The Temple of Apshai was the most successful and most widely ported game in the Dunjonquest series.
Dunjonquest is a series of single player computer role playing games. The games relied on strategy and pen and paper RPG style rules and statistics. There were actually three different kinds of Dunjonquest games and I used to get confused about the particular order of the titles and how they should be played. I wanted to take a moment to identify the different types of Dunjonquest games.
There were two basic types of Dunjonquest games:
- Temple of Apshai & Hellfire Warrior and their related expansions are all larger games. Each contain four dungeons with detailed room descriptions and there is no time limit. These games have an Innkeeper area where the player character is created and equipment can be bought and sold. Character statistics can also be typed in manually and character saves were allowed between sessions. The dungeons are reset upon each visit.
- Datestones of Ryn, Morloc’s Tower and Sorcerer of Siva were sold under a MicroQuest label and were half the price of the larger games. Each were confined to a single, smaller dungeon and the player had to achieve a goal with a time limit. There are no room descriptions and no Innkeeper, the player character is predefined.
- Temple of Apshai (Augus 1979) – the first and most successful of the Dunjonquest titles is a longer game spanning four dungeons with more than 200 rooms with detailed descriptions. The game had no specific goal other than explore a temple to amass treasure and gain experience.
- Datestones of Ryn (November 1979) – the first in the Microquest series. The object is to enter a lair of robbers, find as many of the Datestones as you can in a 20 minute time limit and get out. This was a stand alone, shorter game.
- Morloc’s Tower (September 1980) – the second Microquest adventure finds you exploring a six story tower with over 30 rooms total. Morloc is a boss enemy who has to be defeated within 45 minutes of starting the game.
- Hellfire Warrior (September 1980) – a direct sequel to Temple of Apshai consisting of four different dungeons. Players are led into the ruins underneath the temple. The four dungeon levels are: The Lower Reaches of Apshai, The Labyrinth of the Minotaur, The Vault of the Dead, and The Plains of Hell.
- Upper Reaches of Apshai (September 1981) – this is an Expansion Pack to Temple of Apshai. It contains four new dungeon levels for beginning characters and contains a more humorous tone.
- The Keys of Acheron (September 1981) – the first Expansion Pack to Hellfire Warrior provides four new dungeon levels to find the four Keys of Acheron. The player is constantly stalked by a demon who tries to prevent the finding of the keys.
- Sorcerer of Siva (December 1981) – the last stand alone game in the series. The player takes on the role of a wizard, who is thrown in a labyrinth of mines by his rival.
- Curse of Ra (1982) – this is the second Expansion Pack for the Temple of Apshai. It is set in ancient Egypt and has a higher difficulty level then the previous two parts. It consists of four new dungeon levels with 179 rooms.
- Danger in Drindisti (1982) – the second Expansion Pack to Hellfire Warrior also features four new dungeons. The player has to defeat a boss enemy in each level.
- Temple of Apshai Trilogy (1985) – featuring the main game and it’s two Expansion Packs. New graphics and music were added. This new version is now available on Steam.
You begin the Temple of Apshai game with the Innkeeper. You can create a character here as well as purchase armor, weapons, and supplies. You have two different ways that you can choose to generate a character:
- You can choose to have the Innkeeper create a character for you. In this instance the computer will randomly generate your six character attributes.
- You can choose to manually enter or type in a character that you’re currently playing in a fantasy role-playing campaign. You can type in your own attribute scores with 18 being the maximum. If your character in the campaign had magical weapons or armor you can manually enter those as well. This was clearly an attempt to create cross platform opportunities for characters in a real-life Dungeons & Dragons campaign with that of a computer game.
The six character attributes are Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence and Ego. Once your character has been generated and appropriately named you are given some starting silver and allowed to purchase weapons and supplies. There are not a lot of choices here but certainly many more choices than Akalabeth: World of Doom provided. You can even purchase a bow, arrows, salves, and elixirs.
