Game 178: The Citadel of Chaos (1984)

 

The Citadel of Chaos

United Kingdom

Penguin Books (developer and publisher), based on a book by Steve Jackson

Released 1984 for Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum
Date Started: 8 March 2015

Date Ended: 9 March 2015

Total Hours: 4

Difficulty: Easy (2/5)
Final Rating: 18
Ranking at Time of Posting: 32/175 (18%)

Ranking at Game #458: 127/458 (28%)
 
There are good and bad ways to adapt gamebooks, tabletop modules, and other paper properties for the computer. SSI knew how to do it right. They created an excellent CRPG engine and then (for some games) populated it with content from existing sources, adapting as necessary to the new medium. In almost all cases, you would never know there were prior sources unless someone told you. When this isn't true--such as with all the NPCs in Curse of the Azure Bonds--it's a little jarring.

Tunnels & Trolls doesn't do as good a job as the Gold Box games. Too many of the encounters use text instead of game mechanics, often making you feel like you're playing a gamebook inside a window of a CRPG. But it doesn't do horribly, either. The game mechanics aren't bad, and when they're used, they're used well.

If the Gold Box series gets it right and T&T gets it half-right, The Citadel of Chaos does it all wrong, adapting its gamebook so literally that there's no reason not to simply read the original book. The "game" is quite literally an on-screen book, revealing its text in a small window in ALL CAPS. The mechanics are so poor that the game forces you to write down three-letter spell codes so you can cast them at the appropriate times, instead of just selecting them from a list. It introduces an unnecessary real-time element to both combat and spellcasting (you have to type the letters in a brief time window), and none of the many nice illustrations by Russ Nicholson make it into the computer version. A copy of Citadel of Chaos on your Kindle is almost as much of a "computer game."

The original book cover. I'm not sure what that thing is supposed to be.

Before I played the game, I bought and read the original gamebook by Steve Jackson. I don't care for the nature of the choices--something we'll talk more about anon--but the writing is good. While the primary audience is clearly youngsters, Jackson doesn't "write down" to them--something I always appreciated when I was a youngster myself. The story has a main quest. The logistics are solid enough to make you feel that you're getting a quasi-RPG experience, but not so confounding that you want to stop reading every time you encounter a foe. The book helps you out with inventory sheets and even rolls of the dice (each page has a pair of dice at the bottom; you flip rapidly and stop on one). Compared to the T&T solo adventures, which tried to incorporate too many logistics from the tabletop RPG and gave you no help with the mechanics, it's a lot more fun.

The Citadel of Chaos (1983) was the second entry in Puffin Books' Fighting Fantasy series, originally spanning 59 titles between Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982) and Jonathan Green's Curse of the Mummy (1995). The Sorcery! and Adventures of Goldhawk quadriologies used the same mechanics but (unlike the main series) allowed the reader to play a persistent hero. There were related novels and even an "introductory role-playing game," accompanied by a small series of books with more advanced mechanics. A 2002-2007 revival by Wizard Books republished more than 30 of the original titles and half a dozen brand new titles. A host of them, including The Citadel of Chaos, have seen Android and iOS adaptations since 2010.

The original attempts to render Fighting Fantasy to the computer were done in-house, at Puffin Books, which probably explains their lack of sophistication as computer games. In addition to The Citadel of Chaos, we have The Forest of Doom (third book in the series) on the 1984 list. The company also commissioned an "adaptation" of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain from Crystal Computing; the game looks like a low-rent Telengard but without enough elements to be considered a CRPG.

For all the text in-game, the computer version omits the book's backstory (perhaps it came in the manual; I haven't been able to find it yet), which relates how the good people of the Vale of Willow have for years lived in fear of the rogue "demi-sorcerer," Balthus Dire, who plots mischief from his keep at Craggen Rock. Now faced with reports that Dire is summoning an "army of Chaotics" to conquer the Vale, King Salamon has asked for assistance from the Grand Wizard of Yore. The reader/player is the Grand Wizard's "star pupil," sent to infiltrate Craggen Rock and kill Balthus Dire.

The Fighting Fantasy system is based on three attributes: skill, stamina, and luck. Some of the books list "magic power" as a fourth attribute, but this is really just a pool of points from which you "buy" a selection of spells at the beginning of the game. (Some of the books don't offer spells and instead have you buy magic items with gold pieces.) As you start the book or game, skill is determined by 1d6+6, stamina by 2d6+12, luck by 1d6+6, and magic power by 2d6+6. All of them fluctuate from these initial values during the adventure, stamina most of all because it represents your hit point pool. Combat is a simple matter of rolling 2d6 for both yourself and the monster and adding your respective skills; whoever has the higher roll does 2 stamina points damage, with an option to make an additional luck roll to either increase damage to the monster or minimize damage to you.

Creating a character in the computer version of the game.

