There were many nights while playing Dungeons of Daggorath that my fingers would cramp up from furiously typing the same keyboard combinations over and over again as quickly as I could. I felt like I was auditioning for a medical transcriptionist position.
A keyboard mistake, and there were many, always resulted in a grisly death causing me to shout colorful adjectives that echoed throughout the room. My wife would ask with mock concern if I was all right and remind me that it is just a game.
I found that if I played the game late at night that it would elevate my heartrate and that I would have trouble sleeping afterwards. It would sometimes be an hour before I calmed down as the adrenaline left my system. It was then that I finally avoided playing the game too late at night otherwise I’d wake bleary-eyed and tired the following morning.
The night that I finally beat the game I had a massive headache and my eyes burned terribly. I stood up and paced around in an effort to calm myself as I pumped a fist into the air as if my team had just scored a touchdown.
Does this sound like a computer role-playing game to you? You were probably thinking that my visceral reactions seemed more attuned to an arcade or platform game. This is because Dungeons of Daggorath was to 1982 what Dark Souls was to 2011.
The game was developed by Douglas J. Morgan and Keith S. Kiyohara with sounds by Phil Landmeier in 1982 for the Tandy (Radioshack) TRS-80 Color Computer. It featured wireframe graphics to portray a three-dimensional space in a real-time environment. The player moves around a dungeon, issuing commands by means of typing – for example, typing USE LEFT TORCH or PULL RIGH SWORD (or abbreviations such as U L T or P R SW), gathering strength and ever more powerful weapons as the game progresses.
There are a couple of unique features in the game that created a large fan base that still exists to this day and that catapulted the game into classic CRPG stardom. Many have fond memories of the game or at least remember their experience with it. It has been widely written about and was also featured in the book Ready Player One, where the protagonist has to solve the game, emulated within a simulated universe. This plot point does not appear in the film adaptation.
One of the unique features of the game is a heartbeat which rises as you move throughout the dungeon. Any actions you take also serve to increase your heartrate. The damage from various dungeon denizens causes the greatest increase to your heartrate and opponents often kill you with only one blow. If you move too quickly throughout the dungeon in an effort to evade your pursuers (yes – the creatures chase you throughout the dungeon) you can actually faint from overexertion. You are then defenseless and when you awaken an enemy is usually standing over you to deliver a death blow. This heartbeat is a direct precursor to a “health” indicator that would appear in later games such as Legend of Zelda and many others.
The second unique feature were the sounds created by Phil Landmeier. Each of the dungeon denizens have a unique sound associated with them. Whether it is the hissing of snakes or the clanking and clomping of fully armored knights these sounds become louder as your adversaries get closer to you. We’ve seen sounds used to great effect in previous games such as Sword of Fargoal and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cloudy Mountain but Dungeons of Daggorath makes masterful use of them. It took several months of recording to achieve what were advanced sound effects for the time. The combination of these masterful sounds with the heartbeat monitor serves to immerse the player in a quagmire of tension and anxiety.
The heartbeat-like sound, instead of using numerical statistics such as hit points like previous games have done, was inspired by arcade games, specifically 1978’s Space Invaders. In Space Invaders a hearbeat-like sound gradually increases pace as enemies advance towards the player. In many ways Dungeons of Daggorath is the very first Action RPG – hybridizing arcade skills with a computer role-playing game. THIS is the root of my love/hate relationship with the game. While I love and appreciate arcade and platform games I am admittedly not very good at them. Dungeons of Daggorath requires speed and precision with the keyboard. You could almost say it was the predecessor to Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. It requires you to hit a combination of keys in a rapid staccato clip.
The game is exceedingly difficult. I had recently spent an exorbitant amount of time with a previous game: Ring of Darkness and it might shock you to learn I spent even MORE time with Dungeons of Daggorath. I even thought at one point that this blog might come to a grinding halt as I thought I might never finish this game. I am now 168 games into this journey and there were only two other times that I felt this way: with Moria and again with Rogue. Some rarified company indeed.
