Game 401: Sword of Zedek (1981)

 

I may be puny, but at least I could be bothered to center my title.

      

The Sword of Zedek

United States

Krell software (developer and publisher)

Released 1981 for Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80; 1983 for Commodore 64

Date Started: 30 January 2021
Date Ended: 30 January 2021

Total Hours: 2
Difficulty: Easy (2/5)

Final Rating: 10
Ranking at Time of Posting: 21/404 (5%)

      

Here's another entry that really isn't much of an RPG, but uses RPG conventions to populate a different sort of game. Ten years ago, I would have called it bad. With the hindsight of 400 games, I call it bad but at least something different. 

    

Like the recently-explored Dragonsbane, Zedek is a short game, meant to be played in one session (there's no save ability), meant to be played multiple times before winning. You play a warleader--giving yourself a name is the only option you get--who has a brief 55 turns to amass resources before a showdown with the demonic warlord Ra. 

    

Gameplay occurs over a grid map of 9 x 10 squares (although there's a separate 3 x 6 map that I don't quite understand; it may be a separate indoor area). You can pull up the map and see where you are at any point with the "M" key, but you don't want to do it too often because it counts as a turn and turns are precious. This approach has a little in common with The Wizard's Castle (1980).

     

The "campaign map."

      

Each square can contain a few dozen of 12 types of creatures, including wolves, orcs, trolls, centaurs, elves, and snakes. Each square can also contain gold, torches, or one of twelve special treasures, including the Sword of Zedek, the Shield of Achilles, the Belt of Loki, and the Ring of Wraith. Usually, these items aren't revealed unless you (S)earch, though. Sometimes, squares are dark and require you to light a torch before searching.

       

My character halfway to the battle with Ra.

    

In any square, you can:

      

• S)earch for treasure
• T)ake any visible treasure
• Try to P)ersuade the creatures to join your party
• L)ight a torch
• View the M)ap
• Turn your V)isibility on or off (if you have the Ring of Wraith)
• W)ait

      

You have to be judicious with your moves because you only get 55 of them before Ra begins his assault. While it's tempting to persuade any creatures in the square, then search, then take what you find, that series of actions will take at least three turns. 

       

I find the titular Sword of Zedek.

        

Each action has a chance of providing one of several special events, none of which require you to spend a turn:

       

• The "king" of one of the groups of creatures might offer to join your army for a certain amount of gold. You generally want to say yes because if you don't, there's a chance they'll join Ra. But you start with only 5,000 gold, so you'll run out swiftly unless you get more.

• The "bane" of one of the groups (e.g., the Bane of Orcs) might offer to join. The bane prevents any of those creatures from joining your party, but it also neutralizes any that Ra has.

• A powerful but treacherous dragon may offer to join the party. He adds a lot of combat power, but there's a random chance each turn that he'll betray you and steal your gold.

• You may get a random hint as to the location of one of the special treasures.

       

With only 10 turns to go, it's probably safe to accept him.

       

When Ras finally attacks, he has himself, 500 demons, and whatever kings and banes you unwittingly sent his way. You get to see the combined power of your army compared to his in a numeric score. Then the final battle begins. Each round, you and Ra do damage to each other's armies, and the game recounts your losses. Ra always seems to lose a minimum of half his demons no matter how weak you are, which is strange.

   

When Ra gets down to 8 demons, he'll flee, and you have a few rounds to accomplish anything you can to replace your losses. You can R)etreat from the battle with Ra, too, for a few rounds of respite. Whether you flee or he does, he will eventually re-engage, and he'll be back up to full strength when he does. You'll have to knock him down again. He'll do this three times before you achieve victory on the fourth round--if your initial army was strong enough. Otherwise, you die and the game starts over.

           

Round 1 of combat. I feel like I got the short end of the stick here.

       

Frankly, I found the game quite a bit opaque and unsatisfying in the final battle. I can't quite figure out how the math works. For instance, if I just stand still for 55 turns, accepting no allies and finding no treasure, I end up facing Ra with a combat power of 3 against his 1,380. You'd think that would be instant death for me. And yet I'm still able to kill 250 demons in the first round, plus a couple of his allies, before he kills me. If I face him with even a few hundred combat points, I can whittle him down and force him to flee despite having far less power than he does, although I usually lose in one of his returns. But if I begin combat with Ra with a high combat power, I'm likely to win, even if Ra knocks me down to a few hundred points after a few rounds. In other words, the amount of power you start with seems to have a continuing impact on the battle even after those allies are dead. Meanwhile, Ra always seems to lose the same number of allies per round no matter how strong you technically are. 

      

The game instructions explain the uses of each item.

