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History of Computer Role Playing Games (1974-1983)
Matt Barton writes "I thought Slashdotters might be interested in my History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part I article on Armchair Arcade. It starts with the birth of the CRPG on mainframes and ends in 1983. I start by discussing tabletop D&D and number games like Strat-O-Matic, move into mainframe classics like dnd and Rogue, and then cover the first CRPGs for home computers. I wrote this article for CRPG fans who want to learn more about venerable old classics like Akalabeth, Temple of Apshai, Ultima, Wizardry, Tunnels of Doom, Dungeons of Daggorath, and Telengard. Please share your own stories!"
I used to get up at 6am to log onto a BBS and play LoRD before school started, it was a classic.
I agree that D&D had a huge influence on CRPG and miniature wargaming had a huge impact on D&D. The first pnp rpgs grew out of existing miniatures rules.
Although slightly offtopic (wizard's crown was released in 1985), it is one of my favorite crpgs of all time, and it is obvious from the article where they got some of their ideas from. I still havn't beat the game.
I tried getting back to Telengard after ~15 years. While there isn't a problem running a game in real-time, it becomes an issue when you have to wait ~5-10 seconds for the scene to render and only have a short window of opportunity to make an action before being assigned the default "pass". The situation was worse with IBM PCs - since processor speeds kept improving, any old game that relied on a slow processor for delays became almost unplayable (e.g. Ultima III - on a modern system the whirlpool would slag pirate ships before you could see it on screen, which was required to advance the plot.)
As a side note, these games aren't exactly Role-playing games. It's more on par with a combat-oriented red-box D&D (1st edition) where the only interest is in killing off monsters, as opposed to Paranoia where there is a mandatory focus on roleplaying (usually at the expense of the rules.) Regardless, I don't have anything against computer-run adventure programs.
Back then I used to play a lot to a CRPG called "Dungeons of Kairn", developed by the same man that did "Aethra Chronicles" later. It was a fun game, and I enjoyed it quite a lot back then. The problem is that it was shareware, so it had only one dungeon. The author posted an university address to send the money to purchase the registered version, but it was no longer his current address when I played the game. Since then, I have tried to find him and purchase the game to play it in Dosbox, but he (and the registered version) seem to have vanished from history.
What other games came with trinkets?
I loved Ultima IV and Ultima V. Those were games that could send you all over the map repeatedly gathering up information. Things like "ask the three brothers anthos about the riddle". Two (real time) days later you might actually have gotten to find them. Forced you to explore the land and get to know the inhabitants. If Ultima V was re-released in its original form for a modern computer I'd buy it just to play it again.
For the Apple II there was an unexpected challenge. Due to an oversight, the Apple release of Ultima IV could not be won by anything but luck or cheating. The "Water" character in the castle you were supposed to ask for the answer to the riddle. (the riddle was THE VERY LAST question you had to answer, to beat the game) They forgot to program Water's dialog. You speak to Water and it says "A". Then it asks you "A?". If you reply yes, it responds "A". (oops!)
In Ultima V, Water is still there, and if you talk to him he will apologize for his mistake in IV. "way back. way waaay back, I forgot to tell you something!" Gotta love that. That's back from the days before patches too. In case anyone was wondering, it's "infinity". For the longest time I didn't know the answer to the riddle. I found where some of those things were stored, but Ultima only parsed the first four characters of the codec's questions, so I knew the answer started with "INFI" and didn't realize what it truly was until much later.
Wizardry on the other hand, never interested me. Unlike Ultima, it lacked the scenic variety of walking around on the main map, the animation of the monsters, and the interaction with the populace. (and for the most part, color in general) Despite seeming to be lacking in most respects, Wizardry was still amazingly popular around that time. Ultima's animation also helped you forget that it was still a turn-based game.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
>Turn left
...you have been eaten by a grue. Game over.
Best text game. Ever!
"The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is either adventurers or enchanters, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its horrible fear of light. No grues have ever been seen by the light of day, and only a few have been observed in their underground lairs. Of those who have seen grues, few ever survived their fearsome jaws to tell the tale." - Zork I