The Dark Kingdom was published in 1980 for the TRS-80 by Computer Simulations Company and written by Stan Schriefer. Computer Simulations released five games in 1980 and three of them were strategy wargames.
I am assuming you begin the game as a knight since you have a humble servant. This servant has regaled you with tales of a rich and evil empire to the east. Astride a horse, armed with a sword and shield, you strike out to the east in search of wealth and adventure.
The setup is simple enough. There is no character creation and you begin the game in section 1 of the kingdom map. There are four total map sections which comprise the kingdom. In each section of the map are various places to investigate which include: swamp, ruins, pond, city, tavern, castle, house, lake, town, temple, desert, forest, valley. When you arrive at the hills for example you can press X on the keyboard to search the area. A search of the area may or may not yield gold and silver. You’ll want to accumulate as much wealth as you can so that you can purchase a magical sword. If you can accrue at least 100 silver that should be enough to purchase the sword. If you find no gold or silver you can keep searching the same area until you do find some. Combat can be quite difficult at first until you’ve gathered enough wealth to purchase the magical sword. Once you have the sword in your possession the combat becomes almost ridiculously easy. The sword can only be purchased in castles and towns.
You begin the game with enough food and water to last three days. You can purchase more in castles and towns. The game keeps track of your time while you’re traveling and if you go too long without proper rest you’ll enter combat and suddenly see your stats drop 50% so you’re going to have to be aware of the time and rest and eat accordingly.
When a random encounter occurs the screen switches to a combat screen. The graphics of combat are pretty rudimentary as both you and your opponent are represented by a square. When one opponent attempts to strike the other there is a bit of animation to simulate an appendage jutting from the square. The creatures that I fought were giants, horrible flying things, and all types of different dragons. Young dragons, old dragons, angry dragons etc.
One facet of the game I found quite interesting is that each time you defeat an opponent your fame grows. When your fame gets over a score of 200 it is supposed to attract the attention of the evil warlord.
When you reach a castle or town you can hit B for barter on the keyboard. If there is a merchant present you then have the option of buying different items. The aforementioned magic sword is available to purchase, healing salves that heal 20% of your injuries, you can purchase a kingdom map, buy food and water, and pay for information about the evil warlord. I did this once and learned that he was a magic-user who could only be slain with magical weapons. When my fame score was well over 250 points and I still did not encounter the evil warlord I went to a town to learn more. I paid for information and was told that the warlord lives in a forest to the north even though he travels all over. Armed with this vital information and a magical sword I made my way to the forest in the northern part of the map.
Once I reached the forest and started to search it an encounter with the evil warlord occurred. He starts combat at 500% which equates to quite a bit of hit points. However each strike from my sword took off 20-40 points so I defeated him rather easily.
I played the Dark Kingdom on a TRS-80 emulator and it took me roughly two hours to complete. The end screen seems to suggest that the author had a sequel in mind but one was never made. I don’t think that this game really qualifies as a true role-playing game but remember in 1980 there was a lot of feeling around in the dark. It was a year which contained many game hybrids or games with unusual mechanics.
The next game on tap is a sequel to Oldorf’s Revenge called the The Tarturian.