Lucas' 260 RPGs Corner

[Leitz]

When I all of a sudden got a huge interest in RPGs, I made me some shit list like this, which was something like: "Uhm at first I play all the Wizardrys, then all the M&Ms and...". Soon I realized I couldn't make it through Wizardry I, so I made a new list with ten of my favourite soon-to play RPGs, and of course I haven't played through more than five of them to this day (Realms of Arkania trilogy took sooooo long). At the moment I'm playing Wizardry I again LOL.

 

[felipepepe]

IF I encounter a similar game in the future (I doubt it), I'll probably do the same thing.

Spoiler: you will, more than you imagine.

BTW, be aware that some of these PLATO titles aren't the original version. Orthanc, for example, was updated by someone and even has auto-maps now, which the original didn't:

Auto-maps like this wouldn't be a feature in RPGs until like 10 years after Orthanc.

 

[Sigourn]

Spoiler: you will, more than you imagine.

To be honest I'm only worried about games that are far too long for no particular reason. Rogue for example is cool for the minutes I played it, there's no roll of stats and no need to map the dungeon. So the fact that it is "long" isn't really bothersome at all, you die and just start again. But in dnd, having to reroll stats all the time after dying, and knowing you could die extremely early if you have bad luck (you could encounter three enemies in a row on your way to the entrance, and thus die) is kind of shit.

The PLATO games make much more sense when you take the context into account (them being games you played at college).

BTW, be aware that some of these PLATO titles aren't the original version. Orthanc, for example, was updated by someone and even has auto-maps now, which the original didn't:

True, true, I like that (so far) the PLATO games offer backstory on their development, including changes and innovations. dnd had extensive pages claiming a few very popular games were dirty rip-offs of the PLATO games.

Anyhow, time will tell. As long as the game either enjoyable or "not repetitive", I'm game. Otherwise, I'll probably stop playing once I know enough about the game.

 

[an Administrator]

What's a PLATO?

 

[thesheeep]

I'm not entirely sure.

 

[felipepepe]

 

[Sigourn]

What's a PLATO?

Someone who once asked himself "how do I know this bottle is a bottle and not another thing? How do I know, if I'm taught what "good" is, if an act is good when I see one?". So Plato told himself, "what we see is the essence of good shine from within the act". And then he asked, "but where does the essence of "bottle" come from?". He explained, "there's something, The One, that is beauty and good, and they are in the absolute, in the world of ideas." Cue Allegory of the Cave explanation.

He was a pretty cool guy. He, alongside Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche are the reason I'm currently postponing my playthroughs. I have an exam next Wednesday on Philosophy and A E S T H E T I C S.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

What's a PLATO?

The Digital Antiquarian wrote an article about the PLATO system back in 2011.

 

[Sigourn]

3) Beneath Apple Manor - Special Edition (IBM PC) (Don Worth, 1983) - COMPLETED​

It's been a long time coming but it finally came: my third game experience. From now on, just accept these will not be "reviews", but more or less my experiences with the games. If you haven't noticed yet, I skipped through four PLATO games (dnd, Moria, Orthanc, and Oubliette), for two reasons: one, they are not fun, and two, I don't want to start my vacations by playing those. But rest assured, I will be playing them. I also removed two PLATO games from my list: Avatar and Camelot. Why? Because one is a real multiplayer experience and I'm not interested in those, and the other came out already when cRPGs went commercial, so I have no interest in it either.

On to Beneath Apple Manor.

The version I'm playing is the IBM PC Special Edition, released in 1983. There are two reasons for this:

- I originally wanted to play the 1978 Apple release. But it runs slow. Very slow. It took me four hours to beat the game in the IBM release. In the Apple release, I had a delay of around three seconds for every action I performed. I played just enough to get an idea of the game and the graphics (which I personally found lovely, even if they were extremely barebones).
- I then moved on to the Special Edition, Apple II release. It has one extra enemy (Vampires), and the ability to actually save your game. Before, you could only save your progress in case you died, but now, you were free to exit the game and return the next day to play it. However, as I found out after a quick Google search, the save game feature is BROKEN on the cracked version of the game found online, so not only I am unable to save the game, I'm unable to save my character progress altogether (meaning if I die, I should better restart the game or play with the stats of a level 1 character in level 20 of the dungeon). The IBM PC version has a functioning save game feature, but sadly it doesn't have an option to play with the original text based-graphics (which the Apple II Special Edition does have).

The gameplay is essentially the same in the three versions, so it's not like I'm missing anything, especially since Beneath Apple Manor is fairly simple in its mechanics. It's actually simpler than dnd, and much, much easier to play and understand (which doesn't mean anything, considering dnd is brutal in the long, grindy, boring "you have died for the 523580th time" way).

You start the game in a level that's obscured by fog of war, that has no teleporters, no pit falls, and a handful of secret doors that are easily revealed by using your (I)nspect command. Moreover, if you use the (X)-Ray command, which reveals a small area on your map, you can more or less tell where a secret door lies. In dnd, you had no idea whatsoever where they could be. However, enemies are also much more varied, in that they have different properties.

- Slimes are the weakest enemy you encounter. They have the ability to degrade your normal armor progressively, until 0. You can avoid this if you get Magic armor.
- Ghosts drain your Strength attribute progressively until it reaches 0. When it reaches a negative number, you DIE. Moreover, you can only strike them with your Zap spell, or with a Magic sword. In other words, PLATO games aside, this is the root of the "You may need an enchanted blade. Some spirits are immune to normal weapons" dialogue in Morrowind. These fuckers were the bane of my early game existence, as the stat drain is permanent, but more on stat progression later.
- Trolls hit hard early on, and have good evasion. They pose no threat in the late game, and are the only low ranking enemy that actually appears in the lower levels of the Manor (Slimes and Ghosts disappear completely).
- Worms have a lot of HP, scaled to yours decline, and while they hit really hard, they tend to miss a lot of the times.
- Invisible Stalkers are invisible o) so you have to imagine where they may be, which isn't really difficult, considering there are only four possible directions. In addition, they have great Dexterity, meaning it's hard to hit them, but you are their favorite punchbag.
- Vampires substitute Ghosts in the late game. As opposed to draining your Strength permanently, they drain ALL your stats, but only temporarily. Annoying enemies if you are cornered, but other than that, not much of a threat.
- Dragons are the strongest enemies. Two hits are almost guaranteed death (in my case, it was always guaranteed death). But luckily they have the lowest HP of all late game monsters, so they aren't particularly hard to dispose.