        
This is all translated somewhat clumsily into the game, where you and your enemy's statistics appear on opposite sides of the combat screen and you "roll dice" with the spacebar. Technically, the game gives you the ability to choose to swing high or low in addition to making a regular attack, but I didn't notice any difference. Luck is offered as an alternative to skill rather than something you can use to supplement your skill-based combat rolls. Where the book allows you to roll combats against two NPCs, or against an enemy and your own "Creature Copy" of the enemy, these are handled in the game with simple luck rolls.

Combat is just hitting a few keys to run random dice rolls. Given my skill versus his, his rolls have to be at least 7 points higher than mine for him to score a hit.

         
Magic is integral to the game system, and at the beginning of the adventure, the player selects a number of spells equal to his magic power. The spells offered in the book and game are "Creature Copy," "E.S.P.," "Fire," "Fool's Gold," "Illusion," "Levitation," "Luck," "Shielding," "Skill," "Stamina," "Strength," and "Weakness," and you can choose more than one instance of a spell. They work more like inventory items, used to solve puzzles or make encounters easier, than traditional CRPG combat spells.

Selecting spells at the beginning of the game.

One thing the game offers that the book doesn't is the ability to "augur" which spells might be useful in a given situation--but it costs you one random spell, so it's not really worth it.

Figuring out what spells might work isn't worth the loss of one of them.

          
There are other types of equipment in the game. You're assumed to have a suit of leather armor and a sword when you start, but you can find better items that make small adjustments to your scores. Other items are used, like spells, for puzzle-solving. You can visit your inventory at any time and use some of the items, like food and a starting spell scroll, whenever you need. The game just barely squeaks by as a CRPG with this approach to inventory and occasional boosts to your attributes, usually from plot points. There's no traditional experience or leveling in the game.

A mid-game character sheet. This character got really good rolls.

 

This kind of plot-based stat increase is the only "leveling" in the game.

        
With the statistics rolled and the spells chosen, the adventure begins.

The sun sets. As twilight turns to darkness, you start your climb up the hill towards the forbidding shape silhouetted against the night sky. The Citadel is less than an hour's climb.

Some distance from its walls you stop to rest--a mistake, as it seems a fearful spectre from which there is no escape. The hairs on your neck prickle as you look towards it.

But you are ashamed of your fears. With grim resolve, you march on towards the main gate, where you know guards will be waiting. You consider your options. You have already thought about claiming to be a herbalist, come to treat a guard with a fever. You could pose as a trader or artisan--perhaps a carpenter. You could even be a nomad, seeking shelter for the night.

The first choice of the game has you confronting the Citadel's front gate guards--one with a head of a dog and the body of an ape; the other the opposite--and choosing whether to pose as an herbalist, tradesman, or nomad seeking shelter. Here's how that first choice plays out in the book:

Click to enlarge.

       
The computer game's literal adaptation of this process isn't so much a problem as a failure of imagination--a failure to use the medium for its strengths. The basic process isn't any different from what modern games, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, use, although the decision trees are a lot more complicated in modern games. What is different about good computer games is that they can make amendments and substitutions within the main plot based on player decisions. Everyone who finishes Inquisition gets a narrative explaining what happened next, but there are several dozen versions of it based on the choices the player made throughout the game. Where the game can simply substitute names and situations in the dialogue depending on the circumstances, a book of static text would literally require several dozen separate, but in some cases nearly-identical, paragraphs.

The book requires every player to end up in the courtyard, at entry 251, in roughly the same state. You can't have one player show up there with the guards hot on his heels or another having alerted the entire castle by levitating over the walls. No adjustments can be made in the text based on what the player said at the gate: he cannot, for instance, actually go and find Kylltrog. He can't even turn around and go back to the gate and confront the guards again. These limitations make the book, including its literal computer adaptation, much less satisfying than a regular CRPG. And while T&T does it a little better--at least the party can walk around--it's just as limiting in the main encounters. Generally, once you initiate an encounter, you can't leave or return.

The first three options all literally lead to the same result. If you choose #4, the NPC speaks a bit of drivel and then you get the same three options, all leading, again, to the same result.

       
The game is full of these Morton's forks. Three paths from the courtyard inevitably end up at the same citadel door. Multiple paths in the citadel ultimately converge into a series of specific rooms. However, it does make a big difference what happens along the way. For 8/10 of its short running time (you can't save, so it has to be short), the game gives you the illusion that just about any combination of skills, spells, and items will work if you use them judiciously. This turns out to be spectacularly untrue. There are a series of encounters at the end of the game that are simply unsurvivable if you haven't been to certain places and picked up key items, and in almost all of those places, only a banal decision whether to go right or left separates you from victory and a "walking dead" scenario.

Going right means you can't win the game.

     
Thus, I had to play The Citadel of Chaos about six times before winning. All plots resolve into four major endgame encounters: a host of undead creatures called "ganjees" that are immune to spells and swords and must be bribed; a three-headed hydra; a door with a combination lock; and Balthus Dire himself. To get past these encounters, you must:

• Either take the path in the courtyard that leads to combat with three foes and rewards you with a jar of healing ointment, or somewhere in the citadel take the path that leads you to a pantry, where you get a "charmed amulet" from some "scouts." One of the two items is necessary to bribe the ganjees to leave you alone.

