Game 419: Volcanic Dungeon (1982)

 

Ignoring the misspelling of "until" and assuming that "charmed" should be pronounced old-style, like "charm-ed," this is a decent example of a poem with no rhymes but relatively consistent meter ("bold sword arm" might give you some indigestion), which is better than the reverse.

      

Volcanic Dungeon

United Kingdom

Carnell Software (developer and publisher)

Released 1982 for ZX81; 1983 for Dragon 32/64 and ZX Spectrum

Date Started: 2 July 2021

Date Ended: 3 July 2021

Total Hours: 7
Difficulty: Hard (4.0/5) under intended rules; easy-moderate (2.5/5) with emulator save states
Final Rating: 17
Ranking at Time of Posting: 89/428 (21%)

      

Volcanic Dungeon is a fun little game with an interesting premise. I wouldn't call it an RPG--indeed, I started this entry as a BRIEF, rejecting it--but I enjoyed it enough to continue until the end. I've never played a game with quite the same set of mechanics.

        

It looks like Volcanic Dungeon was published in mid-1982. The manual announces a competition of sorts. There's a questionnaire at the end of the manual that players are meant to fill out and submit to Carnell Software in Surrey. The top 10 scorers were then selected to participate in a live-play session at the Earl's Court Computer Fair in June 1983. The winner of that session--the first to rescue the princess--was given a round-trip vacation for two to Florida. In case nobody turned in their forms and the contest is still open, I wanted to publicly offer my answers. 

       

Note that the box doesn't promise an RPG; it promises a "classic text style adventure." The game isn't really that, either.

      

1. Name the king of the dwarves.

  

Rindell. It's right there in the needlessly complicated backstory. I've seen Volcanic Dungeon described as a sequel to Carnell's Black Crystal (1982), an adventure game, but none of the proper names are the same and it doesn't feel like a sequel. The game is set in the Land of Lamhar, where the good forces led by the elf king, Fendhal, have just won a major victory over the evil forces led by Methzar, goddess of evil. King Rindell has been one of Fendhal's allies ever since Methzar drove him from his home under a mountain--the titular dungeon.

       

The game begins.

      

2. Name the Princess imprisoned in the Crystal Coffin.

   

This is also in the backstory. One of Methzar's allies was a witch named Magda. She kidnapped Fendhal's daughter, Edora, and imprisoned her in a crystal coffin in the volcanic dungeon. Clearing Magda and her forces from the dungeon and rescuing the princess is the last task remaining in the aftermath of the war. A hero emerges, unnamed, with 300 strength, a magic ring, and a sword. There's no character creation.

   

3. Name a Treasure/Weapon, not made of silver, that will destroy a werewolf.

       

The game takes place in a maze of over 300 rooms and corridors. A map comes with the manual and is a necessary companion to keep from getting lost or, worse, wandering into a fiery death (more on that in a minute). Somewhere in the dungeon, randomized for each new game, is the witch. In a separate room is the sleeping princess in an enchanted crystal coffin. As you explore, you not only fight monsters but find "treasures," some of which are weapons, some armor, and some special-purpose items. Each item has a unique letter: "S" for sword, "Z" for silver knife, "D" for magic sack, "G" for armor, and so on. These letters (and the four movement directions, NESW) are the only commands in the game.

   

The game map. Wandering into any of the "F" squares is instant death. You want to keep careful track of your position; the manual recommends tracing paper so you don't spoil the original.

    

The game's gimmick is that its monsters are only wounded or killed by certain weapons. Some are easy. Goblins will die from swords, clubs, silver staves, gorgon's heads, silver swords, silver knives, saintly staves, and hydras' teeth. The only weapons that won't work against them are spears, torches (alone), and stakes. Wraiths, on the other hand, will only die from saintly staves.

      

Entering a cavern. Lacking a saintly staff (U) for offense and a cross (N) for defense, I definitely do not want to fight the wraith.

    

The same is true of defense, although not to such a specific extent. Your defense items are crosses, armor, shields, and pentacle charms. Armor and shields (often in combination with weapons--see below) generally work against physical enemies, crosses against demons and vampires, and pentacle charms against magic-using enemies. 

  

Every combat round, you specify an item to use for attack and an item to use for defense. The game is brutal here. If you specify an item that you don't have for attack, you lose the round. If you specify a defense item that you don't have, you die. End of game.

   

There's also a decent chance that whatever you use will break and disappear from your inventory during a combat round. If you don't kill the enemy, and you don't have a secondary item that's also effective, you need to retreat. Fortunately, items are found liberally throughout the dungeon, and their positions are constantly changing (attributed to "spirits" in the manual), so you can march back and forth between a couple of empty rooms and eventually pick up what you need. Your inventory is constantly changing to represent each new acquisition.