You have four stats: Strength, which affects your carry weight, your ability to break through doors, and your damage; Intelligence, which affects how often can you cast spells; Dexterity, which determines your chances to hit an enemy; and Body, which are your hit points. You can restore all of these except Body by waiting. However, you can always use Heal to restore your Body (spamming a combination of Rest-Heal until your Intelligence is not enough-Rest again), or just return to the stairs of the dungeon. You don't create your character, so your stats are always the same at the beginning, and because everything scales to you, it matters little what build you specialize in.

You can only go deeper into the dungeon: there is no turning back. You can, of course, exit a level, but on your return, you will be on the same level. Because your stats are restored when leaving, it is an easy way to restore your energies whenever you are fighting a strong creature that keeps pummeling at you (Dragons and Worms). When leaving, you can either buy Armor or Weapons (3 and 2 available, respectively), Trade your experience points for Attribute points (for every 10 experience points, you can earn one Attribute point), or perform a Scan to save your current stats in case you die. Or you can just go Deeper into the dungeon.

There are treasure chests scattered throughout the Manor. You can find wands, boots, swords, armor, and potions. Wands can either be cursed, lowering your stats permanently by half, or they can give you the ability to cast the Zap spell (only way to hurt Ghosts) without losing Intelligence, as well as allowing you to open doors without the need to break through them (and, in some instances, fail). The Boots of Silence allow you to move undetected, while the Magic sword and armor are the best pieces of equipment you will need. Potions can increase or reduce your Attributes, allow you to become Clairvoyant and thus see EVERYTHING in a level without the need to explore it (and this lasts forever), or you can die from Poison. You can also lose your memory, making the level pitch black until you explore it again. Gold you find earns you the same amount of experience points, and eventually your only use for it will be Scans to save your progress. Simple, but effective.

Speaking of spells, you have four: (T)eleport places you in a random spot of the level, useful if you are being trapped by multiple enemies at a time, but you drop your gold and it is then stashed in a random chest. (H)eal cures your Body, (Z)ap is your only offensive magic spell, and (X)-Ray, as I mentioned, reveals adyacent sections of the dungeon. There's also the (L)isten command, which, when used right next to a door, gives you a hint at what awaits you on the ohter side of it.

The game boils down to you going deeper and deeper into the dungeon, opening trapped chests in search of the Golden Apple. I played the game for four hours, and I was ready to give up and call it a day considering I had experienced everything BAM had to offer (which is exactly why I have stopped playing dnd), but I persisted and soon enough I got my reward. There's also a bad joke related to the original platform of the game (Apple), but at this stage, I didn't really care.

Overall, in terms of complexity, I rate the games I've played so far:

1. dnd
2. Beneath Apple Manor - Special Edition
3. pedit5

In terms of "fun", however, I would have to say:

1. Beneath Apple Manor - Special Edition
2. pedit5
3. dnd

dnd is the more complex and rich cRPG of the three, but sadly, it is also the least fun of them. You die so often you never get to enjoy the game, and because we are not part of a 1970's college campus, winning dnd isn't going to get you any women. On the other hand, BAM-SE is more complex than pedit5 but not as much as dnd, but manages to be the best one for the most part. My only issues with it is that it starts strong, but quickly becomes tiresome. Having to exit and reenter the dungeon every time a fucking Dragon landed a hit on me got boring really quickly. The perfect cRPG (asuming I only knew these three and nothing more) would be one that has the complexity of dnd, the intensity and excitement of pedit5, and the enemy variety of Beneath Apple Manor.

With all that said, the following games are up in my lists:

- Official list: Temple of Apshai (1979), Automatic Simulations.
- Complementary list: Dungeon Campaign (1978), Synergistic Software.

Which one I play, I leave it up to you.

 

[Fowyr]

Apshai!

 

[octavius]

Apshai!

Gesundheit!

 

[Sigourn]

Apshai!

Apshai it is.

I'm having a hard time finding a proper disk, however. I have tried both the original Apple II version (1980) and an Apple II version that appears to be a translation of the French educational version of the game, but both have issues regarding saving the game. I've moved on to the Trilogy remake, and even then, I don't know if every time I resume playing i'm supposed to pick the same treasures again, since they appear to be in the same spot.

There's a "Restore a game in progress" option when you boot up the game, but I can't seem to make use of it, though the "Load a character from disk" option works fine.

 

[Sigourn]

4) ON GOING - Temple of Apshai Trilogy - Temple of Apshai (Apple II) (Epyx, 1985)​

"I could tell you tales of horror and madness, but this would not serve. The Trilogy of Apshai, like truth and beauty, cannot be told. You must experience to know."
- Temple of Apshai Trilogy Manual​

Temple of Apshai is a dungeon crawl role-playing video game developed and published by Automated Simulations (later renamed to Epyx) in 1979. Originating on the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, it was followed by several updated versions for other computers between 1980 and 1986.

Originally I wanted to play either the TRS-80 or Commodore PET release of the game. Unable to properly get the game going, eventually I had to settle on the Apple II version released in 1980. Sadly, it had some broken features and I then had to move onto the 1985 Temple of Apshai Trilogy remake. What the Trilogy consists of is the original Temple of Apshai and its two expansions, Upper Reaches of Apshai (1981) and Curse of Ra (1982), with updated graphics. With that in mind, here's some info about the game.

At the start of Temple of Apshai, you are given the option to create your own character, or have the Innkeeper (whom you buy stuff from) create one for you at random. By creating your own character, you can give him any kind of outlandish values you want; however, because the game is inspiredd by Dungeons & Dragons, your max stat can only be 18 in any given attribute. There are Six Basic Attributes™:

- Strength: affects your carry weight, the swords you can use (just as New Vegas did later), and how much damage you deal.
- Constitution: affects Fatigue, which gets lower the more you walk in the dungeon and the longer a fight is. It also affects how much damage you can sustain. Fatigue is easily restored by waiting on the dungeon, or by defending while fighting (more on that later). If your Fatigue drops into the negative numbers, you will be unable to do anything until it is regained.
- Dexterity: affects your chance to hit and your ability to parry a foe's attacks with your shield.
- Intelligence: affects your ability to barter with the Innkeeper and your chances to talk with a creature.
- Intuition: affects your ability to detect Secret Doors and Traps. Given my character has a fairly standard Intuition (10), I'm not sure if a high Intuition allows you to detect these things automatically without the need to issue a command.
- Ego: makes it easier for you to influence the Inkeeper and monsters, and your ability to fight despite your wounds.