The premise of the game is fairly straightforward RPG canon. An evil wizard has taken up residence within the Dungeons of Daggorath and the shadows of those mountains cast a pall over the town of Rivenshire. Crops are wilting and cattle are dying and to make matters worse it is rumored that the wizard has obtained the magical Ring of Endings which greatly increases his power. Your job is to venture into the dungeons beneath Daggorath and find and defeat this wizard. The dungeons consist of 5 levels which are filled with dangerous denizens including a “fake wizard” on level 3 to deal with.
The creatures that you encounter include spiders, snakes, stone giants, blobs, two-eyed evil knights, one-eyed evil knights, scorpions, galdrogs, a fake wizard, and lastly the real wizard himself.
The game was very hard to get used to at first. Many of the early computer role-playing games we’ve encountered thus far have been turn based. Even when you had real-time combat as experienced in Ultima I and Ring of Darkness it was nowhere near as frenetic as what you encounter here. The keyboard commands and being able to use abbreviations of those commands took some getting used to as well. Most of the commands apply to the RIGHT and LEFT hands. When the game begins you have to remove your sword from your backpack and hold it in your right hand so you type PULL RIGHT WOODEN SWORD. You can abbreviate this to P R SW and get the same effect. To use the sword to attack a creature you have to type ATTACK RIGHT or you can use the abbreviation A R. You’ll find yourself beating the A – Space Bar – R keys in a rapid staccato fashion in a coordinated attempt to defeat the tougher monsters on the lower levels. One mistake in the execution of these keyboard combinations spells your doom.
A torch is necessary in order to illuminate your surroundings. In the beginning of the game you’ll type; PULL LEFT TORCH or P L T in order to retrieve a torch from your backpack with your left hand. In order to light or use the torch you then have to type USE LEFT or U L and then your surroundings are illuminated. The torches wear out and are thus a valuable commodity.
There are a couple of tactics which are absolutely necessary in order to win the game that I discovered by dying repeatedly and often. The first tactic is to hoard inventory items. You even want to keep your dead/used torches. You’ll want to find a spot in the dungeon level where there is a dead end or alcove. Then you want to drop all of your items except your sword and torch; littering the ground with all of them. The more you have the better. Why? When a monster appears adjacent to you it spends round after round picking up all of the gear off the floor. You can use this respite to attack repeatedly. It is the only method that allows you to slay very tough opponents that require 6 to 20 hits to vanquish.
The other method I used, particularly on the 4th dungeon level, was a hit and run tactic. I would attack one or two times and then flee; moving throughout the dungeon away from my opponents and scrambling to stop and make a new stand and then repeat the process all over again. I spent several nights and hours stuck on the 4th level and if I am being honest I was on the verge of throwing my hands up in the air and giving up but then I started to play a game of “tag” with a demon that was stalking me. I would hit it once and then run and once I was a safe distance away (and wasn’t killed by a different wandering monster) I would quickly save my game. I would then possibly have to load the game ten more times, dying each time unsuccessfully, until I was able to land another successful blow and save again. I spent probably three total evenings doing nothing but this until I finally killed the demon – which took about 20 hits to kill. The defeated demon dropped an Elvish Sword which made my life much easier. Now creatures that would take 6 to 12 hits to vanquish could be killed in 3 blows. But at a cost. When you attack with the Elvish sword it greatly increases your heartrate and so you have to use it in moderation. If your heartrate begins to get too fast you’ll have to withdraw and move about until it slows down again.
There are item upgrades that you find as you head deeper into the dungeon. These items are dropped after you defeat the monster holding it. The tougher the opponent usually the more powerful the item it is holding. Most of the items are non-descript and so you have to type REVEAL in order to have the item type revealed to you. There are 3 types of swords: you begin the game with a wooden sword but on Level 1 can find and upgrade to an iron sword. On the 4th level you obtain an elvish sword which is an extremely powerful upgrade.
There are two types of shields: a normal shield which you can find on Level 1 and then a Mithril shield which you can find on Level 4. It took me quite awhile to realize that these shields really do not block any damage from the monsters and they serve as poor weapons. By the time I was fighting for survival on Level 3 I wasn’t even carrying a shield any longer.
You can find two different kinds of scrolls: a Vision scroll which shows you the entire dungeon level and it’s exits, and then a Seer scroll which not only shows you the level and exits but you can also see the movement of all of your enemies and where they are located on the level.
