I first came into contact with this short masterpiece when I was about eight years old. It was shown to me by my sister who had bought it with babysitting money when it was still on the shelves. I was immediately enthralled. The graphics, though still very “bitty”, were colored vibrantly. In the game you must type the action you want your hero to go and do, it seemed to be old school and novel at the same time. It is possible to find humorous triggers by typing the right, or rather “wrong” things.
The whole game is filled with little puns.
The gameplay is worth hours of fun. It is a unique combination of adventure gaming puzzles and RPG type experience/ stat building. The stats are built quite simple by either performing a feat that involves the stat in question or even attempting to perform the feat. Unsuccessful attempts still add skill to the stat.
The player chooses from the three classic D&D classes, thief, fighter, or magic user, but the game’s story is the same for all three. The only real difference is the approach to problems. A fighter tackles things head-on, using the most obvious (and often most violent) solution. A Magic User is less inclined to violence and more inclined to using
his thinking abilities, but when it comes down to it, a high-end spell can knock out almost any creature in the game (except fred, have fun with him). The thief is known for avoiding problems, or solving them in a very roundabout way.
The story line includes all fairy tale cliches, dark, dangerous forests, fairies, magic mushrooms (hey that’s not a fairy tale cliché….), ogres, kobolds(huh?), goblins, saurus’ (wait a minute….), saving princeses (actually baronesses). The thief gets to rob houses, the magic user gets to drink tea and play games with a very eccentric wizard. The side games are a lot of fun in and of themselves. And by the way there is only one way to beat the witch baba yaga….. but I don’t want to ruin it for you.
All in all a very nostalgic and informative look at the time between then (classic D&D boardgaming with nerds in basements) and now (a lone nerd in a basement talking to and playing with millions of nerds on WOW or COD or whatever.) Game on good Rpger’s, dream on.
