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.
