Game #96: Maces & Magic: Balrog Sampler

Chameleon Software is responsible for developing three games under the Maces & Magic umbrella: Balrog Sampler, The Stone of Sisyphus, and Morton’s Fork.

The CRPGAddict was able to determine that Chameleon Software was a side-project for three Indianapolis medical professionals. The games were not a financial success and they never went on to work on any other games. An interesting side note: apparently TSR, the publisher for Dungeons & Dragons, sent Chameleon Software several letters threatening litigation claiming that any two alliterative fantasy sounding words separated by an ampersand was a threat to their trademark.

Up to this point, Morton’s Fork had been the only one of the three games that I had been able to play and finish. I found this trio of games to be extremely interesting and so I became obsessed with trying to find a good working copy of Balrog Sampler. The allure of the game was becoming my white whale. I thought Adventure International hit it out the park with the cover art and in my opinion it represents some of the best cover art for a text adventure during that period. I was also infatuated with Chameleon’s alliterative Maces & Magic idea for a series of adventures under that heading. Finding working files of Balrog Sampler and getting them to work with any emulator has been an almost impossible task. I never did give up my pursuit and I was finally able to sit down with the game.

The copyright for Balrog Sampler is 1979 and it was originally published under the title Dungeon and then later changed. The game is another example of a text adventure/CRPG hybrid and there were a number of these during this period. The limitations of the technology had developers feeling around in the dark for a satisfactory way to emulate a Dungeons & Dragons tabletop session. These hybrids seemed like the perfect solution for many.

I guess quoting Woody Allen on the title screen should have warned me about what was to come. When you create your character you’re asked; “What’s your handle good buddy?” which was another clue as to the game’s use of humor; and there is a lot of it. The game is darkly comedic almost to a flaw. It’s textually irreverent exterior masks an extremely deadly interior. There is SO MUCH humor in the game that I found it ran cross current to my own gaming logic and I found myself becoming frustrated with it. Let me explain why.

The title itself is rather tongue in cheek for those who have actually played the game. Balrog is a creature from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and a Balrog Sampler seems to imply a bit of a “taste” of some medieval or fantasy adventuring. However this game is anything but a sample. It takes you through an extensive character creation process whereby you choose both weapons and armor. The list of weapons and armor to choose from mirrors that of an encyclopedic catalog. There are weapon and armor names within the lists that I actually had to google. Once you create your character you’re ready to begin your adventure. The outdoor areas of the map consist of about 25 locations and then once you find the dungeon you’ll eventually discover that there are over 100 locations. The game, especially for this time period, is immense. It had more relevant locations filled with descriptions, encounters, traps and conversations than any text adventure to date with the possible exception of Empire of the Overmind. There is a lot of meat on the bone where this game is concerned and quite a bit to unpackage. And it is DEADLY.

The game is like Eamon on steroids. There are not only set pieces where combat can take place but as you’re moving around from location to location you also have to deal with wandering monsters. The wandering monsters are completely random and can happen anytime and anywhere. Your character, in the beginning, is not strong enough to handle ANY of these encounters. A run in with a wandering monster near the start of the game is instant death. You will face silly creatures called speckled cruds, brain moles, speed demons, killer bees, black holes, tribbles and more and the encounters are frequent.

The room descriptions and locations play out like a pick your path to adventure game. Once you are done reading a description or encounter you are then given a series of choices. Many of the choices that you make result in instant death. No saving throws, no puzzles to work through, just instant death. I have been working my way towards making a point here – which was to explain why I started to become very frustrated with the humor. The Monty Python like humor begins to grate on your nerves when your death is the cost of the joke. Some of the rooms, locations, and encounters are merely to be avoided. There is no solution or way around them without the cost being your life. So through trial and error and careful mapping you know which areas to avoid. However the game is immense in size and scope. There are more than 100 dungeon locations, multiple treasures to find, puzzles to solve and creatures to deal with. You WANT to see what lies around the next bend. The writing and encounters are creative; however the humor and constant dying conveys a tone of apathy or irreverence which runs crosscurrent to the high stakes decisions you have to make. When it came time to try and solve a particular puzzle, I would hesitate at doing something which made the most sense, because of the humor used in the game. There are times where logic is thrown in your face and in my opinion this hurts a game that offers such a vast world to explore.

The above is an example of humor used well. I laughed out loud when I tried to force my way over a bridge only to find that I was dealing with the nephew of the Dungeon Master. This encounter doesn’t kill you but merely provides levity. Clever and appreciated unlike some of the other “you chose poorly” situations you’ll encounter in the dungeon.

The parser is rather unique and it is a staple in all three of the Maces & Magic games. You receive the room description and after presented with a series of choices the parser will hang with the cursor flashing. It is at this point that you can use certain commands: (g) for get, (l) for leave, (p) for pack, (s) for status, (w) for wait and lastly (i) for inventory. When you choose (p) for pack you go to your inventory screen and you can pick an item from your inventory. When you choose the numbered item the game will then ask you what you want to do with that item and it is waiting for a two word command. Many of the puzzles that you find throughout the three games, especially in Morton’s Fork, have a non-combative solution or a puzzle to work through. There are a few of these in Balrog’s Sampler but the Chameleon Software trio seem to get better and better at their craft as the games progress.

