Author: professor6153

I always feel a twinge of excitement when I am getting ready to start a new game. It is that thrill of discovery combined with the wonder of what new challenges and surprises might await.

I am on a personal quest to play as many CRPGs, Adventure Games, & Graphic Adventures as I possibly can in the order in which they first appeared. I know what you’re thinking. ‘This is impossible!’ or ‘This guy is nuts!’ Well you may be right on both counts but I’m certainly going to have fun with the process.

I wanted to cover each of the games that I played in detail here in this blog. My favorite genre or type of game is the role-playing game; specifically the dungeon crawlers. So I decided to start my quest with games created in 1975 because it was in this year that CRPGs were being created on university computer systems. In his book, Dungeons & Desktops, Matt Barton calls this period of time the “Dark Age” and it persists through 1979. There were not many games to cover in 1975 & 1976 but I had a hell of a time playing the CRPGs found on the Plato System. You can read about my experience with those early games here on the blog. Moria was one of the games that ended up occupying hours and weeks of my time which brought the blog to an almost screeching halt.

1978 provided me with many more game experiences as the home computer revolution begins to take shape. I found myself on quite a roll as I moved from one game offering to the next from 1978. It was in 1978 that text adventures or interactive fiction began to gain in popularity and we were introduced to a number of these.

I am now wrapping up the last game that was on my list to play from 1978. I knew about a week ago that I would have to begin research on which games were eligible to make the list for 1979. My criteria were pretty simple: 1) was the game available to play in 1979? 2) does it fall under the category of computer role-playing game or interactive fiction? 3) thematically does it sound like something that I’d like to play?

The list has been officially created and I wanted to share it with you. I will also make it available so that it can be accessed from the homepage of the website. If you think that I have made an oversight and I have missed something that belongs on this list; please leave a comment and I will add it to the list. You’ll also notice that I wanted to take a little time to experience Asteroids, Galaxian, and Space Invaders because these treasures debuted in arcades and took the world by storm.

This is the playlist that I compiled from 1979. I will play them in no particular order though admittedly it is the CRPGs I am drawn to the most. I have been particularly looking forward to playing Akalabeth: World of Doom and the Dunjonquest series. There are some amazing looking games on the list and I cannot wait to begin. Once again, fellow wizards, if there is a game I have overlooked from the annals of our history please bring it to my attention so that I can add it to the list. There are a total of 43 games on that list. I am not sure how many hours, days, weeks, months of my time this list is going to occupy but I am looking forward to the journey. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to charge the battery for my lantern, procure some rations, and find 50′ of rope.

King Tut’s Tomb is the third text adventure published in 1978 from 12 year old Greg Hassett. His previous two games: Journey to the Center of the Earth & House of Seven Gables have already been covered. The game was developed for the TRS-80 and is yet another treasure hunt that has been wrapped in an Egyptian theme.

This text adventure also contains the additional tropes that we’ve seen so far in 1978: 1) you have to closely monitor your light source or it will run out on you leaving you in the dark and effectively ending your game 2) there is a maze within the pyramid that you’re going to have to decipher.

I had high expectations for this game going in. I had really enjoyed House of Seven Gables and thought it was a vast improvement to Hassett’s first game so I was expecting to see further progression. I am also a sucker for an Egyptian theme and the idea of exploring a pyramid for lost treasures.

While exploring the pyramid, instead of dealing with ghouls and ghosts, you have to contend with Goobers and mummies. I am not exactly sure what a Goober is but my guess is that it is Greg’s answer as a replacement for the Grue which are found in Zork and afraid of the light. These Goober’s are not afraid of light but they are afraid of something else.

There really isn’t much in the way of puzzles. The hardest part of the game is managing your light as a resource and dealing with the Goobers. There are numerous treasures to collect that are scattered about the pyramid so it becomes a simple matter of mapping the pyramid by hand and getting the treasures back to the surface. You can only carry or manage seven items at any one time in your inventory so you’re going to have to make multiple forays into the pyramid.

King Tut’s Tomb is better than Journey to the Center of the Earth but nowhere near as good as the House of Seven Gables. There really is no story to speak of and it is light on puzzles. King Tut’s Tomb was packaged as a trilogy by Mad Hatter Software with Hasset’s other two games. I think I spent about 90 minutes with the game and I was able to obtain all of the treasures and make my way out of the pyramid.

I’m not exactly sure why I didn’t get the maximum score of 207 but I can live with that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash the sand out of my hair.

Treasure Hunt is a puzzle box masquerading as a text adventure. The game was created in 1978 by Lance Micklus for the TRS-80. I could find no packaging or documentation of any kind but Nathan P. Mahney of CRPG Adventures found this short blurb in Softside Magazine:

Here is the plot hook or introduction screen from Treasure Hunt:

I had mentioned in a previous blog post that the influence of Colossal Cave upon other games was far reaching. Up to this point we have seen what seem to be staples in commercial adventure games in 1978: a treasure hunt involving a number of treasures or items that need to be collected and a maze that you are going to have to navigate yourself through. While this game certainly has both it is more than that.

