Caverns of Zoarre is a shareware offering that was written by Thomas Hanlin III and I was able to find these comments that he made about the game online:
“For what it’s worth, this started out as a TRS-80 game, Dungeon of Mirandor, which never quite made it out. The TRS-80 market fell off a cliff about the time I finished it. Mirandor owed a lot, conceptually, to the DEC VAX 11/780 version of Telengard, which I’d played extensively around ?1983?. Zoarre was an expanded version, finished painfully at intervals over the course of a year or so. The “fight” handler was unduly tedious to program, and balked me for too long. I wrote Zoarre using the IBM BASIC Compiler, a renamed version of one of Microsoft’s early BASICs. The compiler went through DOS and BIOS services for I/O, and was so unspeakably slow at updating the screen that I had to write assembly language routines for direct screen writes. Plus, it didn’t support the new DOS 2.0 features like subdirectories… albeit this wasn’t a major issue on the typical floppy-only system of the time. Anyway, the assembly language routines eventually made it out as a separate product, AdvBas, which was far more successful than Zoarre. AdvBas later went commercial, and started me on my career in writing tools for programmers. But, that’s certainly a great deal more than you wanted to know. Anyway, it’s nice to have a copy of Zoarre again. I’ll bet it cranks along very smoothly on a Pentium. :-)”
I have made quite a bit of progress since my last entry, thought it would appear ‘I have miles to go before I sleep’. When your character gains experience and increases in levels he has access to more spells. One of those spells was entitled Melt Wall and this led to the realization that every inch of map space is now put into play. Armed with this new information I went back and more thoroughly explored the first level.
The level is still not 100% complete but it doesn’t have to be because I was able to find stairs down to the next level. There is no inventory management in this game. You do not pick up or find objects other than gold pieces. You can only carry 4000 gold pieces at a time at which point you have to leave all gold you find behind. I was able to deduce that you gain experience points in two ways: 1) through combat and 2) by exchanging gold pieces for experience points when you climb out of the 1st dungeon level.
I still have no idea how many dungeon levels there are in this game. The dungeon locations and the things that you find in different areas of each level appear to be fixed so I believe that there is a purpose in place here. I currently find myself on the 3rd dungeon level and it has been a nightmare to map because of the numerous 10′ x 10′ rooms with multiple exits. You’ll find that you’ll have to sharpen your pencil often and I would have a straight edge handy. The maps are quite large.
The sets of stairs that lead up and down are very hard to find and the equivalent of discovering a great treasure. When I find a set of stairs that lead lower then I stop mapping the current level and descend deeper into the labyrinth.
There are some interesting special features that Hanlin includes as dungeon dressing. Sometimes as you pass certain areas, you’ll receive a message that reads; ‘You hear a scream in the distance’ or ‘A large *BOOM* echoes in the distance’ or ‘A black viscous material oozes from the walls’. It’s not a lot but it’s just enough to add some character to the game.
I have also discovered chests that contain gold and skeletons which become animated and attack you. I have discovered a fountain on each level that contains liquid of a random color ranging from violet to black to green and so on. Drinking from the fountain can be harmful or beneficial depending on the color. I have discovered a throne with numerous choices. You can sit on it, ignore it, pry jewels from it, move it, etc. On the third level I recently discovered an altar with the choice of praying before it, donating gold to it, or ignoring it. All of these small dungeon dressings help to add a little character to the dungeon and breaks up the tedium of mapping out these large levels.
There have been a couple of interesting transport options as well. I discovered an elevator which immediately transported me above the first level. I also encountered a transport booth which asks which level I’d like to go to. I am hoping that there is a point to this game because I have spent a considerable amount of time mapping out these dungeon levels.
If you like dungeon crawlers and enjoy mapping out levels via the old school pen and paper method this game packs quite the entertaining punch. My goal is to continue to map out the 3rd level and hopefully find a way down to a 4th level. I am hoping that I will have made more meaningful progress by the next post or even finished the game. Hopefully I will have something positive to report back to you with.
Until next time…