There are three different kinds of flasks that you can find: an Abye flask which weakens you and causes your heartrate to climb. DO NOT use these. Then there are the Hale flasks which don’t affect your strength but they do bring your heart rate down. Lastly there is the Thews flask which lowers your heart rate and also makes you 1000 points stronger. You find many of these on Level 4 and you want to use them as often as you can.
This brings us to the rings. You cannot win the game without the rings. The rings were also different from the other items and introduce a new aspect to the game because you need to guess a code word in order to activate them. There is a Vulcan ring that you find on Level 1, a Rhime ring on Level 2, a Joule ring on Level 4, and lastly a Supreme ring on Level 5. In order to activate the rings you have to INCANT them with this mysterious command word. Once activated you then use them as weapons by typing in ATTACK RIGHT or ATTACK LEFT. To activate the Vulcan Ring the word is FIRE as Vulcan was a God of fire. So you would type INCANT FIRE and suddenly the description of the ring changes to Fire Ring. There are 3 charges in the ring. Using the ring causes a blast of fire. The word to activate the Rhime ring is ICE. This was the easiest ring for me to guess because ice is a synonym for Rhime. There are 3 charges in this ring as well. Using it creates a blast or ray of cold. You will need both the Fire ring and the Ice ring to defeat the “fake wizard” on Level 3 so do not waste your ring charges on other dungeon denizens.
The Joule ring is activated by the word ENERGY so INCANT ENERGY reveals an Energy Ring. You’ll need all 3 charges to help you defeat the wizard on the 5th level and even then you’ll also need to strike him a few times with the Elvish sword.
When you FINALLY defeat the wizard on Level 5 he drops a ring. Picking it up shows it to be called The Supreme Ring. The Supreme ring when you type REVEAL shows itself to be the Ring of Endings. Time freezes once you find this ring and you then need to decipher its code word in order to win the game. I had to Google synonyms for Supreme and then had to resort to a Thesaurus until I finally hit on the right word. I think it took me 30+ different tries until I hit the correct word. Once you guess correctly you get an end sequence which shows you as the new wizard of Daggorath. Your robes have stars upon them rather than a crescent moon.
Daggorath in the title of the game comes from the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. Dagor Dagorath, also called The Final Battle, is an apocalyptic era detailed in the Silmarillion. Dagor Dagorath is a Sindarin term meaning “Battle of Battles. The authors of the game probably took the word but added a “g” because of copyright issues. They made a game entitled Dungeons of Daggorath, which means, if you use Tolkien’s interpretation, Dungeons of Battle, which is extremely fitting.
Dungeons of Daggorath became one of the most popular TRS-80 CoCo games ever; so Tandy produced a sequel in 1988 called Castle of Tharoggad. It was made without the participation of the Daggorath team and was very poorly received.
In 2001, Douglas J. Morgan noticed that the exclusive copyright had fallen back to him from Radioshack which had done nothing with it. He released the game to the public and also offered the source code for a small fee. It has since been ported to Microsoft Windows, Linux, RISC OS, and PSP. A free, open source version can also be found on the web.
I played the Microsoft Windows version which can be found HERE. You can configure the settings using the ESC key so that they mimic the TRS-80 CoCo. If you instead choose custom settings, you will be amazed at how fast the monsters move because of current processing speeds. I recommend using the CoCo settings which are the standard settings.
My journey thus far has taken me through 168 games; all of them published in years spanning 1975 – 1983. Dungeons of Daggorath is one of the more unique and memorable games. The sound effects and heartrate monitor combine to make it an extremely immersive and harrowing experience. It is the first game to give me a heightened state of anxiety, headaches, and burning eyes. The arcade like reflexes required for this particular CRPG caused a love/hate relationship to form. Even if they did possess the time and patience required, for some players they may find Dungeons of Daggorath physically impossible. It is one of the very few games so far that I considered not finished and merely moving on. It is experiences like this that continue to reward and fuel my endeavors. I never played this game as a young man and now I feel like I truly experienced a piece of gaming history. I strongly encourage you to give this insane game a try. Warning: if you’re a completionist or stubborn like I am; be prepared to invest hours and hours of your life into it.
Next up on the docket is a game that I’ve been eagerly awaiting to play: The Dragon & the Princess from 1982. Until next time…