One you have purchased all of your gear you are ready to start your foray into one of the Temple dungeons. There are four different dungeons in Temple of Apshai. The first level is for character levels 1-3 and thus is the easiest of the dungeons and then each level gets progressively harder. The fourth dungeon is the hardest level and combat can be grueling. You can only move between the four different dungeons by way of the Innkeeper. So once you have completed the first level you may head back and sell the treasures that you have collected and also purchase more equipment. Each time you successfully venture into the dungeons you acquire experience points. The more experience points you earn the more powerful you become. Each time you make your way back to the Innkeeper he will keep track of your experience points. The Innkeeper will continue to track your experience points until you turn off the computer or generate a new character. When you leave the Innkeeper he will ask you which dungeon level you want to explore. You can choose 1 through 4.
There is no major plot or goal in Temple of Apshai other than to explore the four dungeon levels and amass as much gold and treasure as you can. It is necessary to map the levels out by hand using graph paper or you will easily become lost.
I ended up amassing 3,655 experience points after exploring Level 1. Most of my encounters on this level were with Ant Men, Beetles, and Leeches. There were five different traps on this first level that you’ll want to be wary of: the lily trap, needle trap, pit trap, spear trap, and mold trap. This is what your computer screen looks like while exploring the Temple:
The graphics are simple but they certainly get the job done. The view of the dungeon is from a top down perspective. There are secret doors and rooms so you’ll need to take the time to search for them. Your wounds and fatigue are monitored on the upper right side of the screen as well as your total number of monsters slain. Remember this is how you gain experience points and increase in power.
Where the Temple of Apshai really shines however is with the manual that comes with the game. You’ll notice in the upper right hand corner of the screen there is a room number. There are a total of 233 rooms among the four dungeon levels and every single room has a written description in the manual. Once you enter a room and deal with any inhabitants you can then read the room description in the manual.
When I first started play I found the experience of moving from the computer screen to the manual to read room descriptions a little over stimulating and I felt discombobulated. However after several rooms I found that this helped to create a more immersive experience and I found myself to be greatly enjoying the process. The writing is very well done and it definitely creates a particular mood or tension. One of my favorite rooms involved an altar and a giant statue of a praying mantis. If you rob or disturb the altar the giant praying mantis comes to life and you have to do battle with it. The graphic of the giant mantis actually looked pretty cool too. The treasures that you find in the game are also numbered and they have specific descriptions in the manual as well. This was definitely a way to work around the technology that currently existed in order to create a more immersive experience. You will later see that the very popular Gold Box series from SSI adopted this same format. The Temple of Apshai was a tremendous commercial success for its era, selling 20,000 copies by the end of 1981 and 30,000 copies by June of 1982. It remained a best seller for four years and was followed by several sequels that were collectively known as the Dunjonquest series which I outlined above.
Once I finished exploring and mapping the second level of Apshai I had now accumulated a total of 8,095 experience points and I had a magic sword in my possession too. The Temple of Apshai manual also contains a short story introducing the character of Brian Hammerhand. This fictional character appears in several short story sections in the different dunjonquest manuals. The author uses him as an introduction into the fantasy world and narrative. The manual is extremely well done and very impressive. The manual concept is very similar to role-playing solitaire adventures.
Once I arrived at the Innkeeper after my sojourn into the 3rd dungeon level I found I had amassed 16,320 experience points. I was getting very comfortable mapping out the levels and getting great enjoyment moving from the computer screen to reading the detailed room descriptions in the manual. There definitely was a difficulty progression moving from the first dungeon level to the fourth. The difficulty factor became very apparent however with the fourth dungeon level.
In the fourth dungeon level you’ll find that the monsters are much more numerous. Every time you think an encounter has concluded another Antman or creature will respawn. I ended up surviving the fourth level but BARELY and this is after gaining a lot of confidence from my foray into the third. When I reached the Innkeeper I had a total of 24,135 experience points.
Each level took approximately 2.5 hours to play. I spent 10-12 total hours with the game on the complete play-through.
I found the Temple of Apshai to be extremely enjoyable. It goes to show you that you don’t necessarily need great graphics to enjoy a good game. The introduction of the detailed room descriptions in the manual created a much greater immersive experience for me and the writing was great. It is easy to see how this game launched an entire series of sequels.
The Temple of Apshai and Akalabeth: World of Doom were the ambassadors in this era for all of the other CRPGs that would come after them. I am very grateful to have found the time to be able to sit down and experience this game in its entirely. I strongly recommend that you try this piece of CRPG history. Coincidentally, the Temple of Apshai Trilogy was just released on Steam for only $3.99 so journey back through time and brave the dungeons of Apshai!