When I first sat down to play Treasure Hunt I made the mistake of assuming that it was a simple little game whereby all you need to do is navigate through the caves and collect the treasures. I was actually biased with ‘fools gold’ on my first playthrough because I was able to collect 15 treasures. Things went from bad to worse at that point.

There are 95 total caves that are numbered 0 to 94. Cave 0 is the entrance & exit and where you can safely deposit the treasures that you find. Each cave lists the other caves that it is connected to by number and you merely choose which cave you want to go to next by typing in the number. It looks like this:

When I first started to play I would list the cave number and then alongside that cave number I would list the exits that you could reach. Like this 50: 25, 49, 73. Each time I visited a particular number I would circle it so that I could easily see the path I had not taken or what numbers were left to reach. Sounds easy enough right? Wrong

There are a number of hazards and problems that are introduced as you play.

• There are pits that you can fall into that immediately cause death. There are three of these pits in the game and so you have to work around the pits by avoiding those cave numbers
• There is a pirate in one of the caves and if you do not avoid him he will take your treasures and scatter them about to other caves and your hunt for those treasures will have to begin anew (with a lantern that is running low)
• You can experience an earthquake which shakes the entire cave. I did not understand what the big deal was at first until I realized that each time there is an earthquake (yes they are random and can occur multiple times) that it changes the locations of each of the items in the game. I cannot even begin to tell you how devastating this is.
• There is a giant bat that can randomly swoop down, pick you up, and deposit you in a different part of the caves. When it does this you drop all of the items you are carrying and they are randomly scattered about the cave. This too is particularly devastating.
• There is a dragon located in the caves that will kill you unless you are carrying a particular item……….

These hazards presented a problem for me because of the way that I had decided to map the cave complex. There is an additional wrinkle or complexity to the game. Some of the treasures or objects are needed to acquire or activate other treasures or encounters. You can only carry three treasures at any one time and you cannot drop a treasure. So you must avoid picking up certain treasures but remember where those treasures are located so that you can use them later to solve the game’s puzzles.

This is where I pause to introduce Jason Dyer’s excellent Renga In Blue and the All Adventures project that he is working on. They say imitation is the best form of flattery and it was his idea to begin the All Adventures project which led me to the decision to do something similar. My absolute favorite genre in computer gaming is the role-playing game and particularly the dungeon crawler subset. While my primary goal was to play each CRPG in the year in which it was published I could not ignore the fact that I am a voracious reader and love puzzles. If I focus solely on CRPGs then I am missing out on an entire world of adventure so I decided instead to take a page out of Jason’s book and play and blog about every adventure game ever made in chronological order. There was an individual named Peter who had commented on Jason’s own experience with Treasure Hunt. I am sarcastically paraphrasing (because it was anything but simple in my opinion) Peter who offered that there was indeed a pattern to the numbers and that they could be mapped into overlapping rings. I admit to being humbled by this individual because he made it sound so simple and then he provided a most excellent map. I wadded up my own maps in disgust and I instead used Peter’s map which Jason posted and I will now provide as well. Once I had this map in my possession it made things much easier.

It then became a simple matter to work through the puzzles and acquire the treasures. Even when the bat deposited me in another area of the caves and scattered a couple of the treasures I was able to quickly regroup because of Peter’s wonderful map. The puzzles are unique and fun to work through. One of my favorites involved the dragon. Now normally I do not like to provide spoilers for the games I am playing through. It is my hope to accomplish three things with this blog: 1) to leave you with an appreciation for the history of computer games and how they have changed through the years and influenced other games that would come after 2) that each game is a work of art to be appreciated and that programmers and the people who have created these games should be considered artists; and 3) that reading about my experiences with these older games may entice you to attempt to play them and experience them for yourself. I love to create my own hand drawn maps for the games that I play but I felt like having Peter’s map improved the experience for me. In fairness, I likely feel this way because I spent a good amount of time creating a map on my own. Now getting back to the dragon; I just had to share this bit of comic relief with you however I must warn you that it contains a SPOILER.

I laughed out loud at that one. Classic. You’re on your own with the other puzzles in the game.

I ended up spending more time with Treasure Hunt than I expected to. It first presents itself as a simple affair but it is layered in complexities. It is more a puzzle box than text adventure. The map is diabolical as well as the random events which serve to hinder your progress. The waning lamp also adds a time constraint to the game. There MAY be a way to extend the life of the lamp but that is up to YOU to figure out dear reader. While I expected Treasure Hunt to merely be a box to check for 1978 I found it to be a very unique experience; different from anything that has come before it. I wanted to thank Lance Miklus, the author, for this little piece of gaming history and work of art.

