This text adventure / RPG hybrid was published by Gebelli Software in 1982 for the Atari 800. The author is listed as a “Dr. Goodcode” and I can’t find any evidence that this author or pseudonym appears elsewhere or is associated with any other release. The game is strongly reminiscent of 1978’s Devil’s Dungeon which was the sixth game that I had ever covered for this particular blog.
You have been commissioned by this Dr. Goodcode to clean out the “basement” of his mansion. The good Doctor purchased the estate to conduct his experiments but has been plagued by various “pests”.
It is rumored that demons inhabit the lower regions of the mansion and that these demons constantly assault strangers and demand some sort of payment. The premise also sounds a bit like Creature Venture which I recently covered.
Rumor has it that at one time the rooms of the mansion were brightly painted and furnished exquisitely. Great parties were held and the staff numbered in the hundreds. It was even necessary to number the rooms in order to identify them. Then a demented wizard named Johnny started to conduct bizarre experiments in the lowest depths of the mansion. He developed a variety of bizarre creatures for the sole purpose of guarding his treasures.
Much of the background above was taken straight from the documentation that was packaged with the game. There are indeed demons which you randomly encounter and they do demand that you pay them in the form of gold coins. You find these coins in various rooms as you explore the mansion and you can choose to pay these demands in the form of a (B)ribe by hitting the B key on the keyboard. It is always best to give in to the extortion and pay the demons or they will ZAP you which hurts your health.
The game is played with a combination of joystick and keyboard. The rooms of the mansion are indeed brightly painted and these rooms are depicted as garish colors which flash on the computer screen. The program seems fascinated by color as you can see depicted above. There doesn’t seem to be any significance to the color of any particular room other than to provide the user with a visceral experience. The two blocks of color on the screen above are foreshadowing that Room 4 is a purple room and Room 2 is a brick red room.
The mansion itself is made up of a randomly generated dungeon that consists of three levels. There are 80 rooms on each level that are numbered and the 80th room on each level is a “special room” (more on this later). Your goal is to make it through all three levels and exit with as much treasure and kills as you possibly can. There is no character creation process and the only item in your inventory is a magic wand which can ZAP your opponents.
Each room provides a brief room description and your exits and room numbers are shown at the top of the screen. The room descriptions usually contain a detail that appeals to your senses to create atmosphere or mood. For example; “it’s warm in here” or “smells like fire”. There really is no need to map out the complex. You can just move through the rooms in order and sometimes you’ll have the opportunity to jump ahead a few rooms in the numbered sequence.
Combat is random and monsters that I encountered included grizzly bears, orcs, snakes, alligators, vampires, wild dogs and tigers. Each monster seemed to come with a randomly generated descriptor and color such as “a very big yellow wild dog” or a “big brown cave bear”. There is always an odd exclamation before each encounter too like “Great Caesar’s Ghost!!!” depicted above or “Jiminy Cricket!!!” or You’ve Stepped Into It Now!!!”
Each monster is accompanied by a strength rating as well. Any monster that had a strength rating under 50 I could usually take care of by hitting A on my keyboard for (A)ttack. If the creature’s strength rating is over 55 you could be in for some trouble. In these cases I would hit Z on my keyboard for (Z)ap which activates the magic wand. If you choose to ZAP a creature it instantly kills the creature. You only begin the game with three of these ZAPs. You can replenish these ZAPs by buying more in Room 80 but you need to move through most of the rooms sequentially on each level so you need to use your ZAPs sparingly and make them count. Combat is a hidden affair. Once you choose to (A)ttack the screen flashes multiple colors as you and your opponent clash. Some kind of calculation is taking place in the background and you and your opponent are losing health as you exchange blows. Combat can take anywhere between 1 and 3 rounds. I found the flashing screen to be a bit irritating and so I would grimace when combat occurred. If you win you find out what treasure the monster was guarding. These objects, like the rooms and the creatures, seem to be assigned random descriptors such as “plain, ugly chalice” or “beautiful platinum armband”.