Even though I was finally able to play through Balrog’s Sampler it was not an easy experience. My copy of the game was extremely “buggy”. I could not save my progress at any point in the game nor did I have any kind of save state capability. Each time that I perished I had to begin the game all over again. There are many, many, one more, many instant death scenarios you will fall victim to within the game. The wandering monster and creature encounters are brutal. The ONLY way that you can come out on top of these encounters is to build up your stats. There are a couple of ways to do this which I will detail later but in order to do so you need time and the ability to move from location to location freely. If you are subject to a sudden random encounter while you are in the middle of building your stats up, you will die and you have to begin play all over again. This became sort of a “Groundhog Day” nightmare. I know what I needed to do, I knew which step to take next, I had progressed a little deeper into the dungeon, but I could not begin exploring again until I restarted the game and built my character’s stats up sufficiently enough to be able to explore. Sometimes after a death and a restart, it would take me one to two hours before I could begin adventuring and exploring again. It required incredible perseverance on my part to continue and as a result I probably spent 30 hours with the game or almost an entire week of gaming.

Furthermore, to add insult to injury, the more that I played any one game, the treasures which I found would disappear from my inventory. I would still retain the points or the score for finding them, but they would be completely missing from my person. So when I went to the vault to deposit my treasures I could not do so because they were no longer on my person. One extremely irritating thing which happened twice to me; there is a pirate who steals your treasures from you much like the thief in Zork I. You later encounter the pirate in his lair and can even kill him in his sleep. He is guarding three treasures which you get to collect as well as any treasures that he previously stole from you. It was a relief to find him and kill him; because I thought I would be free from him randomly taking my treasures.

Well, lo and behold, I’m mapping out the Monster Maze in the game (which is huge) and suddenly the pirate which I previously killed pops in, takes one of my treasures from my inventory, and runs off. I was like; “What the hell…” I go back to his lair, the pirate was there in one game and absent in another, but the item he took WAS NOT. AND points had been deducted from my score. The game is rife with a lot of these “buggy” or “glitchy” moments with no save game feature available to me. When I tried to save my character my stats I built up would revert back to normal and I would lose all of my inventory. I had no choice but to start over each time and make each new game a one and done scenario.

The first thing that you really must do is build your stats up so that you can survive the wandering monster encounters and the set piece combats. There are a few ways to do this scattered throughout the dungeon such as a Personality Machine, a Dungeon Doctor and a Wheel of Luck but the best way to build up your strength is in the library (no I’m not kidding). You can check out a book on Physical Strength for 10 gold pieces and when you do so a drill instructor appears and has you do push ups. This will raise your strength by 2 and you can do this as many times as you want. Be warned, a wandering monster can easily interrupt this process before you’re able to get your strength to a respectable level and you may have to begin your game all over again.

The treasures that I found in the game are as follows:

• Bag of jewels – found on an island in a buried chest
• Emerald orb – found in the spaghetti maze
• Diamonds – found in the monster maze
• Chalice – found through the gargoyle archway in the monster maze
• Necklace – taken from the skull box
• God of Waterfalls – found at the top of the falls
• Singing Harp – found in the home of the giant at the top of the beanstalk
• Clock – also found in the home of the giant
• Collar – taken off the Roc around the clock (yes that’s right)
• Golden Eggs – taken from the gigantic goose in the giant’s castle
• Pearl – taken from the giant oyster
• Ruby Skull, Silver Pirate Ship, Chest of Jewels – taken from the pirate’s lair adjacent to the Daddy Dragon room
• Silver Tiger – found in a northern hallway near the Oracle
• Ruby – found north of the Wizard’s lair in an alcove guarded by traps

I ended my last game with 1450 points earning me the role of knight though I did have 1650 points before the pirate who I had killed turned up and took a treasure that never appeared in his lair again – and I lost the points! I also was extracting the Ruby during this latest run when the game dropped due to an illegal error. I suspect because I had so much inventory. The game is rife with bugs and can be very fragile so I know my 1650 score would have been at least 100 or 200 points higher I can’t remember how much the Ruby was worth.

There are some puzzles that were extremely difficult to figure out. The Daddy Dragon being one of them. The only way past the dreaded adult chromatic dragon is by RELEASING MICE which causes it to flee. You might now understand why I was becoming frustrated at the humor and game logic. It requires patience and trying each item. Doing so with no save game feature however made the experience enormously long and admittedly started to fray at any enjoyment I was having exploring the dungeon.

There are a couple things in the game which I never did get to solve. There is an alcove in the library that can only be reached by a ladder and I suspect some kind of treasure there but any attempt to reach the item meets in death or one of my items getting chomped in half. I’ve tried several items including an iron bar which I thought would jam the trap. So I’m curious what the solution to this puzzle is if someone happens to know. There is also a room that has a spiral drawn on the wall with a red stone in the middle embedded into the wall. I felt this was likely a puzzle of some kind but all my interactions didn’t work. Lastly I was curious what the Black Globe that you find in the library does. Balrog Sampler contains a lot of puzzles which you’ll get to work through.

If there were no technical issues, a proper save game feature and greater accessibility to copies of these games, I think more gaming circles would have been talking about this series. It sports one of the largest dungeons to date and some very interesting text. The bugs, no chance to save, combined with many instant death scenarios, makes this a game only for the most dedicated of historians and retrogamers. Thirty gaming hours and a week later however; I’m still glad that I finally got the chance to explore this most elusive of games.