Monster Combat was created by Lee J. Chapel for the KIM-1 and was published in the December 1980 issue of Byte magazine (Volume 5, Number 12) in the “Programming Quickies” section.
This excellent adventure-themed cover was illustrated by renowned artist Robert Tinney.
Monster Combat was an early text-based RPG game that was written in BASIC. You wander through a randomly generated 9×9 forest map represented by text characters.
The goal is to explore, encounter monsters, fight or avoid them, and collect as much treasure as possible while staying alive. The game ends when you exit the forest or die.
The Combat Strength is assigned at the beginning of the game and appears to be random. The strength value is spent when you choose to fight a monster. In a unique twist, you decide how much Combat Strength you want to spend in the encounter and then you’ll discover if that was enough of a value to overcome your opponent. Winning yields treasure, losing kills your character.
Movement around the map uses a simple directional command of N, S, E, W.
The monsters appear randomly and you decide then if you want to fight, flee, or bribe. It is a very minimal dungeon crawl in a forest style game and typical of BASIC programs from this era – short, hackable, and meant to be typed.
When the game begins, your character starts in a random place in the forest. Each space on the map can be an OPEN space, a tree, or a wall. There are different random events which can take place as you move through the forest:
- you can fall into a pit which causes damage and then deposits you in a different spot on the map
- a giant bat picks you up and deposits you in a random spot on the map – this usually happens as you’re nearing the edge of the forest and possible escape
- you can find treasure guarded by a Nothing
The different monsters and their individual strength are given to you below:
- Basilisk 100
- Chimera 70
- Cyclops 20
- Dragon 80
- Giant 40
- Goblin 5
- Griffin 60
- Harpy 50
- Minotaur 10
- Wyvern 90
- Zombie 30
When you successfully leave the forest, you win the game and are then given your total treasure accumulated score.
Treasures that you find can include silver spoons, swords, jewelry, gold, and chests (some trapped). Enchanted swords can boost your combat strength.
There are ports of the game and emulated versions that exist for the Commodore 64, TRS-80, Atari 8 bit, DOS/GWBASIC, and the TI-99/4A.
Lee J. Chapel wrote a few other games in the early 80s, including some for the TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) like Journey to Mt. Doom. Chapel also wrote a newer version of this game entitled Giant Monster Attack which was published in the book Big Computer Games.
The new version features improved features such as a time limit, inns and castles now featured on the map, spells, and more random events and creatures.
I played the original Monster Combat version that was typed out for the Commodore 64.
Next up on the docket I am going back to 1985 to play Autoduel by Origin Systems.
Until next time……