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….