Game #8: Beneath Apple Manor

Beneath Apple Manor is a roguelike game written by Don Worth for the Apple II and published by The Software Factory in 1978. Higher resolution Special Editions were released in 1982 and 1983.

Beneath Apple Manor is responsible for a number of “firsts” in computer gaming history. It is the first commercial role playing game developed and released for a home computer and the first commercial product that I have covered here in this blog. It is also the first commercial role playing game to use procedural generation. This allows for randomly created dungeon levels and wandering monsters and less predictable gameplay. You can define the number of rooms you want to play in each level and since the dungeon is randomly generated you are guaranteed never to play the same game twice. The difficulty level of the game changes dynamically to suit your current stats.

I used the term roguelike as a descriptor in my first sentence however Beneath Apple Manor predated the game Rogue by 2 years. Roguelike or rogue-like is a subgenre of video games characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn based gameplay, tile-based graphics, and permanent death of the player character. Rogue was an ASCII based game from 1980 and is considered the namesake of the genre even though Beneath Apple Manor predates it. These types of games became extremely popular in the 1980s by college students and computer programmers leading to hundreds of variants. Don Worth and the creators of Rogue claim that neither knew about the other game.

The plot above is taken from the Beneath Apple Manor documentation which was packaged with the game upon purchase. With the plot hook set I embarked upon my quest. When you first start Beneath Apple Manor it asks if you want to start a Standard Game. If you answer yes the game will procedurally generate 5 rooms per level in the hi-res version and 10 rooms per level in the low-res version. The difficulty level will be set as AVERAGE which in my opinion was challenging enough in the deeper dungeon levels. If you choose NOT to play a standard game then you are given greater control over the procedural generation. You can choose between 2 – 10 rooms per level and you can also choose your difficulty level. Below are the difficulty levels you get to choose from:

• Pushover
• Too Easy
• Beginner
• Safe Trip
• Average
• Challenge
• Tricky
• Touch and Go
• Very Dangerous
• You’re Nuts!!

I chose the Standard Game or Average level which is recommended in the documentation. You do not get to choose your character it is generated for you.

Screenshot from Beneath Apple Manor

During play in the beginning this is what your screen looks like. Your character icon is depicted with sword and shield and as you move about more of the dungeon level is then exposed to you. Initially you are surrounded by darkness and your surroundings are enshrouded in a Fog of War ( a term used in video games to describe uncertainty or the unknown). Your ultimate goal is to find the treasure chests which exist on each dungeon level. One of the treasure chests on each level will have a magic item while the other treasure chests contain gold. As you kill monsters and find treasure you are awarded experience points. These experience points may be traded on a 10 for 1 basis to increase your ability scores.

Your character has four basic ability scores: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, and Body. Strength is important for carrying the weight of gold, smashing through doors, and inflicting damage on opponents. Intelligence points are spent when casting magic spells. Dexterity represents speed and agility and used to determine your probability to hit an opponent. Your Body points indicate your ability to take punishment.

There are four different kinds of spells in this game: ZAP, HEAL, XRAY, and TELEPORT. ZAP attacks the adjacent monster with a powerful lightning bolt. Your Dexterity attribute is used to determine the probability of it hitting as if you were wielding a magic sword. ZAP inflicts a RANDOM amount of damage up to half of your intelligence. Each time you use ZAP it costs you Intelligence points. HEAL restores Body points at the cost of an equal number of Intelligence points. XRAY is a vision spell that shows you all squares surrounding you in a three square radius. You can see through doors and walls using this as well. TELEPORT drops all the gold you are carrying and sends you to a random spot in the current dungeon level.

One of the most interesting aspects of Beneath Apple Manor in my opinion is the monsters that you encounter. In my previous experiences with role playing games on the Plato network; while there WERE a variety of monsters that you encountered the only way in which they were unique was in the amount of damage that they inflicted or how tough they were to slay. Here, in this game, you encounter seven basic types of monsters however each of them are unique in their own way. First of all, graphically, the sprite portrayals of these monsters is absolutely excellent. It is very clear what you are dealing with and the stereotypical representation of each creature is spot on. You will encounter Green Slimes, Ghosts, Trolls, Purple Worms, Invisible Stalkers, Vampires, and Dragons.

• Green Slimes are the least dangerous of all of the monsters. They inflict minimal damage, are easy to hit, and you encounter many of these in the early dungeon levels.
• Ghosts have nasty abilities. When a Ghost hits you it reduces your strength and there is no way to recover your strength points unless you spend experience points to do so. They cannot be recovered through healing. So Ghosts are experience level drains and they can ONLY be hit with magical weapons or with the ZAP spell
• Trolls are harder to hit, capable of regeneration (they HEAL their body points each round of combat) and they do quite a bit of damage to you in a single blow. They are very dangerous early on in your journey.
• Purple worms are extremely strong and tough but do not move very well. Purple worms can kill you with one blow and their body points are usually double whatever yours are. Purple worm treasures tend to be very large.
• Invisible Stalkers are well…..invisible! When you are struck by an Invisible Stalker and you go to attack; the game will ask you which direction you want to direct your attack at. So you have to guess where your opponent is!
• Vampires are much like a higher level Ghost except that they reduce ALL of your abilities not just Strength. Luckily though, only the current values are reduced. They can be restored through normal healing and rest. When you encounter a Vampire it describes you as feeling an icy chill as you suddenly see all of your ability scores begin to drop! Vampires are very hard to hit and can only be hit with magical weapons. Their treasures, like Dragons, are the largest in the game.
• Dragons are the most powerful of all of the monsters. Their pixelized graphics are remarkably intimidating. They have hides like magic armor, their claws are like magical swords (inflicting TWICE your Strength ability score on average) and they can kill you in a single blow. Their attacks can be very fast. Their treasures are the richest of all of the monsters and it is in a Dragon’s treasure horde that you will likely find the golden apple. It was certainly the case for me as a Dragon was guarding the chest that I ultimately found the golden apple in.