This is the second in a series of text adventures published by Mad Hatter Software and written by the 12 year old Greg Hassett. We played and reviewed Greg’s first game, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and while I found it enjoyable I felt that it needed to be fleshed out a bit more with a bit more polish added.

Hassett’s sophomore effort, House of Seven Gables, is loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book; The House of Seven Gables. The novel is a gothic romance focusing on a New England family and their gothic home. There are suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft throughout the book. The House of Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.

The publishing company or Hassett must have felt a need to commercially tie two of his games to published books. The relationship between the Journey to the Center of the Earth game with Verne’s work is tenuous at best. The same can be said for the House of Seven Gables. The supernatural and witchcraft elements are only presented as undertones in Hawthorne’s work but in Hassett’s text adventure they are very real.

Greg Hassett’s second effort is a much more concise and enjoyable game. The game provides a first for us as I believe this is the first commercial game to feature a haunted house theme.

The game begins with you outside of the house. You can see a shiny compass which you can pick up. Once you enter the house you are effectively trapped inside of it. You cannot escape the house until you have killed the witch responsible for locking you inside.

There are several horror movie themes scattered throughout the game. You’ll encounter ghouls, ghosts, a vampire, a mad scientist’s laboratory and eventually the wicked witch.

The House of Seven Gables contains a couple of characteristics which seem to have become common place in text adventures during this time period. There is a maze which you have to traverse and figure out in order to claim your “reward” at the end and the game also involves a treasure hunt.

There are eight different objects for you to collect and you get points for depositing these objects in the living room. This was not clear nor were there any instructions telling you to collect these treasures but I found that once I started dropping them in the living room I started to accrue points. The number of points that you receive for finding these treasures is secondary to the ultimate goal of defeating the witch and escaping the house. Once you have slain the witch and you leave the house you then win the game regardless of the points you have or the number of treasures that you have collected.

The ghoul and the ghost are two supernatural opponents who keep appearing randomly throughout the game. There is a way to deal with the ghoul and a disembodied voice in the hall closet will give you a hint to help with that endeavor. I never could find a way to deal with the ghost other than to give it a treasure. It demands treasure and once you give it one of the eight valuable objects it will go away for awhile. Perhaps there is another way to deal with the ghost but I did not find it.

I am not going to list the eight treasures that you can collect as I do not want to spoil it for anyone who wants to experience the game for themselves. I have always been a fan of the supernatural and haunted house themes so this checked a couple of boxes for me and was a refreshing change of pace from the Colossal Cave fantasy treasure hunt clones.

There are a few spelling errors in the game which should really be unforgivable. I am surprised that neither Hassett or the publisher caught these and allowed them to exist in a commercial product. I am not sure that Greg Hassett actually knew what a gable is or perhaps I don’t because architecturally they did not seem to make sense where they were located in the house.

There were also a few things in the game that left me confused. I am not sure if these were merely red herrings, or if they existed to provide some background color, or if I failed to find a use for them or connect them properly within the game. One example of this is the black cat in the game. When you attempt to interact with the cat it disappears in a puff of smoke but threatens that it will return later. The black cat never does return in a different way nor have any other integral part of the plot that I could find. There are a couple of other things like this but they did not ruin the game but only served to add to the mystery of being trapped within a haunted house.

I was able to defeat the witch and make my way out of the house. It took me a bit of exploring to realize that a new exit direction was created out of the living room after defeating the witch. I did not score the maximum 160 points because I held back a couple of the valuables in my possession in case I ran into the ghost while trying to get out.

I really had a positive experience with this game. I think it was the refreshing change away from the fantasy genre and the fact that this was the first commercial game to make use of a supernatural or haunted house theme. The game was tighter and I actually enjoyed my time with it.

I have decided to play Treasure Hunt as the next game in my challenge as I continue to work my way through the 1978 offerings.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is a treasure hunt text adventure game written by Greg Hassett for the TRS-80.

An astounding piece of trivia concerning this game is that Greg was 12 years old and in high school when he wrote the program. Greg would go on to write eight additional text adventures and was the only competitor to Scott Adams in this particular arena at the time.

Journey to the Center of the Earth is loosely based on the Jules Verne book of the same name with particular emphasis on the word loosely. Once you step outside of your ship in the beginning of the game any similarities to Verne’s work ends. The game looks and feels more like a Colossal Cave or Adventureland clone.

There are treasures to collect and you deposit them in your ship. The more treasures you collect and safely deposit the higher your score in the game. A few of the locations feel half-finished; the beginning of an interesting idea that only serves to add color. In this treasure hunt you also have the “maze” trope which has been a staple of the other text adventures that we have played from this era. There are really only three or four puzzles to solve in this game. The hardest puzzle is dealing with the nine-headed hydra.

It did not take me very long to explore all of the areas of the game and eventually solve it. I maybe spent no more than 45 minutes to an hour with the game and the game was much easier than that of Adventureland by Scott Adams.

