BRIEFs: Crylon (1984), Guarida-Dragon (1986), and Dragon's Den (1985)

The title screen for the updated version of the game.

      

Crylon

Germany (or another German-speaking country)

GSA (developer and original publisher); Multisoft (Later publisher)

Released in 1984 for Commodore 64; re-released in 1990

Rejected for: Insufficient character development

        

Crylon is a somewhat incomprehensible genre-blender from Germany, sold in mail-order catalogues. Someone thought enough of it to update its programming and re-release it six years after the original release.

   

The goal of the game is to find 5 magic stones and bring them to Limbol Castle, which will somehow save the kingdom. In the original, the stones are called limbolsteine, but in the sequel, they're called crylonsteine (Crylon Stones); this suggests that the game was originally meant to be Limbol. You create a character from a list of classes: adventurer, wizard, warrior, elf, thief, and Knight of the Light. Each class starts with different values in strength, intelligence, experience, skill, courage, and magic. All classes begin with 20 rations (you use 0.25 per move), 100 thalers, and a short sword.

       

Character creation.

     

After character creation, you begin in the southwest corner of a world map. It looks like there are a lot of squares on the map, but the character moves three tiles per move, so the map is really only about 14 x 7. You begin in your hometown of Arsa, but something has caused it to become completely deserted. On the map is a temple, a bazaar, something marked with ????, and Limbol castle. Those last two places are on the other side of Todesschlucht, or "Death Gorge," crossed by a single bridge.

     

The world map.

      

The game must have come with some documentation, unavailable anywhere that I can find. I mostly figured it out, but there's clearly still something I'm missing. Movement is with the WASD cluster in the original and WASZ in the remake. In certain encounters, you can hit "F" to flee, "K" to kill, and "H" to parley. The character and inventory screens come up with "Q" in the original and "I" in the remake. You enter locations with the SPACE bar. Spells are cast with the function keys. Each requires you to have a material component, found in random encounters across the map. My best guess is:

 

• F1: "Magic Missile," but you have to have a physical missile (throwing stars) to throw.
• F2: "Invisibility."
• F3: "Charm." If it works, the opponent gives you a hint.

     

Casting "Charm" after several misfires.

      

• F4: I'm not sure. I just know that it requires a mirror and, like "Charm," it results in the opponent giving you a hint, but then the game crashes.
• F5: Some kind of physical attack spell.
• F6: "Create Food." It requires a magic bag.
• F7: I don't know. It requires a magic potion.

   

Each time you move, there's a probability of some kind of encounter. Some of these are fixed at certain locations, but most are random. Some examples:

       

• "This is a test!" You get a question about the game's lore (e.g., "Who is the current king of Crylon?"; "Who conquered Arsa?") For each one you get right, you gain 15 strength and 10 intelligence. Wrong answers have no consequence, but you keep getting the same question until you get it right. Some of the answers are determinable from in-game, but others would have had to come from the manual. I was able to answer them eventually by inspecting the code. The questions stop coming after the final one.

       

I was deep into the game before I could answer even this question.

     

• You enter an area ravaged by plague and lose 2 points of strength.

• You find an elegant bow. You need it for the next encounter.

• You see some animals called "zenills," the game world's answer to deer. You can shoot them for rations.

      

Living off the land.

     

• You find a magic spellbook. This allows you to cast spells.

• You find a pot of honey, a mysterious mirror, a throwing star, or a wooden paddle. I think these are all necessary for spells.

• You meet between 1 and 6 robbers, uruks, ogres, wolves, bats, or cunning snakes. You can try to defeat them in combat, through magic, through diplomacy, or by fleeing. Success raises your courage by 10. Fleeing reduces strength by 3, skill by 10, and courage by 5. Winning sometimes gets you gold.

      

The simplistic combat screen. Only strength seems to matter. It serves as both power and hit points.

     

• You find a shimmering lump of Mithril, a huge diamond, a sapphire, or a lump of gold ore. All of these can be sold at the bazaar.

• You meet a man named Wesil. He wants you to escort him to the temple. Saying yes increase your intelligence by 10 and courage by 25. Once you deliver him to the temple, all your attributes go up by 30 points and you get one of the Crylon Stones.

• You find a heavy Dragonsword. I believe this is necessary to cross the bridge.

• You find a fishing rod. I don't know how to use it. I stood by the lake and hit every key.

• You find a Crylon Stone. Only one stone is scattered randomly like this. I always found it in the southwest. 

• You find a boat. This always occurs on the east side of the lake in the northwest. It allows you to row out to the island in the lake.

• The island has Ruhl Castle, former capital of someone that the game calls ein Toliman. "From here, he ruled the entire empire." You find two Crylon Stones that the Toliman left there. 

      

Two stones at once!

     

• In by far the most annoying encounter, "You come to an unknown area with hidden pitfalls." Ten "rounds" follow; in each, you must choose to move forward, left, or right. Theoretically, if you choose the correct option, nothing happens, and if you choose the wrong option, you fall down a pit and have to climb out. I verified through save states that what happens is completely scripted, and you always fall down a bunch of pits and always lose about 5-7 strength.

     

Falling into a pit on Step 3. You have to do this 10 times in a row.

