Author: professor6153

Have you ever owned a Ninja blender or food processor? The Game of Dungeons is quite like that. I am now currently on my 22nd character. The first 21 characters have been “chewed up” and turned into a puree.

Game of Dungeons is unforgiving but the complexities of this hidden gem from 1975 are amazing. There is a definite learning curve with the game. One wrong move and your character is suddenly a new smoothie.

The character depicted above is Ryshad the 22nd (Ryshad 1 through 21 having experienced a variety of agonizing deaths). I have painstakingly taken my time in building him up and making sure that he has all of the magic items that the game has available. You can see them listed above.

I have learned a few things since my first Game of Dungeons review:

1. Never, I mean never, no really, NEVER attempt to open a chest unless after examining it you are told that it appears harmless. If you attempt to open a chest after being told that it is “too dark to tell” or that it “appears dangerous” you will blown into tiny bits.

2. The same advice above goes for picking up magic items as well. It took quite a long time to finally acquire the above magic items that were not trapped or rigged to blow.

3. A couple of the magic items really make a huge difference. The amulet is a must have magic item as it helps to acknowledge when you are near a square that teleports you to a different level of the dungeon. It also rates how difficult your combat is likely to be when you encounter dungeon denizens. If it tells you that your foe is a pushover you can go ahead and fight the creature confidently. If you get a message like “good luck” or “warning” then hold your breath as you cast a spell.

4. The Ring of Levitation is another must have item because this allows you to walk right over the top of a pit without falling into it. When you fall into a pit it can drop you multiple levels and that likely ends in disaster. So possessing this ring is a game changer as it allows you to map out the levels without the fear of falling to much deeper levels.

5. The bag of holding is a must have item as well though it is both a blessing and a curse. The bag of holding allows you to pick up and carry more gold out of the dungeon than you would normally be allowed to carry. The downside of this is that the more gold you’re carrying the more monsters you attract AND the more powerful they are. So when you start to acquire “quite a haul” the wandering monsters you encounter can be of significantly higher levels.

6. I have finally gotten use to mapping this particular dungeon complex and dealing with the teleporter squares. There are usually two on every level. One that will teleport you one level lower and one that will teleport you one level higher. Mapping each level is tedious because you have to ultimately make your way back up to the 1st level and the exit. You cannot over-extend yourself on a lower level then make your way up or once again you’re going to fall victim to this giant Ninja character processor.

You can also elect, if you find yourself in trouble, to hit Shift-T on your keyboard. This will instantly teleport you one level higher than the level you’re on. WARNING: There is a 10% chance of failure and it instead teleports you one level lower. I, much to my chagrin, found this out the very first time I attempted to try it. There is some strategy involved in this decision as doing so costs you 2 magic-user spell slots PLUS a clerical spell slot so choose wisely.

I am enjoying this game quite a bit but it is a tedious experience. I have successfully mapped out the first six levels of the dungeon. Levels 1-5 are depicted below. They are accurate and I hope they are a help if you choose to try and play this game. Remember that our goal is to find the dragon guarding the Orb on levels 17-20, defeat the dragon, take the Orb, then climb all the way back up to the 1st level. I obviously have a lot of grinding and mapping to do to prepare myself for the coming battle.

In most computer role-playing games you’re either controlling one character or a party of 4-6 characters. I have often wondered, dear reader, how YOU go about choosing a name for your characters.

In the first game that I played, Dungeon, I chose the name of Mordred for my character. I chose this name because this is a character variously portrayed in Arthurian legend.

In the current game I am playing, Game of Dungeons, my character’s name is Ryshad. I chose this particular name because I am currently reading Juliet E. McKenna’s excellent Tales of Einarinn series in which Ryshad is a featured character.

When I choose character names I tend to use the names of memorable characters from either books that I’ve previously read or books that I’m currently reading. In the past I’ve also used names from my group of friends for larger parties and on a bad day I even admit to using my mother-in-laws name for the meat shield of the party.

My favorite method remains choosing the names from memorable characters from books that I have read or am reading.

I would love to hear how YOU go about choosing names for your characters in your games or what are some of your most memorable character names that you’ve created.

I am also curious; do you have particular names that are staples from game to game or do you constantly change things up?

I look forward to hearing from you and happy gaming!

Here is a little bit of history taken right from the PLATO network

The Game of Dungeons was also written in 1975 and the next challenge in my quest to play all CPRGs in chronological order. Character generation in the Game of Dungeons is slightly different than in Dungeon. You have four key attributes: strength, intelligence, wisdom, and dexterity. When you press a key and roll for these four attributes you are basically creating a character that is a combination fighter, magic-user, and cleric.

The character, upon creation, begins play with all of his or her magic-user and cleric spells. These spells increase in power as the character gains levels. There is a little bit of humor or snark in play here as evidenced by the names of these spells.