I am inclined to believe that there were players who enjoyed and appreciated the easier difficulty level. I would have liked to have seen the game locations and descriptions fleshed out a bit more and I would have appreciated the addition of more puzzles. The game just felt a bit incomplete to me or rushed and needed a bit more polish. I had to remind myself also that the game was written by a 12 year old in high school. The game mechanics were flawless and I find that detail to be extremely impressive.

My next game is going to be another text adventure from Greg Hassett entitled the House of 7 Gables.

Knight’s Quest is a role-playing game released for the TRS-80.

The game came packaged with two other games: Robot Chase and Horse Race.

There was no written documentation which came with the game. All of the instructions for the game as well as the plot hook can be found just after the title screen shown above.

The plot hook is interesting enough. You are a new knight for the King of Norsax who is sending you out on your first quest. Nothing too terribly difficult for a first quest; merely obtain a gold chalice from a mountain demon or a gold anchor from a sea demon. Your king doesn’t want to tax your abilities too badly your first day out after all.

The main screen of the game shows you a grid which is supposed to represent an outdoor map. There simply isn’t much in the way of graphics. The gameplay ran very smooth. Your move codes are displayed for you and you use these to move about the map. You may find when you move that the area is safe or you may have an encounter. If there is an encounter it is possible your opponent will challenge your or you may challenge the opponent. I encountered evil knights, sorcerers, smugglers, and a man eating giant. Once combat begins the outcome seems randomly determined. I could not tell you the math or numbers involved if I wanted to. If you win the combat your reputation score goes up and you receive silver pieces. If you lose the combat you are most likely dead or seriously wounded.

I also encountered health springs and monasteries in certain squares. One monastery gave me a magic dagger. If you are in combat you can use the magic dagger to automatically win that particular combat and then it vanishes. It can only be used once.

In my first game I eventually made my way to the sea demon, beat him, and obtained the golden anchor. I made my way back to the castle in five moves and won the entire game in under 15 minutes. I thought perhaps that fate was allowing me to roll a natural 20 so to be sure I started a new game. Again I found the sea demon, beat him, and obtained the golden anchor; making my way back to the castle in five moves. This time it took me only 9 minutes to beat the game. Now; I like to think that I’m good at times; but not THAT good. The game seems rather quick and easy to beat however I found portions of the game to be original and slightly entertaining. The evil knights, the health springs, monasteries that grant a magical dagger, movement on the outdoor map, all of this seemed a bit refreshing or original from what had come before.

The ease with which you can win and the speed of the game are sure to turn many hard core gamers off. It took me longer to emulate this game on my PC than it did to beat it. I don’t regret for a moment though all of the different stops and discoveries I am making on this journey with these different games.

Next up for me is Journey to the Center of the Earth; a text adventure from 1978.

I took a break from computer role playing games in 1978 and turned my attention to the first commercial text adventure. Adventureland is the first of several text adventures created by Scott Adams. He co-founded, with his ex-wife Alexis, Adventure International in 1979. The company developed and published video games for home computers. The cornerstone products of Adventure International were the Adventure series of text adventures written by Adams.

Colossal Cave was written two years earlier by Will Crowther but on a mainframe computer. Adventure International released early text adventures for most of the major home computers of the day. Scott Adams’s work was influential in adventure gaming. In 1990 Computer Gaming World published a statement by a ‘respected designer’ that “it was impossible to design new and more difficult adventure puzzles because Adams had already created them all in his early games.”

Adventureland is #1 in this series of early text adventures by Adventure International. The influence of Colossal Cave here is unmistakable. The number of locations are smaller than that of its predecessor however there is a tightly knit cohesion with each location and their respective puzzles. There is a quirky sense of humor sprinkled throughout the game as well

The goal in Adventureland is to find 13 lost treasures and deposit them in a safe location. This type of game fits into a “treasure hunt” theme which was pervasive in many early text and graphic adventures that flooded the market. The shadow of Colossal Caves would be far reaching. There is also a maze to traverse in Adventureland and this would be another staple which would be included in many future adventure games.

I remember as a youth walking into computer stores and seeing Adventure International games on most shelves. I would end up later cutting my text adventure teeth on Infocom games but as the years rolled by I had always regretted not exploring the worlds created by Scott Adams. I am glad that I finally got the chance to sit down with Adventureland.

I found most of the puzzles in Adventureland to be extremely fair and to make sense. My gripe with many early text adventures is that many break what I call “fair play” rules with their odd logic puzzles. The game runs extremely smooth and I had no technical issues running it in Dos Box. Full disclosure: I had to get a hint for the quicksand portion of the game. I did not have a problem figuring out how to get the treasure found there. My problem was how do I extricate myself from the quicksand? My issue ended up being one of syntax. I also had an issue concerning the bees. I had deduced how they MIGHT be used correctly but both times I carried out my plan the bees suffocated and died. So I naturally thought I must be missing something or doing something wrong. I ended up spending quite some time on that particular puzzle and ended up reading that the bees even when used correctly will suffocate about 50% of the time. GRRRR. I ended doing two more run throughs with those bees and they survived on the 4th take. This comes close to violating my “fair play” rules because WHO is normally going to keep trying the same action multiple times hoping for a different result by the 3rd or 4th time? I had no issues with anything else and I don’t feel too badly allowing myself a gentle nudge to finish.