The manual of the game has fairly simple instructions on how to import one of your tabletop characters into the game, and viceversa. It's a fairly simple way to cheat your way into a high level character and still feel good about it.

One of my favorite features about this game is the ability to haggle with the Innkeeper. Given I won't be playing every cRPG in existence, I can't say for sure "this is the first game to do it", but this is the first game I've played so far that does it. It's a Pawn Stars simulator that's fairly fun to play, complete with the Innkeeper saying he has to keep his children fed if you make a low offer for his stock (not pictured above). Despite how simple it is, I'm surprised it isn't included in other games I've played. Morrowind does it, but in a fairly basic and uninspiring "Your offer is refused". Plus in Temple of Apshai, the NPC actually responds to your haggling, much like Rick Harrison would: should you offer 80 silver pieces for an item worth 100, the Innkeeper may offer 90 instead.

There are a few more pieces of equipment compared to Beneath Apple Manor, but it's really a matter of a couple of swords and a couple of armor sets, alongside two shields. If you buy a Great Sword, the strongest weapon from the Innkeeper, you will be unable to carry a shield, so it is a nice touch. In addition, you can find magic equipment inside the dungeon, but only weapons and armor may be carried back to the surface. Everything else loses its magic, and becomes, thus, worthless.

Temple of Apshai is an interesting game. It gives you a fairly big dungeon to explore (for its time, at least) which is not procedurally generated, unlike Beneath Apple Manor's. It has secret doors you have to look for. Chests can have hidden traps lying around, which you have to spot. Just like in Beneath Apple Manor, you can eavesdrop on monsters as well, and what's more, talk to them. Admittedy, I haven't given this feature a try myself. The combat is turn-based. You have a couple of commands at your disposal: a sword thrust, which is your basic attack; a "push and thrust" command, which is supposedly stronger and "deadly", but apparently makes it easier for enemies to land hits on you; defence, which allows you to regain fatigue while defending yourself; and shooting arrows, of normal or magical variety. Enemies move around in battle, so you may ocassionally find they are out of range. In this ocassion, it's useful to have a bow to attack them from a distance. However, your arrows will only land if the enemy is positioned exactly horizontally or vertically from your position.

Loot is everywhere in Temple of Apshai. It is found inside treasure chests, and you will most likely find one already in the first room. However, the loot is fixed, so once you know which chests are valuable and which aren't, it's a matter of going straight for the goodies. These chests, of course, respawn when you re-enter the dungeon. Eventually, money will be not an issue, and your concern will most likely lie in finding Elixirs, which restore considerably more health than the Salves available for buying at the Inkeeper's store.

Worth mentioning is the use of the Manual to read on room and treasure descriptions, just like Wasteland 2 did for dialogue. In these pictures you can see the room number listed on top of the interface. Each room has an accompanying description which tells you more about what you see. So far, however, I haven't found these useful at all, and it's mostly just novelty.

Whenever you return to the Innkeeper, every treasure you've picked up inside the dungeon will be valued. It's essentially a "sell loot" mechanic, except there's no bargaining, and it's against your will.

Anyone who has played Skyrim with the mod Frostfall may be interested to know that Temple of Apshai features an identical mechanic. Whenever your WOUNDS value drops to 0% (ironically it should be the opposite, as it means you would be perfectly healthy...) there is a chance you will be rescue by one of three possible adventurers. Olias the Dwarf will basically empty you of your valuables, be it money, jewels, or magic items. Lowenthal the Wizard will just take your magic items away from you, and Bendic the Cleric will return you to the Innkeeper safe and sound, and with all your stuff still in your possession.

Temple of Apshai consists of one dungeon spanning four levels. So far I've managed to explore the first level (spoiler warning):

Spoiler

I'll get down to mapping the remaining three levels, and call it a day, as apparently there really isn't any "goal" for this game. Luckily it's just four levels, and not twenty fucking levels filled with death traps, teleporters, and fucking monsters that kill you in one hit.

 

[Sigourn]

4) Temple of Apshai Trilogy - Temple of Apshai (Apple II) (Epyx, 1985) - COMPLETED​

Free from the shackles of this game, I can safely say one thing: if you are going to make a videogame, try to make it fun from start to finish.

This game consists of one dungeon and four levels, just as I said before. The problem is that there really isn't much to do in this game. From start to finish, you will be basically doing the same thing. There's no real sense of progression until you die, at which point you will probably lose your magic equipment to some fucking Dwarf or Wizard, and its all uphill from then on. (I was having a pretty easy time through level 4 until I died, and after that every single enemy posed a huge problem)

I did savescum a few times, mostly when that fucking Dwarf stole my shit, and near the end I just sped up the emulator because FUCK THIS GAME'S SPEED. You have to calculate each one of your steps. The movement keys consist of "Turn left" (L) and "Turn right" (R), followed by a number from 1 to 9 to determine how many steps you give. This has to be a product of its time (1985), in which case I would have never bought an Apple II considering the IBM PC version uses traditional movement keys. It sounds silly, but they are truly infuriating. The lag from the emulator (or the original Apple II?) means that you may accidentally take 9 steps in the wrong direction. And it is all so incredibly slow you will dread making a mistake of that kind.

Having to walk all over a room to reveal a new section (with treasure) is fairly annoying too, but there's nothing that can be done about it. The room descriptions I praised earlier turned out to be fairly boring in the long run. "The air smells of vanilla" is one of the most overused descriptions in the entire manual, and it shows the developers really didn't know what they were doing when they added descriptions. It doesn't help that the game looks exactly the same in each room. Imagine my surprise when I was supposed to be inside a cave with a waterfall, yet everything looked like "brick walls inside a dungeon".

Considering the rest of the games in this series are practically the same thing, and I can't say I sincerely enjoyed this game, I was ready to tell those to go fuck themselves. BUT luckily there are a few (long) games in between the expansions I've yet to play, and Hellfire Warrior (plus expansions).

One way or another, I leave you my stats at the end of the game, having explored all levels and rooms:

And, as always, my maps. Bear in mind they are not 100% complete: the first two don't display any traps and trash treasure, plus given how I made them they lack the appropiate shapes. And the last two don't display all traps, mostly because I forgot to use the Spot skill.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Just like I did before, I'll let you pick which game you want me to play next. I'll be skipping the ones not chosen (but will return to them later). Next up are:

- Official list: Akalabeth: World of Doom (1979), Richard Garriott.
- Complementary list: Eamon (1980), Donald Brown.