Your intelligence helps you in wielding magic-user spells and your wisdom helps you to cast clerical spells. Your fighting skills in Game of Dungeons plays a more prominent role than it did in the previous game; but your spells are still your principal weapons here. Sleep, Charm, Hold, and Dispell are all or nothing spells and they are quite affective. Sleep works automatically on all creatures that are Level 4 and under.

The number of spells that you can cast increases as you gain power. You gain power and more hit points by collecting gold and slaying monsters. You gain a hit point for every 4,000 gold pieces that you find and for every 10,000 gold pieces you find you gain an extra magic-user spell slot and for every 16,000 gold pieces you find you gain an extra clerical spell slot. Your level is the amount of experience you have divided by 10,000. If you have 24,000 in experience points then you are a level 2 character. Your level also determines the amount of damage your spells do to monsters.

There is a lot more complexity and moving pieces here than in the previous Dungeon game. For instance, each spell that you select has much greater chance of success against certain foes. Ahab has done exhaustive research into the spells and their affect on the monster types here which I’ll share.

In the previous Dungeon game there was only one level on a 30 x 30 grid. In Game of Dungeons there are 20 different levels to map out in a 9 x 9 grid. So the dungeon complex is much larger than in the previous game.

There are a number of obstacles or problems that makes this a much more difficult game and a tremendous grind:

Scattered throughout each level are secret doors, teleport squares, and pits that can drop you into the lower levels of the dungeon. Careful mapping is a must!

Any chests or magic items that you find are booby trapped to quite likely explode; instantly killing you. Your chance of instantly dying early on from an exploding chest or item is so hit & miss that you are better off avoiding chests and magic items early on. This creates a grinding dilemma because random gold that you find scattered throughout the dungeon is much less than you’d find in chests. However I went though 20 characters, yes that is correct, 20 characters taking my chances opening chests and picking up magic items. By completely avoiding them early on I have been able to slowly build up my character.

This is the first game (1975) that has introduced the idea of a big boss. The object of the game is to defeat a dragon located somewhere between levels 17-20, obtain an orb, and then bring it back up to the surface.

I have so far almost successfully mapped out the first two levels as shown below. I am currently on my 21st character and trying to get the character strong enough to venture down into the 3rd level (assuming I’m not teleported or fall down a pit and end up dead)

I will have more to say about this game as I continue to explore it’s nuances and grind away. As always, thank you for reading me.

The earliest known dungeon crawl computer games appeared on the PLATO System. Launched in 1960 at the University of Illinois and initially running on the ILLIAC I computer, PLATO was the first generalized computer assisted instruction system. By 1971, PLATO ran on CDC mainframes, which were considered super computers at the time. PLATO was accessible from 150 remote terminals by 1975. Its TUTOR authoring programming language allowed anyone to create new lessons, which ranged widely in academic subject and scope.

PLATO was a shared system and access and resources were limited. The earliest surviving role-playing game on the PLATO is pedit5, alternately called The Dungeon, written in 1975 by Rusty Rutherford. Rutherford worked for the Population and Energy Group at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and his group was assigned pedit1 through pedit5.Pedit1 through pedit3 were programs for the Population and Energy Group, which left two surplus spots for additional usage. The game was frequently deleted, as the system administrators determined that gameplay was an inappropriate use of this space. An earlier game, m199h, appears in some PLATO lesson lists, but descriptions of this program sound more like a text-based Adventure type game than a dungeon crawl.

You can still play these old mainframe games by going to cyber1.org. Cyber1 is a group of people dedicated to the preservation of the world’s first computer based community. I greatly appreciate and respect the work they do there otherwise I would not have been able to experience this little bit of history. From there, you request a sign in and password and usually within 3 days a site administrator will send you an email with a set of instructions on how to begin. There is a little bit of a learning curve setting up the terminal emulator program and finding your way around but it is not too difficult.

It was in 1973 that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson collaborated on drafts of Dungeons & Dragons. In 1974 Dungeons & Dragons was first published in January as three booklets shipping in a woodgrain-colored cardboard box and all 1,000 units sold out. It was not hard to imagine that once a few savvy computer programmers got ahold of this material that you would soon see some electronic incarnation of it.

As outlined above; it is the Year of the Beast and your quest is to explore the dungeons beneath the Castle Ramething. “Mersad,” “Caer Omn,” and “Ramething” are anagrams of, respectively, “Dreams,” “Romance,” and “Nightmare. They might be a reference to the book Something about Eve by James Branch Cabell in which there is a magic “Mirror of Caer Omn” that is found in the “land of Dersam.”

The program then rolls randomly and numbers are assigned to attributes of Strength, Intelligence, Constitution, and Dexterity. You want a high strength if swordplay is your primary focus and a high intelligence will increase the damage of your spells. You then have to choose a name for your character and I decided on Mordred for our first foray.

