Game 292: Wizard's Lair I: The Trial (1988)

Nice-guy programmer uses the title screen to praise the software he used to create the game.

        
Wizard's Lair I: The Trial

United States

Independently developed; distributed by Microstar

Released in 1988 for DOS as shareware

Date Started: 2 June 2018

Wizard's Lair I--not to be confused with the TI-99 Wizard's Lair that I reviewed last year--plays like a combination of Ultima III, Rogue, and Wizardry. From Ultima III, we get the importance of exploring a wilderness and its various cities, towns, castles, and dungeons, many of which have NPCs that offer a single line of advice. From the roguelike tradition, we get the minimalist graphics and the complicated keyboard commands (but thankfully not permadeath). The game supports a large party of eight characters who fight in rounds that play much like Wizardry. It also has some original ideas that of course we'll discuss. The game was written by Rick Nowalk of Somerset, New Jersey, and despite the title there's no evidence that he issued a Wizard's Lair II.
          

A set of roguelike commands serves as the game's primary interface.

          

The accompanying material documents the game well except for any hint of a backstory or quest. You create eight characters and head out to accomplish something. Perhaps the characters are just generic mercenary-adventurers meant to stumble upon the quest as they explore.
              

Wandering through the game's unnamed wilderness.

          

There is some originality in the races and classes. There are 11 races: human, elf, dwarf, giant, barbarian, halfling, centaur, gnome, pixie, woodling, and orcling. The "woodling" is a bit mysterious. They have the expected strengths and weaknesses with the six attributes: strength, dexterity, intelligence, combat sense, insight, and stealth. There are no class restrictions on characters, but you wouldn't want a giant thief or a pixie fighter because the classes suffer penalties if their prime requisite statistics aren't high enough.
         

Rolling a pixie thief.

         

Classes are fighter, thief, ranger, druid, illusionist, conjurer, and sorcerer, meaning that you can have one of each and still have an extra slot. There are no alignments or sexes. There are a series of weapon, rogue, and magic skills for which everyone starts at a 0.
          

A full character sheet.

       

Based on the documentation, the game world consists of 3 outdoor areas, 7 cities, 2 dungeons, 4 caves, and 2 castles. Some of the indoor structures are multi-level. No name is offered for the game world as a whole, but you start in the guild in the city of Angston. Cities offer inns, armories, and general equipment shops, and Angston specifically has an academy where you can pay to train skills (or, at least, all but the thief skills, which must be trained elsewhere). Graphics are mostly ASCII characters, though they vary in color.

Towns offer a variety of NPCs to talk with, some of whom want money before they'll offer their hints. In either case, they speak in single declarations without prompting, and much like an early Ultima, you must cobble together a sensible quest path based on their utterances.
           

This one was free.

This one cost money.

          

Outside the town, a wilderness beckons, although I haven't gotten very far into it yet. Random combats with large parties of enemies begin soon after you leave the town. Unlike most top-down games, you don't see enemies in the environment. Encounters just pop up as you move along.

In combat, characters have three attack options that each balance offense and defense differently: a regular attack, an all-offense "kill," and a defensive attack. Spellcasters can cast spells, and anyone can parry, use an item, run away, or change weapons. Only the first four characters can attack (and be hit) with regular melee weapons, but the rest can fight with polearms or missile weapons if they have enough strength to wield them. Holding down ENTER makes each character choose a default action, which is to attack if in the front ranks. The default action for most spellcasters is to cast a low-level damage spell, to attack with missile weapons if out of spell points, or to parry otherwise.
             

My fighter's combat options.