 

[Sigourn]

5) AKALABETH - World of Doom: COMPLETED

​

I enjoyed this game. To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed parts of other games I've played. I mentioned how they all had one flaw, and that was that they were too long for their own good.

This didn't happen with Akalabeth, the first title in the Ultima series (as it is unofficially referred to by Richard Garriott as "Ultima 0"). I listened to the advice of one Codexer and played in difficulty 1. Apparently difficulty only changes how deep you will need to go into the dungeon to win the game. I'm happy I played it in difficult 1, as it was enough for the game to remain enjoyable.

I will describe Akalabeth as concisely as I can to those who have never played the game: you talk to Lord British, receive a quest to slay a monster, enter any of the randomly generated dungeons of the overworld (generated based on a "lucky number" you enter every time you play), and slay the monster before returning to Lord British, getting a new quest, and so on until you slay a Balrog, the strongest monster in the game.

That is Akalabeth - World of Doom, in a nutshell. One kill quest after the other, which means we can track the lineage of Fallout 4 all the way to 1979 (despite what the cover indicates). And some people doubted Todd Howard cared about good RPGs.

I am not playing every cRPG ever made, it is not my intention, it never was my intention, you do not need to study every single thing that happened every single day of every single year to be a historian, or to understand history. But I did want to know about the history of RPGs, and hence I used Felipe Pepe's book as a base for the games I'm playing in this thread (and the games present in my "More RPGs to Play" list), as it seems to be a very good screening of the RPG genre.

I say this because I've played (and won) four RPGs already, one PLATO game, three commercial cRPGs. And I'm surprised at how little it took for me to find an actually enjoyable game for 2016. It is the first game in this thread which I can safely say could get a modern remake that only updated the graphics to Legend of Grimrock levels and remain otherwise untouched, and still be fun. And now, let me tell you why it is fun.

​

At the start of the game, you reroll your stats until you are happy with them. I would say Hit Points and Gold don't matter at all at the start, since you can easily grind those up at the beginning. Strength means more damage, Dexterity better hit chance, Stamina more defense, and Wisdom determines what's the first mook Lord British tells you to bring to his royal courthouse.

The overworld consists of five structures: mountains (a huge crack on the floor), trees (represented by a square), tradehouses (that nice structure you see to the left of the X above), dungeons (that X above), and Lord British's palace, a big square with a pyramid on top. Essentially, you buy your stuff at the tradehouses, perhaps grind a little in the nearest dungeon, then go to Lord British for a quest. You map the dungeons so you avoid falling into the pits in the future, and get used to the layout.

There's not much you can buy in the game. A handful of weapons are available at your disposal. The Rapier is the best weapon in the game damage-wise, followed by the Bow. Both can only be used by a Fighter, proficient in all weapons. The Mage, however, is the only one who can use the MAGIC AMULET OF MAGIC and control its power (for the most part). I haven't done this myself, but I have heard tales of people using the power of the amulet to transform themselves into Lizardmen, repeatedly, and thus increase their stats so much the game becomes a joke.

​

Interaction with NPCs is limited to the unnamed tradehouse people and Lord British, who hasn't got much things to say. You get to name your character when you first talk to him, and he kindly increases all your stats by 1. For reference, that Amulet I mentioned TRIPLES your stats when used properly. Yeah...

​

Grinding in this game isn't a problem. The weakest enemies in the game are a pushover. Every time you defeat an enemy and return to the surface you gain experience points for every enemy you defeat. Exp varies depending on the level of the dungeon and the enemy defeated. You also gain Gold, which is mostly used to buy Food. Thieves can steal your well earned Gold, Food, and equipment, but this rarely happens. On the other hand...

​

This piece of shit was the bane of my existence. It is the reason it has taken me so long to win the game (days). The Gremlin steals half of your food, quite often. It's like a Thief, but much, much, much worse. And I feel it deserves a paragraph of its own.

In Akalabeth, you die when your HP reaches 0, or if you make any move after your Food level has dropped to 0, including waiting. HP can be grinded up fairly easily: enter a dungeon, kill a few Thieves and Skeletons, exit. Rinse and repeat. Eventually you will have enough HP (like 40) to safely fight Orcs. Fight a few Orcs, exit the dungeon, return. Now fight Carrion Crawlers for a while. Eventually you will gain Exp (and thus hitpoints) for the sole reason of fighting enemies while you map the dungeon. You can get so much HP that the strongest enemies in the game are a walk in the part, and the fights only drag on for a while because they are pretty good at evading your hits. But here's what makes the Gremlin so special: you can only grind up Gold for so long before you get mad. Here's why:

At 5000 points in Food (which is a lot of Food), here's how many steals a Gremlin needs to fuck you up:

1. From 5000 to 2500
2. From 2500 to 1250
3. From 1250 to 625
4. From 625 to 313
5. From 313 to 157
6. From 157 to 79
7. From 79 to 40

In seven turns, in the worst case scenario, asuming a Gremlin ALWAYS steals your food, you have dropped from 5000 points to 40. Depending on where you are, this could be a death sentence, in particular if you are an unlucky sod and have yet to encounter more Gremlins on your way out of the dungeon. It feels like I'm overreacting, but I'm not: it really happened to me, and that's the image you see above.

When facing a Gremlin, RUN FOR YOUR LIFE. Don't bother killing them, it's best to waste one turn turning away from them and then escaping. Hopefully you will be able to improvise some successful escape route. That's basically what I had to do when I mapped the dungeon.

It's funny how Gremlins are much more dangerous than the last enemy you are sent to kill in the game. Lord British's task could have well been "go to a deep level and make it back", as Gremlins are the only real danger once you are buffed up. When I wrote down the small chart above, I meant to show that you can grind up on Gold and buy Food, but every time it is less and less worth the hassle, until it's not worth it at all.

The Daemon is the second "strongest" enemy in the game, but just like the Balrog, it's its evasion what makes it a formidable foe, but with so many HP at my favor, it's a matter of time and hoping no fucking Gremlin comes fuck my shit up.

Returning to Lord British after finally vanquishing the mighty Balrog earns me the following message:

​

Overall, I'd say it's a marked improvement over the previous games I've played, and it doesn't surprise me Garriott went on to become one of the fathers of cRPGs as we know them today. While I don't want to give these games scores, Akalabeth, back in 1979, would have been my cRPG of choice.

I give it my Lucas Seal of Approval.


​

Next on the list is ROGUE - Exploring the Dungeons of Doom. I have found a few different versions of the game on the Internet, V1.0 dated 1983 (AI Design), V1.1 dated 1984 (Public Domain Software), V1.49 dated 1985 (Epyx), and finally one Rogue V5.4.4 that has the original look.