       

Attributes are a bit mysterious, too. You always start with a combat power of 57 and an "eloquence" of 85. Because of that relatively high latter figure, almost all your "persuade" attempts work. Every once in a while, those numbers go up or down by some amount, but I could never quite figure out why.

   

That's about the size of it. Make good choices and get lucky in your 55 rounds, and you'll win. If not, you'll lose. I have to wonder if the later Braminar (1987) wasn't influenced a bit by the game. Although none of the encounters are quite the same, the overall approach--walk along, trigger random encounters, slowly improve your army, defeat the evil warlord--is.

    

I feel like "glorious victory" deserved an exclamation point, at least.

       

Sword of Zedek is credited on some sites to John O'Hare, who wrote a trilogy of 1980 adventure games called Adventure for the Commodore PET. He also did a PET conversion of The Wizard's Castle, which must have provided part of the inspiration. I can't find him. Not for the first time, I think all people who want to develop games should have names worth at least 50 points in Scrabble. "John O'Hare" can hide 40 years later. "Zigquoft von Bharketzhausen" would be easier to track down.

Oh, I suppose we'll have to have a GIMLET. Lacking a backstory, any character development, NPCs, and an economy, I wouldn't expect much. I suppose I can spare a couple of points for "encounters," a main quest, a workable interface, and brief-but-somewhat replayable gameplay. 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 10. I don't mind the approach, but the game needed a more interesting and less confusing showdown.  

Krell advertises Sword of Zedek in a 1982 issue of 80 Micro, alongside some other games and S.A.T. preparation software.

      

[Ed. A year or so after I played this, I learned that Krell Software re-released it in 1983 under the name Pythagoras and the Dragon with minor changes to the proper names but essentially no change in gameplay.]

That's about all I can think to say. Less than 1,100 words. I generally like my entries to be longer than that. I'm trying to think of anything else to talk about. I've been having trouble getting the Sidney Bechet song "Si Tu Vois Ma Mère" out of my head; here's an excellent version by Tatiana-Eva Marie and the Avalon Jazz Band. Ha--nearly wrote "Avalon Hill Jazz Band." I'm enjoying The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and that new sci-fi show, Resident Alien. I recently finished re-reading every book by Nick Hornby and wouldn't mind recommendations for similar authors. 

    

I had an idea for a time travel short story the other day. The main character is a decorated Army veteran suffering from PTSD from his time in Afghanistan. He is an alcoholic and drug addict, and he has hit rock bottom. He is estranged from his wife, having been arrested and evicted from his home after he got drunk and struck his young son. This is particularly horrible for him because he himself was assaulted by a stranger as a child: a man ran out of the woods while he was playing in his back yard, shoved him to the ground, and stomped on his leg, breaking it. The episode left him in constant pain and made him vow to never hurt a child. Despite his vow, this is not the first time he's hurt a child; he shot one by accident in Afghanistan, an event that he recalls constantly. We learn that he was motivated to join the Army by another childhood occasion when a man saved him from an attacker. He wanted to be a hero like that, not a murderer.

   

As the story goes on, the character finds that when he reaches a certain depth of grief and regret, if he concentrates hard enough, he can go back in time. He only has moments--less than a minute--but long enough to change aspects of his life. He begins by going back a few days and throwing a rock through the window of his house, stopping cold whatever stupid argument he was having with his son and preventing the assault and arrest. This is good. But further attempts don't work out. He tries to go back to Afghanistan and save the boy, but he ends up making the situation worse. He tries to stop himself from trying pills the first time, but he just delays his addiction for a short time. In this middle section, his memories start becoming muddy and more confused as the time traveling rewrites previous experiences. He remembers a doctor telling him he will never walk right because of his leg injury, which should have precluded his service in the Army. He can't remember if he started taking pills before he enlisted or after he got back; he seems to remember both. He can't remember if his wife and son are real; sometimes, he seems to be living with them; other times, he seems to be living with fellow drug users in an abandoned building.

   

Finally, in a moment of crisis, he snaps and takes himself all the way back to his childhood home. He sees himself playing in the yard and realizes that it's that day: the day he was attacked; the day he was saved from an attacker. He vows to break his younger self's leg so that he can never join the Army. He vows to save himself from the attacker who broke his leg. He vows to stop the savior so that he'll never grow up to believe that people can be "saved." As infinite realities blossom from this fateful choice, the end is ambiguous, but perhaps with a thin thread of hope that by not acting at all, the boy can live his life free from the weight of the past.

 

I'll never have time or skill to write it. Someone feel free to take it if you like it. I get 15% of any royalties or rights payments above $1,000.