At least the game is going to let me save myself with a "Levitation" spell!

Oops. Guess not.

       

• Visit the library. This is one of those left/right decisions, but you absolutely need to visit the library to read a book about the citadel that gives you a combination to the door. Another book, about Balthus Dire, gives you a key clue that you need in the endgame. But if you read the book about Dire first, you can't read any other books. You have to do it in the right order. Even then, the game is bugged because the combination it gives you in the paragraph is not the same one you have to use to open the door.

It sounds like it's going to give you the option to start over, but I couldn't get it to reload.

       

• Show up to the endgame with three copies of "Creature Copy," a golden fleece, or a "pocket myriad," any of which will defeat the hydra.

One or two spells isn't enough.

        
The final battle with Balthus Dire and his pet clawbeast can go a lot of ways. You can just fight them and trust your skill and stamina to hold out. You can cast "Weakness" on the clawbeast and take him out of the combat and then deal with Dire in combat or through another mechanism. You can exchange spells until he casts one that starts the floor trembling, then cast "Levitate" to get to the window or armory cupboard. Another spell exchange leaves him tired out, allowing you to get to the window or cupboard. You can open the cupboard to find a magic sword and fight him with it. The most satisfying ending is to run to the window and pull down the curtain, letting in the sunlight to destroy him--something that the book in the library clues you to do.

I just figured out a clever way to destroy him, and yet I'm somehow a "fool."

The endgame text has you burning Dire's office and invasion plans, after which you ponder whether you can "Levitate" out the window to safety or whether you'll have to fight your way back through the citadel. "But that is another story...." After that, you get a winning message and a chance to replay the game with different choices.

There are only a couple of places like this--where intelligence from an earlier paragraph gives you a clue during an encounter. Most of the decisions in the game (just as in the book) are completely arbitrary, without logic or role-playing. Help an old man with a wound and you get bitten for a major loss of stamina. Cast a "Strength" spell before one battle, a perfectly logical thing to do, and your pumped-up muscles accidentally send your sword flying into the distance when you unsheathe it. Try to talk nicely to a ghost and she keeps harassing you; get angry at her and she leads you to safety.

In short, the game plays like a relentlessly linear, illogical adventure game more than a CRPG. In a GIMLET, I'd give it:

• 2 points for a standard "kill the wizard" backstory and generally derivative game world.

• 1 point for character creation and development. Character creation is all random and improvements are entirely plot-based, unlike a traditional RPG.

• 2 points for some one-way NPC interaction.

• 3 points for foes distinguished only by their attributes and encounters that, while meaningful, have nothing to do with puzzle-solving or role-playing.

• 2 points for a combat system that offers no tactics. The magic system is a little better, but just like with "encounters," the results of your choices are somewhat arbitrary, except in obvious cases where you're falling and need to cast "Levitate" or you need money and you have a "Fool's Gold" spell.

        

• 1 point for its almost all puzzle-based equipment system.

• 1 point for the economy. You can get gold from certain encounters, but there aren't many places to spend it, and in general gold is treated more like equipment than a true economy.

• 3 points for a main quest with a few different options. No side quests.

• 1 point for graphics, sound, and interface. It gets nothing for graphics, failing to even include the well-drawn graphics from the book. There's sound, but just a bunch of somewhat random dings, crunches, and brief tunes. The interface isn't very good, requiring you to hold down SPACE to speed up the text, including the silly real-time aspect to spellcasting and combat, requiring you to write down or memorize three-letter spell codes, and providing a set of keyboard commands that are unintuitive.

Russ Nicholson's illustrations enliven the book but not the computer game, which has no graphics except bad monster portraits in combat.

         

• 2 points for gameplay that's linear but somewhat replayable, not very challenging, but also not very long.

 

With a final score of 18, it's in the lower tier of offerings, and overall not much of an RPG. I have Puffin's only other direct adaptation of a Fighting Fantasy book--The Forest of Doom--also on my 1984 list, and I suspect it offers exactly the same gameplay. I haven't decided whether to reject it as an RPG or play it fairly soon as part of this ongoing series of "gamebook adaptation" posts. I guess it will depend largely on whether I can think of anything else to say about the genre.

*****

In list news, Empire III: Armageddon was going to pop up next on the list next, but no one seems to have a copy. I've had to list it as "NP" until one turns up. I've had to do the same for Dungeons of Doom, a very obscure 1990 dungeon crawler. I've also rejected Fame Quest (1984) as an RPG (only GameFAQs thought it was).

*****

Further reading: We've explored the connection between CRPGs and gamebooks in one, two, three postings about Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan, and in the next post, I looked at the next Fighting Fantasy book, The Forest of Doom.