You may have noticed, dear reader, that I try very hard to avoid giving you the answers to these puzzles or providing a walk through. I know this breaks the mold a bit from other bloggers and I wrestled with this decision because it seems that there is a large audience who do like a complete walk through or spoilers. It is my hope however that by drawing attention to these pieces of history (they are after all an art form and should be considered creative pieces of art) that it gives you the urge to try them out for yourself.

I would like to report that I did find all 13 treasures and completed the game. I enjoyed my time spent with this one and strongly recommend that you grab your favorite beverage, make yourself comfortable, and immerse yourself in this land of adventure. Do you think YOU have what it takes to find all 13 treasures? I look forward to playing the sequel Pirate Adventure and taking you with me on the high seas.

I will be returning to computer role-playing games with Knight’s Quest for my next game.

Synergistic Sofware was founded in 1978 by Robert Clardy, who had quit his job with Boeing Aerospace, and created one of the earliest successful third party software developers for the Apple II platform. Synergistic would later be acquired by Sierra On-Line and the studio eventually closed in 1999. Dungeon Campaign was their first release. Robert Clardy would go on to design several other role playing games such as; Wilderness Campaign ( a direct sequel to Dungeon Campaign ), Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure (not a typo), Adventure to Atlantis, War in Middle Earth, Spirit of Excalibur, Vengeance of Excalibur, Conan the Cimmerian, Warriors of Legend, and Birthright – The Gorgon’s Alliance. Synergistic was also responsible for Diablo: Hellfire Expansion however I do not see Robert Clardy’s name in the credits of that particular title. Robert also wrote, utility, business and educational software for almost every available system. He was also responsible for memorable game adaptations which include: Donkey Kong Jr., Jungle Hunt, Pole Position, and Pitstop II. Robert Clardy was a colorful presence in home computing for more than 20 years!

The first proliferation of CRPGs to hit home computers were vastly different from one another. Each offering, however, was unique and usually presented something that would be modified or improved upon in later commercial offerings. It is important to note as well that these first commercial products were created for a 16k computer. It is no secret that the Plato games we have played through unabashedly borrowed heavily from Dungeons & Dragons. We will learn that many of these first home computer game developers and programmers were also huge fans of the tabletop game and merely wanted to translate their passion into an electronic experience. There was certainly an appetite for computer role playing games and enthusiasts could not get enough. It would later go on to become a tremendous market and a defining genre that exists even today.

The advertisement for Dungeon Campaign certainly fuels the active imagination and is aiming at a specific target audience.

The documentation which came with Dungeon Campaign consisted of seven pages. Below is the introduction and basic premise of the game:

The game begins by generating and drawing four different dungeon levels right before your eyes. I am sure that players in 1978 tried to quickly sketch these maps or commit them to memory. I played Dungeon Campaign using an Apple II emulator and it took approximately two minutes for the four dungeon levels to be created.

The goal of the game is to search the dungeon, find as much treasure as you can, and survive long enough to make your way down to the fourth level where the exit exists. Treasure can be found in some of the rooms and is also guarded by stationary monsters that are randomly placed in each dungeon level. Other dungeon hazards include wandering monsters, pits, poison gas pockets, evil necromancers, and pteridatyls. All of these hazards are randomly generated and scattered throughout the dungeon so no two games are ever the same. You always begin on Dungeon Level 1 which is the highest level and you have to exit from the lowest level which is Dungeon Level 4. There are numerous stairways located throughout the dungeon.

I was surprised in my first play through how often I would suddenly end up on a different dungeon level. Between the pits, the stairways, the evil necromancer teleporting you elsewhere, and the pteridactyl swooping down to fly you to a new location I found myself transported among the four levels at a pretty frenetic pace.

The graphics show you a top down environment. The maze is clear and the different objects in the maze are color coded. For example treasures are yellow, pits are purple, different creatures are particular colors, and so forth.

There are a couple of unique features in Dungeon Campaign. The first is that you do not control one individual character. You instead control a party of 15 which includes 1 elf and 1 dwarf. The elf warns you of danger while the dwarf is responsible for drawing your maps. If the elf is killed in combat you no longer are warned of any danger which might exist in the way of traps or monsters. If your dwarf is slain then you are walking around virtually blind. New sections of your Dungeon Level are not created for you and thus it is like moving around in the dark.

When you encounter stationary or wandering monsters combat usually ensues which then involves pressing the space bar. Random numbers are generated and spin before you usually ranging between 1 and 10. When you press the space bar again it stops the roll and provides you with your number and you are then informed whether you hit your opponent or not. You also roll for the creatures you encounter and it is then you discover if you successfully evaded the attack or lost a party member.

