Game 443: Moria (1986)

 

The title screen/main menu.

      

Moria

France

Independently developed and published (presumably) as freeware

Released 1986 for DOS

Date Started: 9 January 2022

Date Ended: 10 January 2022

Total Hours: 11 (about 8 characters)

Difficulty: Very Hard (5.0/5)

Final Rating: 17

Ranking at Time of Posting: 90/444 (20%)

   

This French roguelike is listed as Moria 2 on several sites, and that is its file name, at least in the version I found, but the title screen just calls it Moria. The "2" wouldn't really make sense, as it has nothing to do with the 1983 roguelike (which wasn't available on the microcomputer until 1988 anyway). Instead, it's an adaptation of Rogue--to the extent that it even has the same attributes and lists them at the bottom of the screen in the same order.

    

The programmer either wanted to do something different or didn't know how to program the rooms and corridors of the original, so Moria's dungeon levels are all tiny rooms and doorways. I feel like I've seen this style in some previous game, but I can't quite place it.

 

 

   

Beyond the nature of the map, these are the changes from Rogue:

    

• Moria has no "search" command. There are no secret doors to find anyway. There are traps; you identify them automatically when you're one step away.

• Moria has only 15 levels to Rogue's near-30. They're larger and packed with more monsters and treasures, though, so the game feels about the same size.

• In line with the change in the name of the game, Tolkien monsters are introduced, including Uruk-hai, Nazgûl, Mewlips, and "whargs." The "floating eye" monster from Rogue is specifically re-cast as an Eye of Sauron. More on Tolkien influences below.

      

A balrog turns out to be Sauron.

       

• Because of the additional monsters, some classic Rogue monsters don't appear, including the aquator, the medusa, the ice monster, the venus flytrap, and the rattlesnake. The game thus avoids some of the more annoying status effects from Rogue. There are still fairies who steal your items and thieves who steal your gold, replacing nymphs and leprechauns in the original.

• The commands are generally translated; for instance, you a)bandonner un objet rather than d)rop it, and you b)oire une potion rather than q)uaff it. There are similar changes to the letters that represent monsters. This isn't universal, though, as (for instance) "T" is still used to throw an object, and the floating eye is still represented as an "E" rather than an "O." Although most of the text of the game is in French, when you first start a game, it inexplicably asks you in English to "Wait a little minute, while I dig the Moria."

• The game offers some "graphics" instead of the all-ASCII approach taken by the original Rogue. The main character uses the same smiley face icon as the 1985 Epyx re-release of Rogue and the 1986 Rogue Clone. There are also characters for potions and armor, but everything else is a letter or keyboard symbol. 

• You cannot move diagonally.

• You can go up stairways to return to earlier levels, and the game does remember their layout and treasures.

• Your position is randomized when you arrive on each level (going up or down), although the stairways remain in fixed locations.

• In addition to hunger, the game has a "thirst" mechanic by which you must occasionally drink a potion whether you need it or not. There's a special "thirst-quenching" potion (désaltérante) added to the game to help in such situations, the only equipment addition that I saw.

The game begs me to drink.

      

• Perhaps most important, the game has no "save" command. At least, it has none that I can find. None is listed among the list of commands, and I tried every key not listed with a specific command, with both SHIFT and CTRL, and found nothing that worked.

• Changes to the endgame covered below.

       

Everything else is pretty much the same as Rogue, including the "character creation" process (just a name), the starting attributes (12 life, 16 strength), starting equipment (mace, mail, bow and arrows, food), and the different types of inventory items you can find. As usual, potions have colors randomized for each new game, wands have different materials, and scrolls have different nonsense words. You can experiment with these items and hope you identify them or you can wait for Scrolls of Identification (although you have to test scrolls to find even them). When you die or win, your score is calculated based on your experience, the dungeon level you reached, and the gold you amassed.

 

"Character creation."

 

   

What I often forget about Rogue is that it's far harder than NetHack. It gives you fewer tactical and strategic avenues. The food system (and in this variant, the thirst system) makes it almost impossible to grind. Enemies rarely drop loot, so you're stuck with whatever seeded in the levels in the first place. A winning game depends enormously on the random numbers producing an ideal set of equipment.

    

Moria manages to make Rogue even harder in the endgame. Monsters that you never even want to try to take on in a melee fight start appearing around Level 8. They include dragons, Nazgûl, balrogs, and galgals. (A galgal is a type of Celtic burial mound. The term was used by Francis Ledoux in his 1973 French translation of The Lord of the Rings for "barrow"; "barrow wights" became êtres des galgals.) The nature of the corridors in this game makes it hard to get away from enemies, so you end up relying a lot on limited Scrolls of Teleportation, Wands of Slow Monster, Wands of Confusion, and Potions of Speed. Scrolls of Mapping are a god-send in trying to find the stairways down. (Stairways down look exactly like stairways up, which is another annoyance.)

