross the river that runs through the map and you’ll need an axe to carve a path through the forests. You’ll need a key to unlock the gate blocking you from Cloudy Mountain.
Each half of the crown is guarded by a dragon which is the toughest beast to slay. You’ll need to strike the dragon with three arrows in order to defeat it – so you’ll need a minimum of six arrows in your quiver before you face the dragons beneath Cloudy Mountain.
You can bank your arrows off of the walls of the dungeons so mastering angles and how they affect your shots is crucial to killing some of the monsters. It is also possible to shoot yourself as well. If you shoot at a flat surface the arrow bounces back to hit you and you can also be struck by a banking arrow as well. I regret to say that I shot myself more than a few times before I mastered the complex controls. I played Cloudy Mountain on an emulator and had to download the plastic insert that normally goes over the Intellivison controller and overlay it over my numeric keypad instead. It takes some getting used to.
If you defeat the two dragons and recover both halves of the crown you essentially win the game. The game will then depict an overhead view of the map with a crown sitting atop Cloudy Mountain.
The game took me a couple of hours to win. Some of that time was spent trying to master the controls of the game. I actually enjoyed this experience and it really took me back. I remember that I loved to go over my Uncle’s house because he owned an Intellivision whereas we owned the Atari 2600 at my house. Remember that you could buy an electronic dishwasher for the same price as the Intellivision console. My Uncle Ken owned a copy of AD&D Cloudy Mountain and I used to love to play it but I was never able to beat it. I knew this would be a nostalgic trip for me however I was surprised that I enjoyed the gameplay experience as much as I did. I look forward to coming back to the Intellivision emulator when it is time to do so.
Next up on the docket is Dragon Stomper. Until next time…