Your only other option when encountering a creature besides (A)ttack and (B)ribe is (D)efend. I honestly couldn’t see where Defending made any kind of a difference. When my health was low, with no option to flee, and I chose Defend I would still get walloped. If you perish, you can quickly press a button on your joystick in the hopes of being resurrected. If you have enough coins on you to get resurrected, which is randomly usually a large requirement, then it will work. If you’re low on coins then the resurrection fails and the game is over. Because the resurrection requires so many coins you usually only get to attempt this with any chance of success once per game.
Here is an example of many of the treasures with random descriptors attached. Note that the value assigned to each treasure is random as well. There are no ties or reasoning that associates numerical value with the item’s description.
There does appear to be some kind of leveling system that increases after you defeat each creature but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It is expressed as two numbers such as 2-23 or 1-34. I couldn’t tell through multiple game experiences how or why that first number increases. Your health is represented as a percentage and the higher that percentage number is the more wounds you’ve suffered. It seems to go down as you move through rooms without encounters but the regeneration like everything else in the game appeared to be random.
The game manual suggested that demons inhabit the lower reaches of the mansion and this is certainly true. Demons appear at random, much like combat encounters, and each time you encounter a demon they are looking for a (B)ribe. They will even specifically tell you how much they want or sometimes they are wanting you to buy 2 -4 tickets to an event for XYZ price. You can then hit B on your keyboard for (B)ribe and pay them their extortion amount. In many of the rooms you randomly find coins scattered about and you begin to accumulate these coins. They become very important at the end of each level, Room 80, because you can use your coins to buy more ZAP spells. The demons serve to deplete your stash of coins you’ve found and thus make the game harder or more challenging. If you do NOT agree to pay the demon it ZAPs YOU! This greatly decreases your health and your chances of winning the game going forward.
There are three dungeon levels and each level starts the room numbering process over sequentially. So Level 1 has rooms numbered 1 through 80 and Level 2 has rooms numbered 1 through 80 as does Level 3. On Levels 1 & 2 Room 80 is a special room where you can use the coins you’ve collected on the levels to restock supplies. You can buy another compass, you can purchase rations, or you can buy more ZAP spells which power your magic wand. You can also opt to sell some of your treasures you’ve collected from defeating opponents to gain more gold for purchases. The rock demon sitting behind the counter gives you less than half of the items value. The rations serve to increase your health, the compass allows you to see the different room choices or exits at the top of the screen. It is possible for the compass to randomly run out of batteries and then you’re not privy to the room numbers or exit choices. You’re basically flying blind and when this happens I had to resort to actually mapping. The compass failing on you is a completely random event. Mapping was such a nightmare that I would just begin my game again when my compass malfunctioned. Once you restock with supplies you go through a trap door to the next level.
Room 80 represents the end of the line or the endgame. The room’s description is depicted above and then prompts you to take an action. No matter what I typed in I received the following screen:
This essentially represents winning the game. The game then goes on to show you your final haul of treasures obtained as well as your character statistics.
Besides showing you your final treasure haul the game then lists all of the monsters that you defeated in the dungeon as well. It even gives you an option to print them out.
and then lastly it goes over your character’s final individual stats:
Dr. Goodcode’s Caverns was a very bizarre and eclectic game. However I must admit that finding and playing these forgotten, odd, hybrid games are a large part of the enjoyment I derive when I chronicle all of these games. And quite often I find something that takes me quite by surprise – a hidden gem if you will. I would also like to point out that I can’t help but wonder if I missed something in the very last room. The prompt at the end of the description is quite mysterious. Several of the dungeon rooms had odd descriptions and numbers painted on the room’s wall or floor. My imagination can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a special code one could type in to unlock a hidden fourth level. I trolled the internet and searched afar but could not find hardly any references at all to the game let alone any kind of walkthrough or expose on it. The author uses a pseudonym so trying to contact the developer to ask this specific question seems an impossibility at this point. However that suspicion does create a “tickle” in the back of my mind. I spent about 4 or 5 hours with the game until I was finally able to beat it. The final winning playthrough took me a little over an hour.
Next up on the docket is the Crypt of the Undead from 1982. Until next time…