The monsters that you’ll encounter in the dungeon come in five different categories. Each creature type can range in levels from 1-6 in terms of difficulty.

There are 16 total spells available to you as your character progresses in levels. 8 magic-user spells and 8 cleric spells.

So how did I fare? Mordred embarked on his quest to explore the dungeon underneath the castle and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the dungeon is actually static. It is not random and can be mapped out. The dungeon is in a 30 x 30 grid however I beat the game before I could finish mapping out the entire complex. In order to win the game, you have to accrue 20,000 experience points. Once you beat the game; you’re shown a victory screen and then placed in a Hall of Fame and you no longer have access to the character. In order to finish mapping out the complex; I would have had to start with another character but I was content to move on to the next challenge.

Trying to get to 20,000 experience points is no easy task. When you hear gamers describe some role playing games as a “grind” this is certainly the epitome of that. The encounters are very quick and the rolls are random. You could begin in the dungeon and suddenly find yourself facing a 6th level ogre. It is at that point that the dungeon walls receive a new paint job; with you being the paint. I must have gone through at least a dozen characters before I realized that spell casting was much more important in this game than swordsmanship. Each combat; even if you should luck upon a +1 magical sword, are subject to the whims of fate. There were a couple of times where I had over 10,000 experience points and thought I was on a roll when something appeared in the corridor and promptly beat me to a pulp.

In this game dead is dead. You can save your character and then come back at a later time to play but if your character dies in the dungeon that is it. You must start completely over again. What this does is create quite a bit of anxiety as you realize that any and every encounter can completely do you in. It was beginning to get exasperating starting all over again after a crushing defeat. You gain experience by slaying monsters and finding treasure. The treasure that you find is randomized throughout the dungeon. You might uncover a few silver pieces or gold but what you really want to hope for is that you luck upon pieces of valuable jewelry or gems. These items really give you an experience point boost.

Because you have to rely on your spells so much; you need to be very careful to keep track of how many spell slots you have left the farther away from the dungeon entrance you get. Unfortunately you DO have to continue further and further away from the entrance because while wandering monsters can continue to appear at any time in rooms or corridors; the game remembers what rooms you explored and where you have found chests of treasure. So if you want to find chests of treasure and get experience point boosts that means you have to find new, unexplored rooms you have not mapped out yet.

There are no text descriptions in any of the rooms. There are simply the monster encounters and the quest for treasure. This reminds me very much of an early Wizardry since the dungeon is static and can be mapped out. You will have to actively search for secret doors (yes they do exist) or if you want to cast a clerical Continual Light spell they will highlight the secret doors for you. A word of warning however; you want to economize your spell slots for offensive spells to stay alive. If you rely only on your sword you could die in any encounter. You will have to map the dungeon out if you want to be successful so have some graph paper and a pencil handy. There are some “mappers” who will thrill to this task and others who think an auto-mapping feature is the greatest invention since the light bulb.

I mentioned economizing your spells for offensive purposes and I need to be more explicit. It is the casting of spells that will give you any chance of winning this game. The Sleep spell is wonderful for any humanoids under 4th level for example whereas undead monsters are unaffected by Sleep and Charm spells so you’ll have to resort to a Magic Missile or Blastbolt spell to do the trick. And the spells are remarkably efficient resulting in an almost guaranteed kill. So keeping careful track of your available spell slots, monitoring how far you are from the dungeon entrance as you map deeper and deeper into the complex is a high priority.

I have to say for as rudimentary as this is; I marvel at how well it played and how spectacular it must have been for folks in 1975. In my opinion it runs better than some later commercial programs. It is very grindy and tedious and requires patience and a passion for the medium. I thoroughly enjoyed it and am very grateful to the folks at Cyber1 that I was able to travel back through time and play through this moment of history.

I did end up beating the game. It was so grindy and there was so much anxiety with each encounter that I actually pumped a fist into the air when I was shown the screen below.

And here is another screen shot showing Mordred at the top of the Hall of Fame List.

The % of kills is the amount of the 20,000 experience points which came from slaying monsters. Depending on the gold and treasure that you acquire and whether you choose to run away from an encounter can greatly affect these percentages. You will note that I actually had a greater percentage of kills than anyone on that list and that’s because I was grinding it out and mapping carefully and not taking too many chances with my spell slots. Remember: dead is dead.

The game is moderately difficult. You are the subject of random encounters and random rolls and you must map out the dungeon to be successful. Many will find that they go through several characters if not a dozen or more until they find enough treasure to build up their hit points and spells. There really is no story or background apart from the screen shot that I provided above so a generous dose of your imagination as you wander the halls and explore rooms is recommended. There is no music or sound.

Below is the map that I made of the Dungeon. Remember that it is incomplete but if you abhor mapping than you can certainly make good use of this as a start

I really enjoyed the experience and I now look forward to my next challenge: The Game of Dungeons which was also created in 1975 and found on the Plato system as well.