The second unique feature in Dungeon Campaign is that there is a main antagonist or boss in each dungeon level. Once you have spent a particular amount of time in each dungeon level, you are then hunted through the halls by this “boss creature”. If it overtakes you it carries off a character into the dungeon further dwindling your party’s number.

There are bleeps and bloops for various sounds and the graphics depicted are obviously low resolution graphics. You can find two different magic items that are unique to the game: a flying carpet and a potion of invisibility. Each item has it’s own command key and can only be used once per game.

I did finally end up surviving a foray into the dungeon. I found myself in quite a few encounters, suffered from a pocket of poison gas, fell down multiple pits and was chased through the halls by mummies, spectres and dragons. All in all a good time!

There was a sequel which was created entitled Wilderness Campaign which was released in 1980 and I can’t wait for my time with that game as well.

Beneath Apple Manor is a roguelike game written by Don Worth for the Apple II and published by The Software Factory in 1978. Higher resolution Special Editions were released in 1982 and 1983.

Beneath Apple Manor is responsible for a number of “firsts” in computer gaming history. It is the first commercial role playing game developed and released for a home computer and the first commercial product that I have covered here in this blog. It is also the first commercial role playing game to use procedural generation. This allows for randomly created dungeon levels and wandering monsters and less predictable gameplay. You can define the number of rooms you want to play in each level and since the dungeon is randomly generated you are guaranteed never to play the same game twice. The difficulty level of the game changes dynamically to suit your current stats.

I used the term roguelike as a descriptor in my first sentence however Beneath Apple Manor predated the game Rogue by 2 years. Roguelike or rogue-like is a subgenre of video games characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn based gameplay, tile-based graphics, and permanent death of the player character. Rogue was an ASCII based game from 1980 and is considered the namesake of the genre even though Beneath Apple Manor predates it. These types of games became extremely popular in the 1980s by college students and computer programmers leading to hundreds of variants. Don Worth and the creators of Rogue claim that neither knew about the other game.

The plot above is taken from the Beneath Apple Manor documentation which was packaged with the game upon purchase. With the plot hook set I embarked upon my quest. When you first start Beneath Apple Manor it asks if you want to start a Standard Game. If you answer yes the game will procedurally generate 5 rooms per level in the hi-res version and 10 rooms per level in the low-res version. The difficulty level will be set as AVERAGE which in my opinion was challenging enough in the deeper dungeon levels. If you choose NOT to play a standard game then you are given greater control over the procedural generation. You can choose between 2 – 10 rooms per level and you can also choose your difficulty level. Below are the difficulty levels you get to choose from:

• Pushover
• Too Easy
• Beginner
• Safe Trip
• Average
• Challenge
• Tricky
• Touch and Go
• Very Dangerous
• You’re Nuts!!

I chose the Standard Game or Average level which is recommended in the documentation. You do not get to choose your character it is generated for you.

Screenshot from Beneath Apple Manor

During play in the beginning this is what your screen looks like. Your character icon is depicted with sword and shield and as you move about more of the dungeon level is then exposed to you. Initially you are surrounded by darkness and your surroundings are enshrouded in a Fog of War ( a term used in video games to describe uncertainty or the unknown). Your ultimate goal is to find the treasure chests which exist on each dungeon level. One of the treasure chests on each level will have a magic item while the other treasure chests contain gold. As you kill monsters and find treasure you are awarded experience points. These experience points may be traded on a 10 for 1 basis to increase your ability scores.

Your character has four basic ability scores: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Body. Strength is important for carrying the weight of gold, smashing through doors, and inflicting damage on opponents. Intelligence points are spent when casting magic spells. Dexterity represents speed and agility and used to determine your probability to hit an opponent. Your Body points indicate your ability to take punishment.

There are four different kinds of spells in this game: ZAP, HEAL, XRAY, and TELEPORT. ZAP attacks the adjacent monster with a powerful lightning bolt. Your Dexterity attribute is used to determine the probability of it hitting as if you were wielding a magic sword. ZAP inflicts a RANDOM amount of damage up to half of your intelligence. Each time you use ZAP it costs you Intelligence points. HEAL restores Body points at the cost of an equal number of Intelligence points. XRAY is a vision spell that shows you all squares surrounding you in a three square radius. You can see through doors and walls using this as well. TELEPORT drops all the gold you are carrying and sends you to a random spot in the current dungeon level.

One of the most interesting aspects of Beneath Apple Manor in my opinion is the monsters that you encounter. In my previous experiences with role playing games on the Plato network; while there WERE a variety of monsters that you encountered the only way in which they were unique was in the amount of damage that they inflicted or how tough they were to slay. Here, in this game, you encounter seven basic types of monsters however each of them are unique in their own way. First of all, graphically, the sprite portrayals of these monsters is absolutely excellent. It is very clear what you are dealing with and the stereotypical representation of each creature is spot on. You will encounter Green Slimes, Ghosts, Trolls, Purple Worms, Invisible Stalkers, Vampires, and Dragons.