    

A mid-game equipment list.

       

On Level 10, Sauron appears, disguised as a balrog until you get close to him. I suppose he technically might be defeatable with a really high weapon and armor enhancement, but I couldn't even come close. He almost always hits, and he can easily kill a high-level character in a couple of hits. He can also pass through walls. You want to spend as little time on the level as possible.

        

Sauron chases me. He's a smiley face just like me, but our colors are reversed.

   

On Level 15, you find the object of your quest: a Silmaril. Morgoth appears on this level and, much like Sauron, is either invincible or nigh-invincible. You just want to get out of his way.

      

I find this game's Amulet of Yendor.

    

Rogue is pretty easy once you get the Amulet of Yendor. You just make your way back to the surface by retracing your steps. The monsters keep their original level difficulties as you do, so once you clear the bottom levels, you're home free. Moria has a couple of screws to twist instead. First, once you pick up the Silmaril, your hit points stop automatically regenerating as you move. You can only heal by finding (rare) Potions of Healing. Second, digestion starts occurring a double-speed. Thirst may come on even faster than that. I died from thirst more than from enemies trying to get back to the surface. Finally, hard enemies continue to dog you all the way back to the top, long after you've left the levels on which they originally spawned.

   

Winning doesn't even get you the congratulatory message about the Fighter's Guild that you got in Rogue. Instead, you just get a message that says: "You have won. Bravo," along with the leaderboard.

      

You couldn't even spare an exclamation point?

      

This is one of those games where it's hard to imagine that anyone has ever won it legitimately. Even if you're extremely lucky with loot, there are just so many situations in which you find yourself in a dead-end with a dragon (or, even worse, Sauron or Morgoth) behind you and no more Scrolls of Teleportation. A winning character would have to get his weapon and armor up to around +7 and reach Level 15 with a few Potions of Healing, at least four Potions of Thirst-Quenching, and half a dozen Scrolls of Teleportation. (There's a Ring of Teleportation, too, but I couldn't get it to work.) You want to make sure you find all the "up" staircases on the way down so you're not looking for them while your health isn't regenerating. You'd also want to mark them by dropping some equipment next to them so that you don't fight your way through a horde of enemies only to find you've reached the "down" staircase. Caching unwanted potions near these stairways would be a good idea, because when you're dying of thirst, you'll be grateful for even that Potion of Hallucination.

           

Morgoth hits me as I try to flee him and find the up staircase, far to my northeast. (I've revealed half the level with a Scroll of Mapping.)

      

I didn't try hard to win legitimately, but Moria also makes it nearly impossible to win illegitimately. Most roguelikes allow you to save, but they enforce permadeath by deleting the saved game file when you reload it (or sometimes when you die). Moria enforces permadeath by not offering save feature in the first place. To conquer it, I downloaded a variant of DOSBox that allows for save states, but it was almost more trouble than it was worth. I found that the states would usually open reliably in the same DOSBox session that they were created, but they almost never worked (they would open, but no key commands would work) if DOSBox itself was closed and re-opened after creating them. I don't like the idea of save states with DOS games anyway, so I deleted the program after I finished the game.

   

It did get me through this one, but with so many reloads I don't even want to try to guess. I wasn't trying to impress anyone with this one; I was just trying to document the endgame. 

   

In a GIMLET, I give it:

   

• 0 points for no game world.

• 1 point for character creation and development. Creation is only a name, and development is just more max hit points.

• 0 points for no NPCs.

• 2 points for encounters and foes. I'm so tired of Tolkien references. A few of the other foes have some interesting abilities.

• 2 points for magic and combat. There's no magic system, and combat comes down to a couple of options.

• 4 points for equipment. The variety of usable items is always a strength in roguelikes.

   

A Potion of Strength always brightens the day!

     

• 0 points for no economy.

• 2 points for a main quest.

• 3 points for graphics, sound, and interface. The graphics are functional enough for a roguelike. Sounds are just boops. The interface couldn't be easier to master, even with the commands in French.

        

The easy-to-master command list.

      

• 3 points for gameplay. There's a certain replayability to any roguelike, and some level of difficulty is part of the fun. This one goes a bit too far and lasts a bit too long.

   

That's a final score of 17, which is 7 points lower than I gave Rogue. I'm rating them 12 years apart, but there are also balance issues with Moria that creep into enough categories that its overall score is hurt.

Moria is credited on the title screen to an "AJM." I have no idea who that is. If anyone knows please share. I can't even figure the nation of origin. "France" is a guess based on the language and what a couple of web sites say, but they're probably guessing, too. It could as easily be Québécois, Belgian, or Algerian.

   

I'm still playing Angband but making such slow progress it might be a while longer before I have an entry's worth of material. Moria might not be a great game, but it least it has a sense of decency when it comes to the length.