 

At the beginning of the game, you don't know what items will be effective against what creatures. You have to take careful note of each attack and defense option and annotate which work and which don't against each of 20 monsters. Tradition partly guides you: vampires are predictably killed by anything silver, anything holy, and stakes. But some are weird. Spears only kill giant enemies, for instance--cyclopes, ogres, dragons, and giant dogs. Saintly staves work against most undead, but not zombies.

   

Anyway, werewolves die from anything silver or the saintly staff.

      

Proof.

     

4. Write down the names of the four treasures that can only be obtained by killing a monster.

   

There are four items that you won't find randomly strewn throughout the dungeon. You have to kill monsters to get them. Dragons drop dragons' tears (L), which are used as part of the sequence to free the princess. The gorgon's head (R) is a great weapon against living creatures, turning them to stone and ending combat instantly. Hydra's teeth (F) are magical items that summon warriors to kill any enemy, but can only be used once. Finally, the witch herself drops the star jewel (B), another item you need to rescue the princess.

     

Hell, yeah.

    

5. How would you defend yourself against a gorgon?

    

Here's an additional oddity of the game. Some items can be used in combination, as both attack and defense items. The four valid combinations are sword and shield (Y), sword and torch (O), silver sword and shield (Q), and silver sword and torch (K). Any of those combinations will hurt and defend against harpies, for instance, but none of them will work against harpies alone. So even though there are only 11 potential weapons, there are 15 potential attack options.

   

Gorgons only die from the sword and shield in combination. If you just use a sword to attack, you're out of luck, and if you just use a shield to defend, you die.

   

6. How would you kill the hydra?

   

This is another combo. Hydras die from either the sword and torch or the silver sword and torch. I'm sure the idea is that you're lopping off a head with the sword and searing it with the torch, before a new head can grow. I think hydras also die from the gorgon's head, but they don't leave their teeth if you use that.

  

7. How would you defend yourself against a cave full of snakes?

   

Some enemies--goblins, harpies, scorpions, snakes, tarantulas, trolls, wolves, and zombies--attack as big groups rather than single enemies. You have to go multiple rounds against them before you kill them all, and there's a really good chance that your weapon or armor will break before you get to the end of the battle. Most weapons kill snakes, but only the sword and shield or silver sword and shield defend against them repeatedly. There is a one-use item called a forceshield (E) that works against anything but disappears after one round. If I want to wipe out a bunch of snakes, I want to go into the battle with at least three swords (or silver swords) and at least two shields or one shield supplemented by a forceshield or two.

   

Fighting a group of goblins. My sword broke, but fortunately I have a backup.

    

8. Listed above are six Treasure/Weapons. Assuming you could use each treasure once, which of the above treasures would you use against the following monsters?

 

Torch - Scorpions

Saintly staff - demon

Stake - vampire (the stake is the most useless weapon in the game, killing only vampires)

Spear - dragon

Sword - skeleton

     

Since I haven't mentioned them yet, let me take this answer space to mention a few more things:

    

• Killing monsters is the only way to replenish "strength," which is more like hit points than actual strength, since increases don't seem to affect your chances in combat. You lose strength with every movement.

• You also have a "water" meter that depletes with every action. There are fixed watering holes (annotated on the map) at three locations in the dungeon. You need to keep careful track of where you are and retreat to those watering holes periodically.

• If you wander outside the map--off the edges--you walk into rooms of fire and die. There are other rooms of fire annotated on the map. Again, you have to keep careful track of where you are.

• Enemies respawn, but slowly. Rooms that you clear remain clear for a few dozen moves.

    

9. Write down in detail how you rescued the Princess from the Crystal Coffin.

    

First, I had to find and kill the witch. When you meet the witch, she summons enemy after enemy, which you have to fight individually. If you lack the weapons to defeat one, you have to leave, find them, and return. Supposedly, the color of the ring tells you when the witch is at her most and least powerful, but I couldn't tell the difference.

    

Meeting the witch. Fortunately, anything defends against a skeleton.

    

Eventually, the witch runs out of enemies and you can kill her. I honestly forget what I killed her with. Maybe the gorgon's head or hydra teeth. In any event, she drops the star jewel (B) when she dies.

       

Using the star jewel to free the princess.

     

Then I had to find the crystal coffin in a different room. Once there, I first had to quell the "eternal flames" around the coffin, which can only be done with a dragon's tear (L). Then I had to use the star jewel to open the coffin, which cost me 100 strength. The princess joined me, and we headed for the exit. Water depletes twice as fast with the princess in tow.

  

10. You move south into a cave with four exits: North, south, east, and west. The cave is filled with snakes. You have no treasures so you do not fight. In which directions could you move to leave the cavern?

   

If you don't have the weapon necessary to attack or defend against a monster, you can just leave the encounter. You have to be careful. If you enter a room from the north and you don't want to fight, you can retreat north or go east or west, but if you try to move south across the room, you die instantly.

