Game 164: Dragon Sword (1990)

The game is titled The Dragon Sword everywhere but the title screen.

So far, we've seen a lot of descendants of Wizardry--including The Bard's Tale and Might and Magic--but few direct clones. That changes with Dragon Sword, a game that copies Wizardry so directly that the manual suggests that if you've already played Wizardry, you don't need to read the manual. 

Dragon Sword has you exploring a wireframe world with a party of up to 6 adventurers, each drawn from Wizardry's races (human, dwarf, elf, half-elf, hobbit, gnome) and featuring Wizardry's six attributes (strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, and luck). The classes aren't exactly the same, with barbarians and monks added to the Wizardry-derived (and ultimately, of course, D&D-derived) fighters, thieves, clerics, and magic users.

Creating a character.

Navigation, equipment, experience, training, economy, and combat are very similar to Wizardry, but we have a few variances. Spells deplete a pool of spell points rather than fixed slots. The spells themselves are mostly different (more on that in a minute). There's no "menu town" at the top of the dungeon, but rather a fully explorable 21 x 21 map.

Dragon Sword also allows you to save anywhere (although with only one slot) and eliminates permadeath. A player who suffers a misfortune can simply quit and reload.

Exploring the town of Bralka with my party of 6. Icons indicate that I have "Compass," "Find Secret Doors," and "Light" active. A summoned familiar--an owl--leads the party.

The back story is told quickly and with no fanfare. The city of Bralka used to be a peaceful, prosperous place. Then, at some point, the dragon Oijngate (no idea on the name) came along and conquered the city and now everyone's miserable. The party has been charged with seeking the Dragon Sword to defeat Oijngate. 

Some text on the wall drives the story home.

The game begins in Bralka, which holds several shops, temples, banks, a guild, and a training hall. In the southwest corner, stairs ascend to the dungeon levels. Shops sell the usual selection of weapons and armor (leather, chainmail, maces, longswords, etc.) and you don't have much gold at the outset. 

The shop has some nice-sounding options for when I'm richer.

The game allows you the option of just walking out the front gates and ending things immediately, though it's a bit of a downer ending.

There are a ton of random encounters as you explore, some with laughably easy foes (e.g., 1 fighter) and some with absurdly difficult parties (e.g., 6 bugbears, 4 warriors, and 3 goblins). You can "Run" from most fights but not all of them, and running carries a risk of the enemy getting a free round of attacks. Combat is the same as in Wizardry: only the three front characters can execute melee attacks, and each character decides on an attack for the next round before watching them all execute at once.

Planning my attacks against a party of enemies.

The manual indicates that the game features a staggering 30 dungeon levels, all (like Bralka) 21 x 21. The manual also says that every square is used, but there were a few I couldn't access in Bralka. Perhaps there are stairs down from other levels, or perhaps I need to wait for the "Teleport" spell. There's also a 5 x 5 area I can't access behind a locked gate, and I wonder if this is Oijngate's throne room and thus the site of the endgame.

The starting town.

Inns are notably absent from the list of services. There is no place where you can rest and restore hit points. This put me in a bind as I explored the city, and late in the session, I was reloading frequently as my hit-point and spell-point-deficient party found it difficult to fend off even easy foes. Eventually, I discovered that if you stand in a fountain near the guild, all your spell points get recharged, which you can then use to cast "Mend" spells to restore hit points.

I explored a little of the first dungeon level, long enough to see that it had its own name ("Perion's Place") and to get a message of terror from what must be the big boss there. From the encounters, it was soon clear that I was there too soon and needed to build my characters to higher levels (and better equipment) on the ground first.

An early-level encounter.

Fortunately, if I just stand by the fountain and spin in place, I can fight all the battles I want and immediately heal afterwards.

I'm getting there.

There are two ways in which Dragon Sword transcends its Wizardry heritage. The first has to do with a number of puzzles scattered about the town. On the town level, a voice in a dark and moldy tomb is looking for a word from "Galt's Domain." In another square, a jester begs me to "answer tried and true" with some sort of password; and in a third, I'm asked for a word of passage by a mysterious voice. My understanding is that I need to find these answers in the dungeon levels, and the manual suggests that the dungeon levels themselves have similar puzzles as well as numerous navigation puzzles. 

The second way is in the selection of spells, some of which are drawn from Wizardry (e.g., "Compass," "Light," "Locate"), some of which are drawn from D&D (e.g., "Stinking Cloud," "Friends," "Wish"), and some of which are original to the game. The manual tells you nothing about them; you're left to experiment based on their names. Some interesting sounding ones include "Holy Water," "Teleport to Stairs," "Open Wall," "Weapon of Silver," "Block of Ice," and "Burning Air." Perhaps the most interesting is "Familiar," a Level 1 mage spell that summons a small creature that you can name. Granted, this isn't a lot different from the summoning spells of The Bard's Tale, but I think it's the first time we've encountered a "familiar" in a CRPG.

This hawk turned out to be quite good in combat.

Dragon Sword is a shareware title, writen by two friends and roommates at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois: Tim Musa and Brian Tieman. It was published (like Fallthru) by PC-SIG, the California shareware magazine. The manual says that the pair was planning a "256-color sequel," but I can't find any evidence that this ever came out. I've written to Mr. Musa to see if he wants to discuss the game.

I don't know, though: this one might defeat me. Unless the levels are really interesting, it's hard to imagine plowing through 30 of them in my quest for the Dragon Sword. (And there are no walkthroughs online to help me cut corners.) I'll map at least a couple of them and report back. Thusfar, it's one of the better shareware titles I've experienced, at least if you can get past the graphics. If Mr. Musa responds, I'll be happy to send him the $15 license fee.

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In list news, I'm toying with dropping Crystals of Arborea. I've checked it out, and it lacks the "inventory" element of my three core criteria for an RPG, though I admit that if it's not an RPG, I'm not entirely sure what it is. I gave it about an hour the other day and didn't like it at all, but I'll hear impassioned pleas to preserve it if anyone has them.