If you know anything about these, let me know which one should I play!

 

[Watser]

Yeah Akalabeth was surprisingly enjoyable if played on the lower difficulties as it quickly becomes tedious on the higher difficulties.

 

[Jason Liang]

I didn't check, but it seems like you don't have Dragon's Lair or its sequel on your list.

Of course i don't know if there is any way to emulate laser disc games but...

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Akalabeth, back in 1979, would have been my cRPG of choice.

FIFA and PES are some of the greatest RPGs to be honest, and yes, I consider them to be RPGs.

So how does a classic like Akalabeth hold up against more modern RPGs such as FIFA or PES?

 

[Sigourn]

Akalabeth, back in 1979, would have been my cRPG of choice.

FIFA and PES are some of the greatest RPGs to be honest, and yes, I consider them to be RPGs.

So how does a classic like Akalabeth hold up against more modern RPGs such as FIFA or PES?

I don't even remember saying the bolded part, hah. Anyhow: I'd still much rather play FIFA than Akalabeth if I want to have a good time, but if I want to explore a dungeon, I would naturally play Akalabeth. FIFA would still be the superior RPG by far, as what you can do in Akalabeth is fairly limited. At least in FIFA I can adopt multiple playstyles (defender, midfielder, forward, with all their variations), join different factions (clubs, national teams), have better and more rewarding character progression, and many more goals other than "become a Knight".

I didn't check, but it seems like you don't have Dragon's Lair or its sequel on your list.

Of course i don't know if there is any way to emulate laser disc games but...

It seems like an interesting game (brb fapping to Daphne), if anyone can chime in on how I would go to emulate this, I would give it a go, especially since it appears to be a fairly short game that doesn't require much work to beat.

 

[Jason Liang]

That was easy...

http://store.steampowered.com/app/227380

http://store.steampowered.com/app/240360/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Lair_(1983_video_game)

http://www.daphne-emu.com/site3/index_hi.php

 

[Sigourn]

That was easy...

http://store.steampowered.com/app/227380

http://store.steampowered.com/app/240360/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_Lair_(1983_video_game)

http://www.daphne-emu.com/site3/index_hi.php

Good to know! I'll be playing them in the future them. I've just won Dungeon Campaign, but I'm playing it for some more time before I play Wilderness Campaign and then make a proper entry.

 

[Sigourn]

6) DUNGEON CAMPAIGN: COMPLETED
Synergistic Software, 1978 (Apple II)

​

When I made the lists, one of the first things I did was deciding to play all previous and next games on any given franchise or videogame. Mostly to see how the franchise evolved, or how it declined. This game is an unassuming "dungeon crawler", but most importantly, the proof I made the right choice.

Dungeon Campaign is a fairly simple dungeon crawler. It's similar to Beneath Apple Manor, from the same year. It is not a particularly entertaining game, and it isn't one to write home about. You are in charge of a small scale army of 15 soldiers, plus a Dwarf that will map the dungoen, and an Elf that alerts about the presence of dangers, which include traps, pits, and necromancers that teleport you to different sections of the dungeon. That is how our story begins.

The dungeon is composed of four levels. At the start of the game, each level is mapped right in front of your eyes. In other words, you see ach map being drawn. You could take a screenshot of each level, but that defeats the entire purpose of the game. Moreover, things like traps, treasure, necromancers, and ladders, aren't mapped. There are multiple ways to advance through the dungeon, but since the goal is to reach level 4 at the bottom of the dungeon, even pits are a good way of progressing. Your Elf is crucial to detect the traps you encounter in the dungeon, and by using the (J)ump command you can jump two squares in front of you, clearing the pits.

The party faces plenty of enemies in the dungeon, each level having stronger enemies, naturally. Fighting in this game is a matter of chance, and stats (or should I say, stat): whenever you encounter an enemy, you roll a virtual dice which decides whether you hit the enemy or not. You also roll your enemy's attack dice. The stat involving in a fight is Strength. You have to stop the dice yourself, but the number (which is displayed on the screen) moves so quickly it's fairly pointless to try and achieve a good result. If you win, you get stronger. That's all there is to the combat in this game.

There's treasure to find, but it doesn't do anything. Admittedly, I did win the game by sheer luck on my first attempt, falling through the floors, and making it to the end of the game with (I think) no people left. I assume the player character is soldier zero.

Dying is fairly easy if you accidentally fall through the floors and encounter high level enemies. The most dangerous enemy, however, is the boss of each level. It can instantly kill at least one of your soldiers, and then it disappears. The bosses consists of man-eating dragons, a giant serpent, and a Spectre. No matter how strong you are, you will lose soldiers to those monsters, as you can't actually "fight" them.

Winning the game is a matter of making it to the end of the dungeon and leaving. It isn't particularly hard, as I won the game on my first try. I gave the game a second run just to learn more about it, and I made it a point to explore as much of the dungeon as I could, but it becomes difficult with so many necromancers and pterodactyls (I'm not making this up) taking you to different levels.

In the end, it's a simple game that may or may not be more complex than Beneath Apple Manor. It definitely is much shorter, but not as enjoyable.

Screenshot gallery:

Spoiler

Dungeon Campaign title screen.

Level 1 generation.

Fighting an enemy. Notice the mix of Purple (your party) and Green (your enemy). The grey square is the boss of the dungeon, a man-eating dragon.

A gas trap. You have 9 seconds to leave if you want to live. The brown stripe below is the boss of the dungeon, a giant serpent. The blue squares represent pits, and the white lines are stairs.

About to win the game. The yellow square represents treasure, while that big grey thing is a Spectre, the final boss of the game.

End screen. Only one of my party survived (alongside the Dwarf and the Elf), but that just means more riches for each of us.

 

[Sigourn]

7) WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN: COMPLETED
Synergistic Software, 1979 (Apple II)

Ahhh, Wilderness Campaign. It is the first sequel I get to play in this journey, and it is the prime example of how sequels should be done: bigger, better, more complex, and more fun. Wilderness Campaign gets rid of the dungeon crawling aspect of Dungeon Campaign (which won't be missed), instead moving our army to the overworld. Gone are our Dwarf and Elf friends. Now, our task is to destroy the Great Necromancer that terrorizes our land. Of all the games I've played so far, this is the first commercial cRPG that tasks us with destroying an evil menacing the world. Previously, dnd (1975) tasked us with retrieving an Orb at the end of a dungeon, while vanquishing the Dragon that protected it. However, dnd's objective was never "destroy the Dragon", it was merely a pre-requisite to retrieve the Orb.