• Green Slimes are the least dangerous of all of the monsters. They inflict minimal damage, are easy to hit, and you encounter many of these in the early dungeon levels.
• Ghosts have nasty abilities. When a Ghost hits you it reduces your strength and there is no way to recover your strength points unless you spend experience points to do so. They cannot be recovered through healing. So Ghosts are experience level drains and they can ONLY be hit with magical weapons or with the ZAP spell
• Trolls are harder to hit, capable of regeneration (they HEAL their body points each round of combat) and they do quite a bit of damage to you in a single blow. They are very dangerous early on in your journey.
• Purple worms are extremely strong and tough but do not move very well. Purple worms can kill you with one blow and their body points are usually double whatever yours are. Purple worm treasures tend to be very large.
• Invisible Stalkers are well…..invisible! When you are struck by an Invisible Stalker and you go to attack; the game will ask you which direction you want to direct your attack at. So you have to guess where your opponent is!
• Vampires are much like a higher level Ghost except that they reduce ALL of your abilities not just Strength. Luckily though, only the current values are reduced. They can be restored through normal healing and rest. When you encounter a Vampire it describes you as feeling an icy chill as you suddenly see all of your ability scores begin to drop! Vampires are very hard to hit and can only be hit with magical weapons. Their treasures, like Dragons, are the largest in the game.
• Dragons are the most powerful of all of the monsters. Their pixelized graphics are remarkably intimidating. They have hides like magic armor, their claws are like magical swords (inflicting TWICE your Strength ability score on average) and they can kill you in a single blow. Their attacks can be very fast. Their treasures are the richest of all of the monsters and it is in a Dragon’s treasure horde that you will likely find the golden apple. It was certainly the case for me as a Dragon was guarding the chest that I ultimately found the golden apple in.

So you can see that each of these seven monsters are indeed unique and they play that way within the game. It is the first game I’ve encountered in my journey where I have found the monsters that you encounter to be so unique in the way that they behave and in what they can do.

You begin play on each Dungeon level from the Main Staircase. Consider it a safe square or a safe haven. Each time you make your way back to the Main Staircase it will ask you if you want to enter the Main Staircase. When you answer yes it is here that you have the opportunity to perform a variety of actions. You can TRADE your experience points on a 10 for 1 basis to increase your four ability scores. You can purchase a WEAPON with your gold. There is not much in the way of variety here; you can only choose between a hand axe and a sword. You can also purchase ARMOR: leather, chain mail, or plate armor. You can also choose to go DEEPER which will take you to the next dungeon level or you can choose a SCAN which is the equivalent of saving your game. Saving your game costs you gold pieces; and the higher that your ability scores are the more expensive it becomes to save your game. It can be a managerial issue for you in deeper dungeon levels where the game can get quite difficult. Lastly you can choose to RETURN to the current dungeon level you were exploring.

Beneath Apple Manor at first blush seems like a pretty straight forward affair and you can certainly bull rush your way through the first several dungeon levels experiencing a modicum of success. However as you move deeper and deeper into the dungeon you’re going to find that the going gets much more difficult. Using your XRAY and TELEPORT spells becomes second nature as you strategically make your way around each level attempting to devise a way to take the treasure chest from each guardian creature. Wandering monsters constantly appear and the frequency increases in deeper levels. Increasing your ability scores also increases the strength and toughness of the monsters that you encounter in each procedurally generated level. This is something new in a computer role playing game and you had best begin to strategize how and when you want to increase your ability scores. Increasing your ability scores can also greatly increase what it costs you to save your game and you may find that you suddenly have increased your way beyond the ability to save a current game. Good luck in finding another chest on a deeper level so that you can do so!

The documentation that comes with the game tells you that if you select the normal game then the game should last about 2 hours. I found this to be inaccurate. I think I had more like 3 to 4 hours invested in the game in totality before I found the golden apple. When you begin to get deeper and deeper you mainly find that you are facing nothing but Vampires and Dragons. You are beset with harder dungeon levels to tactically navigate as well as increased wandering monsters. The save game feature will not save you if your funds are depleted and you find yourself quickly slain twice in a row.

I ended up finding the golden apple on Level 56. I have read several testimonials from players who found it between Levels 40 -45 so I was beginning to worry that I might have a glitch with my particular game file or that I had missed it on a previous level.

