Game #195: Gateway to Apshai (1983)

The Dunjonquest games were ported across a wide variety of late 1970s and early-to-mid 1980s home computers. It was a venerated series that fueled the imaginations of an entire generation. The games were a balm for the addictive need to emulate table-top role-playing games. Unfortunately, rather than end in a blaze of glory, the series died with a quiet whimper in the dark of the night. The exquisitely made documentation, which would become a hallmark of the series, is now absent with this new offering. Gone are the creative room descriptions and dungeon dressing which would become popular again with the SSI Gold Box series. The documentation was as scantily clad as a village vagrant; consisting of only 7 pages.

Gateway to Apshai was supposed to serve as a prequel to the Temple of Apshai as the story is set before the time that the Temple of Apshai was discovered. The game consists of 8 dungeon levels with 16 dungeons each. Like so many of these other games, I had never played Gateway to Apshai and so it was that I was rubbing my hands together in anticipation of the exploration of all of these dungeons. My mind was calculating just how long I might be spending with this game with 128 different dungeon levels to explore.

My excitement turned to dismay when I began play and realized that gameplay was more like The Tomb of Drewan or The Caverns of Freitag rather than the game’s venerated predecessors. It is not my intent to disparage either of the aforementioned games as both of them are of better quality and more entertaining than the game I’m speaking of now however the arcade play makes me reminiscent of them.

Character generation is absent from this offering despite what it’s trappings proclaim. Every person who plays this game begins with the same nameless character whose attributes are the same as those depicted above.

The game uses a combination of joystick and keyboard. The F3 key will display all of the items you have picked up. Any spells and weapons that you discovered will be displayed here and you have to select them to move them from your supply bag to your hand as a useable item.

The F5 key allows you to scroll through the following option choices:

Keys – to open locked doors

Locate Trap – reveals invisible traps

Search Spell – allows you to search a room for secret doors

Drop Item – to drop any item from your supply bag

Check Supplies – brings up a list of supplies you currently carry

Check Status – brings up a status screen for you to review your health

Check Weapons – lists available weapons that you carry

Next Level – there are eight total levels and choosing this option at any time propels you to the next difficulty level

The F7 key allows you to cycle back to the FIGHT option as well as your choice of weapon to use.

The ultimate goal is to reach Level 8 and complete it. In doing so you are presumably shown the true path to the Temple of Apshai. The game manual boasts of 7,500 rooms to explore.

I cannot tell you how disappointed I was to learn, that amongst the 128 different dungeon levels and 7,500 rooms there was not one shred of descriptive text. No window dressing of any kind. There were no cool dungeon titles such as The Lair of the White Worm or The Catacombs of Kuman That. There were no room descriptions. It was a black void of creativity. You were greeted with Dungeon 1, Dungeon 2, Dungeon 3, etc. that you selected with a joystick.

What was even more shocking was that you don’t explore each of the 16 dungeons before having to move on to the next level. I chose Dungeon 1 and once I completed the dungeon I was suddenly propelled to Level 2 where I selected Dungeon 1 again. It went like this all the way to the end of the game. I suppose there is a lot of replay value in this development choice but it is hard to cling to that positive notion when there is not an impetus to continue game play. It really just wasn’t much fun nor all that exciting.

The combat is purely arcade and involves you hammering on the joystick button and waving your sword around frantically trying to hit your opponent. When your opponent comes into contact with you consider yourself as having been hit. If this happens 2 to 3 times consider yourself dead.

The area that you are currently in is revealed to you and the rest of the dungeon is shrouded in a fog of war until you explore the area. If you’re tired of exploring Level 6 then just hit F5 and choose Next Level and jump to Level 7; it is as easy as that. The entire game is action oriented and you’re on a timer to finish the dungeon level as well. This timer further deteriorated the game experience for me as I couldn’t enjoy exploring my surroundings or cycling through my supply inventory with the threat of a running clock in the background.

Once you complete Level 8 there is no congratulatory screen or message of any kind. Instead, it loops you back to the beginning of Level 8 which I guess you can play over and over and over again. It probably took me a total of 2 to 3 hours to vanquish my enemies, take their treasures as spoils of war, and complete all of Level 8. I cycled through a bland representation of 8 dungeon levels like someone who couldn’t wait to get through a bad movie experience.

I wish that this exalted series could have ended on a high note but sadly it was not the case. There was no nostalgic tie to the rest of the games in the series nor any sense of connectivity. The game was developed by the Connelly Group and Epyx remained the publisher. It was released in 1983 for the Commodore 64 and this is the version that I played. It was also released for the Atari 8-bit in the same year and for ColecoVision in 1984. I played the game on an emulator and it took me 3 hours to beat.

This last offering was the proverbial nail in the coffin for the series. It would be the last game released in the series and it’s poor reception caused a future Dunjonquest episode, Cliffs of Tyyr, to remain unreleased.

It was the first major series to usher in a number of sequels and follow-on offerings. There were 13 total games in the Dunjonquest series if you include their two science fiction titles. It began with the Temple of Apshai in August of 1979, followed by The Datestones of Ryn in November of 1979, then Morloc’s Tower in January 1980, Hellfire Warrior in September of 1980, Upper Reaches of Apshai in September of 1981, The Keys of Archeron in September of 1981, Sorcerer of Siva in December of 1981, Curse of Ra in 1982, Danger in Drindisti in 1982, and lastly Gateway to Apshai in 1983. I spent hours and hours playing them all. I feel blessed to have been able to do so.

The curtain now descends on the Dunjonquest line and I look upon the series with fond memories of the amazing documentation that accompanied the games. The room descriptions within helped to immerse the player further and foster a role-playing experience that was as close to a table-top experience as you could get in 1979. This method would later be adopted by SSI’s Gold Box series of official Dungeons & Dragons games and also Interplay’s Wasteland. I wish that Gateway to Apshai had been the crown jewel of this venerated franchise but unfortunately it served as its death knell.

Next up on the docket we’re going to go back in time and do some housekeeping by playing House of Usher.

Until next time…