Wilderness Campaign innovates in a number of considerable ways over its predecessor. The action moves from a single dungeon to an entire map. You still command an army of fighters, but the aforementioned Dwarf and Elf are gone.

The map is populated by many locations: villages, castles, ruins, tombs, temples. With the exception of castles and villages, each location is sealed after your explore it for the first time, regardless of how long you spent there. When entering a location, you remain on the overworld. However, you get prompts to explore the deserted locations, encountering loot (copper, silver, and gold coins),

Unlike Dungeon Campaign, you can "interact" with NPCs in this game: in villages, you may buy equipment for your fighters, food to kept them well fed, a variety of tools (like ropes, inflatable boats, machetes, lanterns, and more) to sort the different obstacles you will find in the world, as well as Mules to carry your phat loot. You can also recruit Fighters and Bearers. In addition, you can exchange your different types of coins in exchange of gold coins. As you enter castles, its owner may give you gold and Fighters to help on your journey. I got 20 Fighters (fully equipped!) this way. Your Charisma stat influences the possibility of this happen.

The more people you have on your army, the more things you can carry. A pay has to be specified before you can recruit people: if the pay is too low, one or two Fighters or Bearers may join you. As the pay increases, you can hire more people at any given time. Every ten days it is pay day. You can choose how many salaries you want to pay, and those people who don't get paid will desert.

Food is a new mechanic, which I've already seen in Akalabeth, for example. Unlike Garriott's pet project, thankfully, Food is only consumed when on the overworld. As you move through the overworld, Food will be consumed slowly or quickly, depending on how many people compose your campaign (one packet of Food feeds ten men for one day). It is recommended to buy more packets of Food after every expedition, as you never know when you will encounter obstacles that will prevent you from advancing through an area to another one (I lost a lot of Food trying to maneouver my way around certain obstacles). When you run out of Food, your people will starve to death, one at a time as the days go back.

On the subject of areas, the game has five: the plains is the section where you start the game. You move the fastest in here. Swamp, Jungle, Desert, and mountains all have their own obstacles you need to sort: either use a boat to advance through the Swamp, a Machete to cut through the Jungle's vines, among others. Generally they are nothing to write home about.

The game overhauls the concept of traps seen in Dungeon Campaign. Before, a trap could only be avoided through player skill. Now, you actually have to roll a virtual dice (which works just like combat did in the previous game) to determine whether you manage to avoid the traps that may appear on the overworld and whenever you explore a location.

Combat is the trickiest element in this game, and perhaps, the most interesting I've seen so far in any cRPG I've played in this thread. I admit it took me a while to get used to, and I still don't understand it completely (or the system is just flawed). When you enter a battle, your army of Fighters battles a group of monsters. Four different values make up the final value which will determine the outcome of one single round (for the purpose of this explanation, one "fight" consists of various rounds).

1. Total Armor/Weapons
2. Personal
3. Bonus Points
4. Luck Factor

Armor and Weapons in this game have classes. A higher class means better armor and weapons. In battle, the combined scores of Armor classes determine your "Total Armor" score. If I have four Fighters, one with no armor, two with an AC of 2, and another with an AC of 5, the "Total Armor" score will be, naturally: 1x1+2x2+1x5= 10. In other words, the game treats all your Fighters as a single unit. "Total Weapon" score is determined in exactly the same manner. Personal is a number based on your stats.

Bonus Points are added based on your positioning in battle (which you can change at any round), and the kind of weapons you are using (certain enemies have weaknesses ot certain weapons). Because you can't really choose what to give each Fighter, the game decides which equipment is best for your party, on a given battle. You are expected to roll a dice that become your Luck Factor for any given move in the fight. In practice, this dice is useful only early in the game. Later on, a properly equipped party will steamroll through the game with ease. When you attack, the game compares your combined Weapon score (1+2+3+4) against the opposition Armor score. If your Weapon score is higher than the enemy's Armor score, your hit lands. It works exactly the same when your enemies attack you.

Combat in this game works in rounds, like turn-based combat. Except that, because of it's nature, you either kill enemy units, or don't even scratch it. What does this mean? Well, it means that the first round of any battle is crucial. Wiping out enemy units in the first round means the battle will get more and more easier as it advances, as your enemy loses units (and thus Armor and Weapon scores, meaning they are much less likely to hurt you, and in turn, are easier to be hurt). I don't think there's anything else I should mention about this.

The goal of the game is simple: defeat the Great Necromancer. To do so, you first need to find a magic weapon capable of destroying the magic barrier surrounding his castle. How is this possible? When you have gathered enough men and treasure, as explained in the manual, the White Mage will appear on your map, and upon reaching his location, he will let you choose between two magic weapons to destroy his barrier (I don't know what difference does it make to choose one over the other, though) and two magic items to help you on your quest. One of these allows you to detect enemies before you reach them, thus allowing you to escape safely, as opposed to wasting valuable turns in battle.

Wilderness Campaign definitely stands head and shoulders above Dungeon Campaign. It is by far the most complicated commercial cRPG I've played thus far, with many quirks to learn, many interesting features, and most importantly, not too long, and not too short (my playthrough was around 3 hours long).

I give it my Lucas Seal of Approval.

​

Screenshot gallery:

Spoiler

Wilderness Campaign title screen.

Entering a remote village.

Bartering window. You can haggle with the vendor just like you could in Temple of Apshai, though the vendors in Wilderness Campaign seem far less forgiving.

Avoiding an Earthquake. I played this game yesterday, but I think your Save throw is supposed to match your Dexterity in order to overcome these traps.

An every day battle in Wilderness Campaign.

Valuable treasure can be found in almost every location in the game.

Lords and Barons can significantly augment your party's prowess.

My party was starving to death by the time we fought the Necromancer. My Total Weapon score was 145 against the Necromancer's 182 Total Armor score. I thought death was certain.

To my surprise, upon rolling the dice, my complete Attack Score is 10 points above the Necromancer's Defend Score, thanks to an unexpected 35 Bonus Points. Once that happened, the Necromancer lost 25 of his minions, and I coasted safely to victory.

The Evil Necromancer is finally destroyed. In a nice animation, his castle crumbles to the ground.

Wilderness Campaign end screen.

Next game I'm playing is Donald Brown's Eamon (1980, Apple II). I decided I want to play a couple more of these first RPGs before I turn to Rogue. Because of the nature of Eamon (imagine the Thief franchise, but consisting almost entirely of fan missions), I will play until I feel I know enough about the game.