I really enjoyed Beneath Apple Manor. It exhibited a lot of “firsts” in CRPGs for the home computer but didn’t get the proper acknowledgement at the time. I wanted to continue to go deeper and deeper in my search for the golden apple. I enjoyed the turned based strategies that had to be employed in the lower dungeon levels. While there is definite “grinding” involved as you work to increase your four ability scores; there is a bit of strategy involved as to which ones to increase first and WHEN to increase the scores adding a new wrinkle to the game. I played the DOS version of the game and I ran it using Dos Box. If you would like to play this little piece of history you can download it for free from here Beneath Apple Manor You will need to install Dos Box in order to get it to run properly. Here is an interview with Don Worth about Beneath Apple Manor and I found it to be a fascinating read here is Don Worth’s Personal Home Page

Alan Isabelle reviewed Beneath Apple Manor in The Space Gamer No. 35, commenting that “All in all, strengths by far outnumber weaknesses. The game is highly recommended.”

Softline in 1983 said of Beneath Apple Manor—Special Edition that “now it’s back, and it’s better”, including improved graphics, varying difficulty levels, and the ability to save progress. The magazine concluded that “BAM is not a game that you will tire of easily … [it] is for any adventurer, beginner to expert”. Computer Gaming World’s Scorpia stated in 1991 and 1993 that Beneath Apple Manor was “terribly slow even by the standards of the day, but it was fun nonetheless” and “not bad for a game” designed for a 16K Apple II

I remember playing Beneath Apple Manor briefly in 1984 while visiting a friend’s house. I found the gameplay just as enjoyable today as I did 36 years ago. I think I enjoyed my experience with it more so this time around. I was able to spend much more time with it; and at my age today I was able to really appreciate it’s niche and role in computer role-playing game history.

Swords and Sorcery is a Star Trek variant in a fantasy setting and it is also turn based. The game became available on the PLATO network in 1977 and it continued to be updated until 1979. Magic items were added to the game in the spring of 1978.

You begin the game as a hero who accepts quests from the King. While on these quests you gain experience and gold and occasionally a magic item. When you complete one quest you receive an award and another quest from the King. Your very first quest will likely involve you having to chop down a particular number of trees. The other quests you receive usually involve killing a number of enemies of type x or finding a particular number of treasures.

The game is grid based and as the player you are able to choose the size of the overall world. The game world is a 10 x 10 universe with each quadrant 10 x 10 tiles. You can choose the number of quadrants; example you can choose the largest 10 x 10 or you can make your game world 4 x 4 quadrants or even just a 1 x 1 quadrant. When you adjust the number of quadrants it changes the difficulty setting of the game. The lower the number of quadrants you select actually makes the game much more difficult because moving away from your enemies becomes virtually impossible.

The game is grid based and movement in the game becomes very tactical. You have trees to avoid unless you chop the tree down. You dictate the number of your moves which is termed “speed” in the game. You can move between 1 and 3 spaces unless you find Phials of Adrenaline in the treasure chests. These will boost your Adrenaline score and allow you to move 4 spaces. You also determine direction. The game is turn based and in the beginning of the game you need to be very careful to avoid running into a tree or a treasure chest. You can actually take damage from running into each and you’ll likely instantly die.

The beginning of the game is extremely brutal. If you should find yourself in an adjacent square to your enemy they will get to attack you. This usually results in instant death. If you even so much as look at them the wrong way – instant death. There are all kinds of threats in the game: wizards, demons, werewolves, goblins, zombies, and a dragon.

What you need to do is find the treasure chests and hope that you obtain arrows. Once you have arrows in your possession the game becomes much easier. You can also find gold or magic items in the treasure chests. The arrows allow you to slay your enemies from afar without risking yourself. Once you begin to build your experience the monsters can no longer kill you with one blow and you can begin to fight toe to toe with your sword as well. Some of the arrows are magical in nature and allow you to kill more than one enemy at the same time. Remember that I mentioned the game is grid based and turn based so if you can move in such a way as to get your enemies to line up in the grid you can take out multiple enemies with one arrow.

There are something called Magic Circles in the game as well to aid you. In a 10 x 10 universe you’ll have 7 Magic Circles to aid you. Monsters cannot attack you while in a Magic Circle. You can sell items and buy swords, arrows, experience, and adrenaline. I strongly recommend you buy arrows with your gold and buying experience does not hurt either as it allows you to stand up to your enemies defensively.

Once you have arrows in your possession the game becomes much easier. You complete your quest and when finished you receive another quest from the king and so on. The game can become rather addictive once you get past the nuances of movement through the tactical grid.

Swords & Sorcery was written by Donald Gillies. My understanding is that by 1980 this was the 7th most popular game on Plato. I rather enjoyed my time spent with Swords & Sorcery. I found the turn based tactical fantasy game a refreshing change of pace from Dungeon, Orthanc, and Moria and an interesting take on the fantasy genre. Tactical, turn based strategy games in the fantasy genre are very popular today with gamers and Swords & Sorcery then can be considered a first or a pioneer in the field.

I can’t stress enough how impressed I am with the level of sophistication and the enjoyment I have derived from these early Plato games. I am extremely glad I have embarked on this journey through time and was able to experience this historical piece of gaming legacy. I would recommend any of the Plato games in the fantasy genre and this one is no different.

Next up in my quest is the game Beneath Apple Manor