    

If you really want to cross a room from north to south, it's easy. You just enter from the north, decline to fight the monster, and go east or west. Then you re-enter the room, decline to fight the monster again, and go south. In a successful game, you probably want to avoid most monsters this way rather than micromanage your inventory and deal with constantly-breaking weapons. You only need to fight a few monsters in the game to get the dragon's tear, learn which attacks and defenses work, and keep your strength up.

 

11. If your treasure list reads SHJBLV:

A. Which treasure could you use to destroy zombies? The torch (H).

 

B. Which treasure would defend you against zombies? I think this is a trick question. This inventory list represents, in order, sword, torch, pentacle charm, star jewel, dragon's tear, and spear. Of those, only the pentacle charm is a defensive item. I'm pretty sure I tried it against zombies, and it didn't work.

   

12. Why is it not possible for your treasure list to read ESHOUGIMB?

"O" is the code for "Sword and Torch." These are listed separately as S and H; the code never appears in your inventory.

   

13. Why is it not possible for your treasure list to read MFLWSFDJBGPHXZRC?

That's too many items. You're capped at 12.

  

14. If your treasure list reads THRFELADCH, which treasure could you not drop and why?

You could not drop the magic sack (D), because without it, the gorgon's head (R) would turn you to stone. Someone had recently watched Clash of the Titans (1981).

        

Trying to pick up the gorgon's head without a magic sack.

      

15. If your treasure list reads XGPHBCSJWZ, which treasure could you not drop and why?

You cannot drop the star jewel (B). As the game says, it's with you until death.

    

16. What's your fastest (average) time to complete the adventure?

   

Is that a trick? Do you want my fastest time or my average time? It took me 7 hours to explore the map, annotate everything, figure out the weapons and defense, and field a successful character. It took me 90 minutes with my final character.

  

I did abuse save states a bit. The ZX81 and Spectrum versions allow you to save the game to tape. The instructions, however, are arcane. There's no "save" command; instead, you have to wait until you can move, then do something involving connecting mic sockets. My favorite line is: "To load it again, use the usual procedure." Well, that's helpful. Since I never successfully save and reload from tape even when the instructions are clear, I didn't even try here.

   

17. Assuming the Princess had a sense of humor, what do you think she may say upon being awakened from her eternal sleep?

   

According to the contest instructions, the "wittiest" answer to this question would serve as a tie-breaker in the event of a tie during the live contest. I have a few ideas, but I figure we'll have a mini-contest here and see what my commenters come up with.

    

Whoops--lost track of where I was.

  

I rated the game "hard" under its intended rules because it's so easy to screw up and die. If you go the wrong way out of a room, you die (either from an enemy or because you accidentally wandered into a room of fire). If you specify the wrong defensive item, or a defensive item you don't own, you die. If you say "Yes" to the question of whether you want to fight a creature, then discover you don't have the right equipment, you die. You die a lot in the early game as you try to figure out what works and what doesn't. There are bridges that can collapse, requiring either a flying potion (A) or a magic carpet (X) to get over them; if you don't have them, it can lead to a "walking dead" situation. If you stray too far from a watering hole and don't have enough water to return, you die.

   

Succeeding in this game requires a lot of trial and error, then one final push in which you try to line things up in just the right order. It's a bit like a giant logic puzzle. It was challenging, but the challenge level was well-justified and interesting.

    

I got out with plenty of strength but almost no water.

     

It fails all three of my core criteria as an RPG, but here's the rating anyway:

   

• 2 points for the game world. The back story isn't bad.

• 0 points for character creation and development. There's really none of either. Yes, you get "strength" from killing monsters, but it doesn't really make the character stronger.

• 0 points for no NPCs.

• 3 points for encounters and foes. I'm being a bit generous here, but the very nature of the game is its "encounter" system and the attacks and defenses of the enemies.

• 1 point for magic and combat. There isn't much strategy to it, just trying out different options.

• 2 points for equipment, the most important aspect of the game.

• 0 points for no economy.

• 2 points for a main quest.

• 2 points for graphics, sound, and interface. That's all for the easy single-character interface, since there are neither graphics nor sound.

• 5 points for gameplay. I liked the challenge level and length, and it is "replayable" to the extent that it's short and you might consistently try to beat your time.

   

The final score is 17, but I encourage you to think of this more as a fantasy-themed logic puzzle than an RPG and thus put it closer to the "recommended" threshold. A game that rates high in "gameplay" but none of the core RPG categories is almost always mis-categorized.

     

Carnell's offerings in mid-1982.

       

Roy Carnell and Stuart Galloway, operating as Carnell Software, published a handful of games in 1982 and 1983, including Black Crystal (1982), The Crypt (1983), The Adventures of St. Bernard (1983), and The Devil Rides In (1983), all mostly action games.

    

I've found accounts of the Earl's Court Computer Fair in June 1983, but nothing about the Volcanic Dungeon contest, so for all I know those two tickets to Florida are unclaimed. Maybe Carnell or Galloway will stumble upon my blog someday and let us know for sure. I'll take my tickets to Pensacola. It's only a 3-hour drive from there to New Orleans.