Official "260 RPGs to Play" list.
Official "More RPGs to Play" list.

 

[Sigourn]

8) EAMON: PLAYED
Donald Brown, 1980 (Apple II)

Eamon title screen.​

Eamon is a free text adventure with RPG elements. That's the rundown of the game. The classic text adventures commands are here: Pick, Take, Look, Examine, directions, descriptions, and more. You have three base stats (Hardiness, Agility, Charisma) that affect how much damage you can receive, how much weight you can carry, how good you are at hitting things, how good you are at getting lower prices at the store, and how other NPCs react to you inside the game. People are free to create their own adventures for the game, meaning the setting can range anywhere from high fantasy to science fiction. You can, indeed, create an adventure in whatever setting you please.

You start the game by creating your character. All of this is beautifully explained in the game: a "burly Irishman" keeps tabs on adventurers, and asks you your name, gender, and generates your stats (three stats, using a 3d8). If your stats are low, the man in charge lets you commit suicide to be reborn with better stats. Once character generation is over, you can read an in-game manual that explains every mechanic in detail. Afterwards, you can buy equipment, learn spells (which are too expensive at this point of the game), deposit or withdraw gold (there's none of the bank at the start), and go on an adventure. The equipment store lets you pick among a number of different weapons, plus weapons of varying quality in that respective class. For example, when buying a Mace, you are offered a very good mace, a fair mace, and a shoddy mace. Good stuff.

In the couple of days I've been playing this game, I've developed a love-hate relationship. I love that it is so simple, yet so engaging. Eamon doesn't suffer from the Temple of Apshai Syndrome, elaborate room descriptions that tend to repeat themselves quite often, while you stare at a fully realized dungeon that leaves nothing to the imagination. Eamon is a text adventure, and as such, letters on a background are all you will see. It's easy for me to buy into the whole "you are in a cavern whose ceiling you can seem to see" when I'm just reading that, as opposed to actually seeing castle-like walls (like those of the Apshai Trilogy).

Its turn-based combat is fairly fun, and the mechanics that decide the outcome are simple to understand, yet fairly complex (at least, in the context of 1980). You have a variable amount of weapons and armor, and different adventures add more equipment (which you apparently can't carry out of that adventure, and thus you are forced to sell it when you return to the Main Hall, which is the disk you always start in). Your chance to hit is determined by your Agility, your Weapon Ability in that weapon's class, and the weapon's Complexity. Whenever you wear Armor and manage to land a hit, there's a chance your Weapon Ability and Armor Expertise will increase. Armor Expertise is important, since it negates the penalties your Armor inflicts on your chance to hit. Depending on your luck, you could miss, fumble your weapon (and maybe even drop it), or outright break it. Unlike other cRPGs, the game doesn't tell you how many hit points you currently have in the middle of a battle, instead opting for a more immersive "(Your character) is in pain" or "(Your character) is at Death's door, knocking loudly". Overall, it's a pretty detailed system.

Those are the things I love about Eamon: simplicity, the possibility to explore great adventures, and the combat. The things I don't like, however, outweigh my ability to enjoy the game.

First things first: in Eamon, when your character dies, he or she (as this is an equal opportunity game) dies for good. How it works is like so: you start the game in the Main Hall, disk number 1. This disk also contains the first adventure of Eamon, "The Beginner's Cave". When you leave the Main Hall, you are asked to insert whatever disk contains the adventure you want to play (there are around 250 adventures for Eamon, some of them spanning multiple disks, but they are the minority). Once you move from the Main Hall into the new adventure, even if it is The Beginner's Cave, your character is wiped off from Disk 1. Until you manage to return alive from an adventure, your character will stay dead, so to speak. This means you just can't leave the game in the middle of an adventure.

So far, so good, right? Well, not really. I would lie if I said I played more than 2 adventures (and I only completed the first one), but even in the first two adventures you can tell the game is designed around the player making mistakes, suffering instant deaths, and only then he or she can sort the obstacles in their next attempt at the adventure. Personally I think this is bullshit, as the game never makes it clear you are about to end your character's life by reading a book (The Beginner's Cave), or going just a bit farther on that river before crashing into a grate and drowning (The Minotaur's Lair). Thus, if you don't want your character to die some random death, you can always do the following:

1) Create your character in the Main Hall.
2) Exit the game (your character is stored on Disk 1).
3) Make a backup of Disk 1 and keep it around.
4) Do adventures, and save every time after you beat them.
5) If you die to some bullshit death, restore your latest backup. If you die an avoidable death (in combat, for example), man up and start from the beginning.
6) That's it.

"But hold on a second, Lucas", I hear you saying, "why are you such a faggot to dislike the game based on that one thing?". Well, my dear Codexer, I wish this was the only issue I had with the game. As it is, permanent death is fairly easy to bypass, as I just showed you. No, this isn't my only problem with the game. The main problem I have with the game, or better said, its fan made adventures, are the bugs.

Anyone who has modded any game is probably more than used to the whole "this mod has issues, luckily the author uploaded a new version". In Eamon, this is not the case. Eamon worked on a "distribution" basis, and had its own user's club: the National Eamon User's Club (NEUC). You could suscribe to this club to receive different issues over time. These mainly covered new adventures, how to make your own adventures, some trivia, and bug fixes. Because this was 1985, bug fixing had to be done in one of two ways: you either send your Eamon adventure diskettes to the people in charge of the NEUC, or you applied the fixes yourself (posted in these issues) by simplying applying the fixes described. Sadly, the copies of the different Eamon adventures you can find on the Internet are not fully up to date, that is, completely bug-free (or, at least, bug-free of the issues mentioned in the journals).

I booted every single Eamon adventure myself on AppleWin. Out of the 250 or so adventures, I found ten that weren't up to date. Four I managed to fix by myself, after some learning of GPLE (Global Program Line Editor) and following the instructions posted in the NEUC issues. The rest I've been unable to fix, as I simply don't have the knowledge. I just wish the community was alive for me to tell them "hey, fix these six fuckers and upload them". It's annoying, particularly in my case as I don't want to have an "incomplete" anything. If anyone has any experience editing .dsk files, let me know and I will give you the six problematic disks, with the Issues containing the bug fixes. Someone has to know how to do this.

My OCD prevents me from fully enjoying the game because of these buggy adventures, however, I believe Eamon is a game that truly stands the test of time. Because of that, I heavily recommend it to anyone remotely interested in text adventures, as they will find an interesting and fun cRPG. Oh, and I have mentioned you can become friends with Monsters you encounter?