So you can see that each of these seven monsters are indeed unique and they play that way within the game. It is the first game I’ve encountered in my journey where I have found the monsters that you encounter to be so unique in the way that they behave and in what they can do.

You begin play on each Dungeon level from the Main Staircase. Consider it a safe square or a safe haven. Each time you make your way back to the Main Staircase it will ask you if you want to enter the Main Staircase. When you answer yes it is here that you have the opportunity to perform a variety of actions. You can TRADE your experience points on a 10 for 1 basis to increase your four ability scores. You can purchase a WEAPON with your gold. There is not much in the way of variety here; you can only choose between a hand axe and a sword. You can also purchase ARMOR: leather, chain mail, or plate armor. You can also choose to go DEEPER which will take you to the next dungeon level or you can choose a SCAN which is the equivalent of saving your game. Saving your game costs you gold pieces; and the higher that your ability scores are the more expensive it becomes to save your game. It can be a managerial issue for you in deeper dungeon levels where the game can get quite difficult. Lastly you can choose to RETURN to the current dungeon level you were exploring.

Beneath Apple Manor at first blush seems like a pretty straight forward affair and you can certainly bull rush your way through the first several dungeon levels experiencing a modicum of success. However as you move deeper and deeper into the dungeon you’re going to find that the going gets much more difficult. Using your XRAY and TELEPORT spells becomes second nature as you strategically make your way around each level attempting to devise a way to take the treasure chest from each guardian creature. Wandering monsters constantly appear and the frequency increases in deeper levels. Increasing your ability scores also increases the strength and toughness of the monsters that you encounter in each procedurally generated level. This is something new in a computer role playing game and you had best begin to strategize how and when you want to increase your ability scores. Increasing your ability scores can also greatly increase what it costs you to save your game and you may find that you suddenly have increased your way beyond the ability to save a current game. Good luck in finding another chest on a deeper level so that you can do so!

The documentation that comes with the game tells you that if you select the normal game then the game should last about 2 hours. I found this to be inaccurate. I think I had more like 3 to 4 hours invested in the game in totality before I found the golden apple. When you begin to get deeper and deeper you mainly find that you are facing nothing but Vampires and Dragons. You are beset with harder dungeon levels to tactically navigate as well as increased wandering monsters. The save game feature will not save you if your funds are depleted and you find yourself quickly slain twice in a row.

I ended up finding the golden apple on Level 56. I have read several testimonials from players who found it between Levels 40 -45 so I was beginning to worry that I might have a glitch with my particular game file or that I had missed it on a previous level.

I really enjoyed Beneath Apple Manor. It exhibited a lot of “firsts” in CRPGs for the home computer but didn’t get the proper acknowledgement at the time. I wanted to continue to go deeper and deeper in my search for the golden apple. I enjoyed the turned based strategies that had to be employed in the lower dungeon levels. While there is definite “grinding” involved as you work to increase your four ability scores; there is a bit of strategy involved as to which ones to increase first and WHEN to increase the scores adding a new wrinkle to the game. I played the DOS version of the game and I ran it using Dos Box. If you would like to play this little piece of history you can download it for free from here Beneath Apple Manor You will need to install Dos Box in order to get it to run properly. Here is an interview with Don Worth about Beneath Apple Manor and I found it to be a fascinating read here is Don Worth’s Personal Home Page

Alan Isabelle reviewed Beneath Apple Manor in The Space Gamer No. 35, commenting that “All in all, strengths by far outnumber weaknesses. The game is highly recommended.”

Softline in 1983 said of Beneath Apple Manor—Special Edition that “now it’s back, and it’s better”, including improved graphics, varying difficulty levels, and the ability to save progress. The magazine concluded that “BAM is not a game that you will tire of easily … [it] is for any adventurer, beginner to expert”. Computer Gaming World’s Scorpia stated in 1991 and 1993 that Beneath Apple Manor was “terribly slow even by the standards of the day, but it was fun nonetheless” and “not bad for a game” designed for a 16K Apple II

I remember playing Beneath Apple Manor briefly in 1984 while visiting a friend’s house. I found the gameplay just as enjoyable today as I did 36 years ago. I think I enjoyed my experience with it more so this time around. I was able to spend much more time with it; and at my age today I was able to really appreciate it’s niche and role in computer role-playing game history.