Crown of Arthain was created by Dan and Marilyn Meller of Illinois and published by Micro Lab, Inc. I am sure we could relegate the subject to an entire blog post but the box art above is simply awesome. The 80’s and 90s were an era where the commissioned art on boxes helped to sell the games. This is the case with Crown of Arthain where the box art seems to suggest that a magnificent adventure awaits you. Unfortunately for the buyer great box art doesn’t necessarily translate into a great game experience.
The Crown of Arthain is a 1 or 2 player game with the following plot premise:
The Kingdom of Arthain is a young kingdom, conquered by the Prince Arthain just 50 years prior. While the Prince was exploring the mountains of his newly conquered lands, his men came across a large cavern full of monsters. Deciding this monster home would be the ideal place to build his new capital, his men cleared the beasts from the caves, and called this their new home. Arthain hired elves and dwarves to deck the underground caverns in great splendor. Within 5 years, Arthain had married his betrothed Melora, and had two sons Berthain and Merthain.
Berthain and Merthain were forever jealous of the other, always seeking what the other possessed. Their jealously eventually led to the deaths of the other’s girlfriend. Outraged, Arthain banished each child to a fort on opposite ends of the far outskirts of his kingdom, never to step foot in the capital again. Arthain’s had further sons, but they were to lose their lives in the various skirmishes the kingdom partook in. Finally, on his deathbed, in need of an heir, Athain wrote a letter to his two wayward sons. His crown lies within the halls of the mountain kingdom, and the son who can first retrieve it shall become king of the mountain kingdom.
You can then choose two player competitive play or a single player campaign. I chose the single player campaign.
Most of the game is played primarily on an overhead hexagonal grid as shown above. The two princes are separated by an impassable mountain range. Each player then begins to explore their half of the map looking for two key NPCs. One of the NPC’s is a dwarf who has a map showing which of the mountains in the middle of the map contains the underground halls which contain the crown. The other NPC is an elf who provides you with a magical password to open the door to the underground halls. The first hurdle that you will need to overcome is that the dwarf wants 5000 gold pieces for the map. In order to obtain the 5000 gold pieces you are going to have to explore each of the hexes on your side of the map. Once you have completely cleared out a hex of monsters it remains cleared; the monsters do not repopulate that particular hex. The creatures that you will encounter in the game include: trolls, wights, ogres, goblins and more. Each hexagon usually contains a treasure which can be discovered by searching the area. The hexagon may contain gold, magic armor, a sword, cloaks of protection, copper amulets, a magic light or a magic shield. Most of the items serve to increase your attack and defense ratings and the copper bracelets increase the rate at which you regenerate lost hit points. You will need to procure the magic light before you enter the underground halls.
Combat in the game is like nothing I have encountered yet. Once you enter combat the screen switches to show you standing toe to toe with your opponent and you then begin exchanging blows until one of you is slain. You can (T)hrust, (H)ack, and (S)hield. It really seems to be an arcade experience based on rhythm and timing of your blows. It is one of the oddest gaming experiences I have endured so far as I play through these early role playing games. The dots depicted below are your hit points.
Once you acquire enough gold to purchase the map, and you have the password and magical light in hand, you can now proceed to enter the underground halls. This next phase of the game was surprising as well because once you enter the dungeon it feels as if you’re playing a module from the Dunjonquest series. Many of the keyboard commands are the same as you begin to move about the dungeon in search of the crown.
Once you do find the crown you’ll find that it is guarded by none other than a dreaded dragon!
Once you defeat the dragon you’ll win the crown.
I had mentioned in my previous blog post that these early role playing games seem like they are feeling around in the dark a bit and you get a good sense of what I’m talking about as you see that game play and experience between Caverns of Mordia and Crown of Arthain are like night and day.
It took me a little less than 2 hours to do a complete play through of Crown of Arthain. It was so unique and just short enough that I appreciated having had the experience by the end of it all. I do find it amazing however that in 1980 someone paid $35 for this given the amount of gameplay that you get out of it.