I give it my Lucas Seal of Approval.

​

Screenshot gallery:

Spoiler

Start of the game. Selecting "M" means you will get killed "for not following directions".

Naming your character.

Stats generation.

Ahhh, that's better.

The Main Hall. Your base of operations any time you want to start a new adventure.

Depending on your Charisma, it is possible to befriend otherwise hostile enemies. In this case, I wasn't successful.

A Skeleton jumps out from a coffin.

It's best to try all possible courses of actions. Here I tried to go (W)est, but the gate doesn't let me. Opening it works just fine.

Next game I'm playing is Epyx's Hellfire Warrior (1980, Apple II). It is the sequel to Temple of Apshai. Luckily I seem to have found a proper copy of the game.

Official "260 RPGs to Play" list.
Official "More RPGs to Play" list.

 

[Sigourn]

9) HELLFIRE WARRIOR: In progress?
Automated Simulations, 1980 (Apple II)

With cover art that badass, the game must surely be great... right?
​

So far it's been six commercial RPGs I have played. To recap:

- Beneath Apple Manor - Special Edition (IBM PC): sort of fun, quick game. Definitely not tedious.
- Temple of Apshai Trilogy - Temple of Apshai (Apple II): the very definition of a tedious game. Cool mechanics hampered by a terrible game experience.
- Akalabeth: World of Doom (Apple II): tedious, but with some corrections it could definitely be a fun game.
- Dungeon Campaign (Apple II): fairly crappy game, simple, but thankfully short.
- Wilderness Campaign (Apple II): a complete reimagination of the first game, a real sequel, a game that improved on every aspect of its predecessor. And arguably the first game in this project where I had genuine fun. It was actually one of the games I dreaded to play the most based on how it looked.
- Eamon (Apple II): hands down, the best game of all I've played so far. It's the most engaging, the most fun, and it really lets your imagination go thanks to its simple text descriptions. The combat is interesting and unpredictable, the interactions with monsters and NPCs are nice (you never know who will be friend or foe), and the ability to carry over your character to different adventures is pretty sweet.

Hellfire Warrior, the sequel to Temple of Apshai, is sadly the worst game I've played so far. It is also very long. It's full of enemies. Combat is everywhere. Enemies constantly spawn in the different rooms you find yourself in. And when I say "it's Temple of Apshai but with a small quest", I really do mean it. It's the first time so far that I've genuinely asked myself "Why am I playing this game? What do I hope to achieve?". And honestly, I don't want to play anymore Dunjonquest games (with Hellfire Warrior half-way, I've still got four more Dunjonquest expansions). I'm even considering dropping Hellfire Warrior altogether, because this shit isn't fun. I once infamously said "Arcanum is the worst game I've ever played", but I was so wrong I want to slap my past self with my dick.

The question is: why is this game so terrible? And the answer is, sadly, fairly simple: Hellfire Warrior doesn't feel like a new game. It tries, but it fails. It uses the same Dunjonquest formula: enter a dungeon, gain experience, go to the next level, gain more experience, go to the next level, gain even more experience, and go to the last level. At least now we have a quest, of sorts. You are supposed to rescue a Maiden, but upon reading on the Internet, she pretty much behaves like any other stack of treasure in this game: pick her up and leave. The ToAT was a terrible game, for a few reasons: first, it didn't have a goal; second, the gameplay was repetitive as hell and not particularly engaging; third, the game's levels load painfully slow, and this is even more obvious in HW than in ToAT, as the latter was a 1985 title as opposed to its 1980 sequel (since I was unable to find a working copy for the original Temple of Apshai). The first game was already, in my opinion, way too long. Too many rooms and too many levels, nothing to do. The manual describes how you can take one of your PnP characters into the "dunjon", level him up, and bring him back to the real world. It really feels like that is what the Dunjonquest series were supposed to be since the beginning: a quick way to get stronger without having to wait for your next DnD session. But the games just aren't fun. I never had any fun playing these. The most fun I had was getting magic equipment just so encounters were over quicker, nothing else.

I'll explain what are the "new" things Hellfire Warrior brings to the table, with the positives and the negatives:

- As opposed to just limiting yourself to buying weapons and armor, you can now also buy different elixirs, salves, potions, and enchant your weapons and armor. However, instead of just one vendor, you now have three different vendors. Unlike Eamon, you are not asked "which one do you want to see". Rather, the game takes you to one vendor, asks you if you want anything from him, if not, the game takes you to the next vendor, and so on and so on.
- There are new dungeon levels to explore. They are still as boring as before. In Level 2 you see yourself entering a dungeon with no obvious exit. The game tells you, if you map the dungeon, you will eventually find it... Yeah, I actually had to read the hint in the manual as to where that exit was located, for one simple reason: I mapped the entire level, and I didn't find any exit. The manual tells you that if you map the level, you will have a clear idea of where the exit is. I had a big empty square in my map, but surprise surprise, that isn't where the exit is located! The game is so slow, loading a room takes so long, and enemies spawn so often I just had no willpower to find that exit myself. It wasn't going to happen, especially when it takes 3 to 4 tries "examining" a wall to see if there's a hidden door. No, suck my dick Automated Simulations!
- There are now two new weapons you can use. Are they good? No idea, the game seems to repeatedly throw stronger and stronger enemies the better you get in a level. I was OHKO'd twice in less than 5 minutes by an unsuspecting enemy

That's it. That's literally it. I started this thread because I really wanted to play through the classics. But I'm also a firm believer in the "unplayable" argument, and saying a game is so bad I can't bring myself to finish it also counts as "experiencing it". When someone says "hey, remember Hellfire Warrior?", I will no longer say "Nope, I didn't play the game". Instead, I will be able to say "Yeah, it was a piece of shit and I gave up halfway through it". I don't know if I'll finish the game, maybe, maybe not. I'll definitely stay away from anything Dunjonquest-related if I get to finish Hellfire Warrior, that's for sure.

I give it my I Never Asked For This Seal of Disapproval

​

Screenshot gallery:

Spoiler

Hellfire Warrior main title screen.

Stats at the beginning of the game.

My stats at the end of my latest dungeon run.

The new apothecary NPC.

A combat screenshot. You've got to know what the game looks like to stay away from it.

Map for Level 1.

Map for Level 2. You think you know where the exit is? Think again: it's a secret door to the north of treasure number 6. The game is so bad not even common sense works.