       

The priests in the temple just kick you out if you show up without Wesil. At the bazaar, you can theoretically:

    

• Buy better weapons for between 148 and 191 thalers.
• Buy armor for between 148 and 154 thalers. 
• Buy rations for 1 ration per thaler.
• Get a hint from a fortune teller about a dragon guarding the bridge for 100 thalers.
• Pay a magician 1000 thalers for boosts to courage and magic. 
• Sell gems to a moneychanger.

      

The weapons available in the bazaar.

     

The problem is that you only start the game with 100 thalers and the most lucrative encounters only give you 2 or 3. Gems sell for between 10 and 50, but finding them is rare. It was deep in the game before I could afford anything in the town, and I never lasted long enough to get up to 1,000.

        

My map of the game world.

     

If you approach the bridge before you find the Dragonsword and I think before you get the hint from the fortune teller, you are automatically killed by an unknown creature. (Other automatic deaths include falling into the gorge or entering water without a boat.) Once you have both, you can just blithely cross the bridge with no dragon encounter.

   

On the east side of the bridge are two locations of note. One is Limbol Castle, where the endgame must take place. If you go there before you have all five Crylon Stones, you're captured and imprisoned by someone named Ashna and the game ends.  

   

The second location is marked with question marks on the game map. It turns out to be a circle of stones where a voice announces you'll be "tested." In my case, the test always failed, with the voice telling me my skills aren't high enough. This encounter has to be the location of the fifth stone.

      

I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, and doggone it, no one likes me.

       

The problem here is that while courage increases from combat, and skill and magic increase from just walking around, I can't find any reliable way to increase strength once the "test" questions have all gone away. I just watch as my strength is slowly sapped by plague-infested areas and those idiotic "pitfall" encounters until I'm dead.

    

I was willing to cheat just to see the endgame, but no key combination seems to allow saving the game in progress, so there's no save file to edit. I tried editing the save state, but I couldn't figure out how attribute values were stored and I gave up. There is some endgame text in the file that reads: "With the help of the stones, the cruel rule of Ashna is ended! Since the dragon is dead, peace finally reigns in the kingdom!" You then have the chance to play again.

    

Although it almost meets my definitions of an RPG, Crylon plays a lot more like a "campaigner" (see the glossary) albeit with a single character. I'm going to reject it on character development grounds, as skill and courage (the only attributes to increase from battle) don't seem to do anything to make battle easier.

     

This ad from 1991 is one of a few pieces of evidence that the game existed.

     

The game is credited to R. Fischer, with 1990 updates by T. Schultz and O. Ludwig. I don't have any information about any of them. I found ads for it in 64'er and GO!64 as late as 1997, but no sign that anyone had ever written anything about it.

   

*******

       

"Which Medellin?" would be an interesting question if this were a more interesting game.

       

Guarida-Dragon

"Dragon's Den"

Colombia, Mexico, Philippines, or Spain

Macrisoft (developer and publisher)

Copy of Dragon's Den (1985), published as type-in code in the December 1985 Compute!'s Gazette

Released in 1986 for Commodore 64

Rejected for: No character development; not even its own game

     

A game that first seems intriguing—our first RPG from one of four countries!—falls apart on scrutiny. The game is nothing more than Clark Book's Dragon's Den (1985), as published as type-in code in the December 1985 Compute!'s Gazette, but with Spanish-language instructions at the beginning and a pre-title screen.

    

Any clues in the use of Spanish?

     

The adapter didn't even change the key commands, which only make sense in English (e.g., L)eft and R)ight), nor did they omit the English title screen. It might not be plagiarism; it might be an honest attempt to just make the game accessible to Spanish-language players with no attempt to commercialize it, but the "Por: Macrisoft" bit on the title screen must give us pause.

      

The game's source.

     

Even the English original isn't all that original. The basic idea goes back to Robert Clardy's Dungeon Campaign (1978): You're thrown into a dungeon and need to find the exit, ideally after grabbing as much gold as you can. In this game, gold is hidden under trap doors, which may also hide the titular dragon.

          

The game begins.

     

The are a couple of cute innovations. If you do reveal the dragon, you have a split second to enter a valid command to exit the room. To avoid getting lost, you can sacrifice your rations to leave a literal trail of breadcrumbs, although this increases the risk you'll starve. Trap doors may have gold, food and water, or one-use magical swords. It's entirely possible that these features exist in some earlier game that Dragon's Den was based on. There are a lot of these proto-RPGs out there, and I haven't played most of them. 

     

Seems a waste to enchant a sword for one hit.

          

There are no statistics, no combats except for the occasional dragon, which are automatic victories if you have a sword and automatic defeats if you don't. I "won" in that I escaped the dungeon with some gold, but it would be silly to number and rate such a simple game.

 

I could probably beat that in another attempt.

     

Unless something else comes up later, this was Colombia's and Mexico's only shot at appearing on the blog. The next game from Spain will be Hero Quest (1994) for the ZX Spectrum. The Philippines will have to wait until Anito: Defend a Land Enraged (2003).

    

Oh, while we're at it, we might as well . . .  

     

****

 

         

Dragon's Den

United States 

Independently developed; published as type-in code in the December 1985 Compute!'s Gazette

Released in 1985 for Commodore 64

Rejected for: No character development

    

I didn't even realize that this was a separate game on my list until this entry was nearly published. It's the same game as above minus the Spanish title screen and instructions. I trust we've already covered it adequately.