          

The game is absolutely unforgiving in the opening stages. When you first fire up the game, it offers you a difficulty level from 1 to 5. I started at 3 but over time lowered it to 2 and then 1 as I kept getting my butt kicked. You start with a low-level weapon and cloth armor, and nobody has any gold, so there are no upgrades until you can defeat some enemies. The parties that attack you right outside Angston routinely have 10-12 enemies. If you manage to defeat them, a good treasure haul is about 30 gold pieces, not enough to buy a suit of leather armor or get trained in a single skill point. One combat per day is enough to exhaust your party's hit points and magic power, so you need to rest every night to recover. Slain characters cannot be resurrected until you have the appropriate spell; the game does not allow you to haul their bodies back to a temple. If you don't have enough spell points, you bury them on the spot or reload.
             

Actions about to execute in combat.

         

Once you hit Level 2 and can afford to pay for a few skill trainings and weapon/armor upgrades, things become a little easier. You get more spell points, among other things, so your spellcasters can remain relevant longer, and your sorcerer starts getting mass-damage spells.

Each spellcasting class has a different list of only 8-10 spells, each costing between 1 and 40 power points. You can cast them as soon as you have enough points. There are some duplications--almost everyone gets the equivalent of a "light" spell for dungeon exploration, for instance--but you really need all classes. Druids are focused on healing and removing bad effects like poison and disease. Once they hit 30 power points, they can resurrect. Other than "Turn" (undead), they have no offensive spells, so I equipped mine with a spear so he could poke from the fifth position.
             

Typically-paltry post-combat rewards.

         

Illusionists have some classic illusory spells, such as "Fade," which makes the enemies think the party has disappeared, "Flash" to blind enemies, and "Double++," which makes enemies think there are twice as many party members. They also have mass-defense spells like "Armor" and "Shield." Conjurer spells mostly focus on utility, navigation, and moving the party, with spells like "Map," "Compass," "Reveal" (secret doors), and "Out" (gets the party out of the dungeon).

Sorcerers have the offensive direct-damage spells, both single-foe and full-party. Although "Harpies" (sends a flock of vicious harpies at foes) and "Needles" (launches a flurry of poisonous needles at all foes) in practice aren't so different from "Fireball" and "Lightning Bolt," I still admire the creativity.
          

Mass-damaging Black Orcs with summoned harpies.

         

There are other magic skills that must be developed, including "Alchemy," which allows someone to mix potions; "Languages," which lets you read clues in dungeons; and "Magic Sense," which lets you identify magic items from among treasure hauls. You have to find a hidden city of thieves to develop thief skills.
         

Enrolling in training for secondary skills.

         

Most of my time this session was spent just getting to a level where I could survive. I tentatively started exploring the rest of the land. The opening wilderness area is at least 150 squares wide, and I don't know how many north to south. I tried exploring a dungeon, called the "Grey Dungeon," but the enemies in there clearly outclassed me.
              

The Grey Dungeon, where I didn't last long.

           
From NPC hints, I know I need to find a Holy Shrine of the Ancients in the mountains, where if I speak the right mantra, I'll receive a mission from the wizard. To learn the mantra, I have to find the "waterfall that doesn't." There's a place called the "Ice Castle" that's the home of a demon-king. Someone called The Ancient, in a city southwest of Angston, may give me hints, but I'll have to give him gold in multiples of 100.

There are portals scattered throughout the land that require some kind of passphrase to activate; a hermit in the Grey Dungeon can tell me more about this. Someone in a "city by the sea" can help me if I ask him about elves. The thief city is somewhere in the mountains. There are general hints to avoid the forest and "ruins."

A few other notes:
            

• Equipment is assumed to be worn. You don't have to equip a ring or other magic item. If it's in your inventory, you're "wearing" it.

• The game has a food system, but you can "forage" anywhere outdoors and find plenty. Maybe this gets harder later.

• Dungeon states are apparently not saved. And you can't save in dungeons.

• A "boss" button quickly takes you to a DOS prompt.

         

It's a tough game, but it's well-programmed and has an intuitive interface. I'm intrigued enough to keep playing long enough for the story to develop--perhaps once I visit this wizard in the mountains or something. It's a bit similar in appearance to UnReal World, obviously, so I'm going to try to wrap the latter up next entry before I get confused on the commands.

Time so far: 3 hours

******

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