Backtracking: DND (1984), Caverns of Zoarre (1984), and Heathkit DND (1985)

Note from the future: Writing from March 2015, I see several inaccuracies in this quick "backtracking" post. First, the "excellent web site" I mention in a minute actually has numerous inaccuracies, particularly as regards the dates of the games. Second, I say that Daniel Lawrence's DND is "not the same as the PLATO dnd," when in fact I later discovered that they're very much the same game. You can read more about the history of this line in my postings on The Game of Dungeons and Dungeon of Death as well as a full posting on Caverns of Zoarre and DND.

Note from further in the future: And now in April 2016, I've discovered that there is no such game as "Heathkit DND" and that the game given that title is from 1981, not 1985. Read my updated posting. Basically, you just want to skip this posting entirely.


Before I even begin my review of DND, I want to recognize an excellent web site.

http://www.digital-eel.com/files/dndpage_files/DND.htm

The owners of this site have meticulously cataloged each version and outgrowth of DND, including the developer's earliest BASIC code as written on mainframes in the 1970s (unfortunately, by the page's own admission, it's questionable whether you could actually get these to run anywhere). The site has all the playable DOS variations released in the 1980s as well as some modern tributes and remakes, including one--Realms of Quest--made by one of my frequent commenters. More pages like this would make my work a lot easier.

The author of the original DND (which is not the same as the PLATO dnd, perhaps the earliest CRPG) is Daniel Lawrence. I haven't been able to find much about him, but regrettably it appears that he died in Lafayette, Indiana, just last month, at the age of 52.

In Dungeons & Desktops (2008), Matt Barton covers some of the history of the game and its variations. As I said, Lawrence developed the original version in the 1970s and for almost a decade ported it from one computer system to another, leaving various versions in his trail, some of which were picked up and tweaked by other developers. By the time Lawrence decided to commercialize the game, there were any number existing on servers all over the place. In 1982, Avalon Hill published Telengard (the name of one of the dungeons in DND), which I already reviewed. Around the same time, another developer (all of my references call him "Bill" but don't provide a last name; a little sleuthing determines it is William M. Knight, Jr., whose company is still around) modified the source code and created a shareware version called DND through R.O. Software and ended up in a legal conflict with Lawrence and Avalon Hill. Caverns of Zoarre (1984) and Heathkit DND (1985) are also variations of the original DND created by different developers.

DND (1984)

The upside to all of this is that I'm not playing the original DND, but the version created by "Bill," complete with an exhortation to send $25 to R.O. Software in Plano, TX. The version comes with five dungeons, but only two are listed as "ready for exploration."

In the game, you play a single character. You begin by rolling the standard six D&D attributes and choosing from fighter, magician, or cleric classes. You name your character--for some reason, the game also asks you to give a "secret name"--and boom, you're in the text-based dungeon, where you wander around, fight monsters (only two options: attack and evade), collect treasures, find random encounters like teleporters and thrones, gain experience, and--quite often--die. Almost everything I wrote previously about Telengard is true of this game, only with more primitive graphics. It's still slightly addictive, but not enough for me to linger. I got my character up to level 3 and was reasonably rich when I died for the last time.

Caverns of Zoarre (1984)

Caverns of Zoarre was developed by a Thomas Hanlin III of Springfield, Virginia. (This is getting eerie; I have friends in both Plano and Springfield.) He wants $25 for the instructions to the game, but I largely figured them out for myself. After rolling random stats (no wisdom), you choose from a fighter or sorcerer, decide whether you want a "freen" (yeah, no idea) and head into the eponymous caverns. As in DND, as you wander you enjoy random encounters (although less often) with monsters and treasures. The graphics are a little more advanced, at least in terms of your own character and the walls, but there are no graphics for monsters and other encounters. As with DND and Telengard, it's pretty tough to survive for very long.

  

Except for the freen--clue me in, someone, please--and the presence of "uruk-hai" and "ugluk-hai" monsters, there's nothing terribly original here. [Later edit: Again, please check out my updated post on this game, including a winning screen shot.]

Heathkit DND (1985)

That's what MobyGames calls the game, anyway. As far as I can tell from the splash screen, it's just "DND," although set in the "Heathkit Dungeon." I have no idea who developed it; there are no clues in the accompanying readme file or online.

The game adds color graphics and, like Telengard, forces you to play in real time, so if you're trying to write a blog entry at the same time, you keep getting attacked and dying.

The game also adds a quest. The objective, the manual says, "is to find the Lord Master of the Heathkit Dungeon" who is located in some kind of vault. You discover the combination to the vault piece by piece as you progress through the game. You can save your character in this one--death is not completely permanent.

Beyond that, the gameplay is again remarkably similar to Telengard in the nature of foes you encounter, objects you find, and commands to navigate around. It even has altars that call you "pagan trash" if you gyp them with too little gold! As the first game with an actual "main quest" since I started backtracking, I'm tempted to try to finish it...but I'm more anxious to get caught up to where I was before I discovered the existence of these extra games.

So that's my whirlwind review of the DND "franchise." In many ways, this has validated my original (albeit unknowing) exclusion of these games. I had already played their best exemplar in Telengard. They're not bad, exactly, but Caverns of Zoarre came out a year after Ultima III, and Heathkit DND is the same year as The Bard's Tale. The age of viable shareware and freeware CRPGs was coming to a swift (but temporary) end.

****

Further reading: Posts on the entire DND line: The Dungeon (aka "pedit5," 1975); The Game of Dungeons (aka "dnd," 1975); Dungeon of Death (1979); Telengard (1982); Caverns of Zoarre (1984); DND (1984); and the Heathkit DND (1985).