Game 541: Die Prüfung (1993)

     

      

Die Prüfung

"The Examination"

Germany
Amos (developer); Kingsoft (publisher)

Released in 1993 for Commodore 64

Date Started: 24 February 2025

       

I was about two hours into this game, typing paragraph after paragraph of German text into a translator (Google's image translation doesn't recognize the Commodore font, at least not in ALL CAPS), before I remembered to do my usual pre-game comment/email search and discovered that at least two readers had alerted me to an English version. It's an unofficial one, with one of those "cracktro" screens that makes me want to call for the return of the guillotine, but it seems accurate enough and saves me an awful lot of time.

    

But while we're on the subject of capital punishment, the original author opted to go with an all-joystick interface, to the extent that even when entering the character name, you have to scroll through the letters and hit the joystick button to lock them in one at a time. I understand that Germany has just moved to the right, so I expect the round-ups will begin soon.

      

My mentor lays out the plot.

       

This single-character game, clearly inspired by The Bard's Tale, focuses on an apprentice mage who's just finished his coursework and is now taking his "practical final exam." He must complete five tasks in different dungeons.

   

The character creation process automatically assigns 10 points to strength, intelligence, constitution, and skill. The player is given a bonus pool of 10 points to augment these base scores. For equipment, he starts with a knife, a stick, and a gown.

      

Creating the character.

      

A cutscene introduces the player to the main quest. The character is summoned to the Hall of the Magicians by his master, Ternados. The highest of the sorcerers, Arnagard, gives him the first task: "The Erlsteinberg has a cave in which shameless kobolds live their miserable lives. They once stole the elder magic sword 'Xerador' from the halls of the Ildor Temple. Bring us this sword from the cave."

   

On the top-down outdoor map, I found every other location before Erlsteinberg, west of the Magicians' Castle. There are no encounters or battles on the outdoor map.

      

Finding the first dungeon.

       

Dungeon exploration transitions the player to a first-person interface with graphics about on par with early-1980s C64 games. You use the joystick to move and hit the joystick button to activate the menu, which allows you to open things, view an automap, light a torch (or cast a "Light" spell), view the character sheet, or rest. Resting restores all lost health and spell points. There are occasional binary encounters in which you move the joystick left to say "yes" and right to say "no."

       

Combats were infrequent on the level, usually consisting of two to five kobolds (which the English version for some reason translates as "gnomes") or giant spiders. You don't see enemies in the environment; they just pounce on you, and you're taken to a separate combat interface. Each enemy is listed separately, and they can start up to 7 squares away. You can only attack in melee range an enemy in an adjacent square, and vice versa. This is good because at experience Level 1, getting attacked by multiple enemies at once never turns out well.

   

Each round, you can attack, cast a spell, use an item, or move forward (to close the distance between you and enemies at farther ranges). The character starts with five Level 1 spells: "Magic Light," "Compass," "Light Healing," "Shocking Grasp," and "Ice Crystal." These spells are coded with five letters (e.g., MAGLI, KOMPA), another thing the game borrows from The Bard's Tale.

    

Killing a kobold with "Shocking Grasp." They're so cute!

     

As you might guess, only the last two spells are offensive. I learned pretty quickly that I could only deal with the damage from a couple of enemies at a time. Between misses and low damage rolls, it took an average of two attacks to kill an enemy. Either of the offensive spells could kill an enemy in one round, but at the cost of about a third of my spell points. So if an enemy party started with most enemies in melee range, I needed to start blasting with spells. If some of them needed multiple rounds to advance, I could afford to take a little more time.

   

I'm not 100% sure, but I think all the battles in the game are fixed. I couldn't make a random encounter happen when I tried, and resting (which restores all health and spell points) seems to carry no danger. This means that the player only has to worry about one battle at a time. The bad news is that some of those battles are hard. More on that in a bit. 

    

The map has a reasonably strong size-to-encounter ratio. Some of the things I found:

     

• Multiple battles with kobold guards.

• A dagger hidden inside a crevice in the rock.

• A place where I could hide and listen to a conversation. One kobold was telling another that their "boss" had partnered with a dangerous entity named "Morangok" to exterminate the dwarves who also live in the dungeon. One of the kobolds expressed contempt for this Morangok, after which a shadow appeared and killed both of them. On their bodies, I found a silver key.

  

I could have just attacked.

      

• A little stream of muddy water coming out of the wall. I could drink it or not. Drinking didn't seem to do anything. 

• Graffiti: "Erlsteinberg belongs to the dwarves." And under it: "Not for much longer!"

        

The level was 18 x 18, worm-tunneled, with two stairways down. One was behind a door with a sign that proclaimed it "Kingdom of the Dwarves!" I took this one first.

    

My map of the first level.

       

The second level was split in half, with the dwarves occupying one side and more kobolds the other. I found the dwarves gathered in the main assembly hall. Their king demanded to know if I served the kobold king, Tesnak, and of course I said no. They divined that I was seeking Xerador and told me the kobolds had stolen it ages ago. They would tell me where it was, but only if I brought them the head of the kobold king.

      

I went back upstairs and then down to the kobold side of the dungeon. I had to fight several battles with large groups of kobolds. Eventually, I got on Tesnak's trail, and I had to fight three battles in a row with a large group of kobold guards. They were paradoxically easier than the regular kobolds because they kept moving back and forth, sometimes coming into my range, sometimes moving outside of it, whereas the regular kobolds would head resolutely into melee range from their starting locations. But even these easier battles were tough, and I'm afraid I had to scum a bit to win them, even though I leveled up a few times during the process. I think I was supposed to bypass some of the battles with a password that the dwarf king had given me, but I couldn't get it to work.

      

A large battle. Two are in melee range in the first round. Over the next two rounds, one new enemy will enter melee range per round. Then I'll have a break before I face the one that's currently 5 spaces away. This helps me plan when I need to attack, when I need to cast spells, and when I can afford to heal for a round.

     

(Leveling, I should mention, conveys extra hit points and magic points, plus you get to choose one attribute to increase. Given the nature of the character, I favored intelligence, which gave an additional boost to magic points.)

   

Tesnak fled down a corridor and through several rooms, demanding that his guards cover his retreat. I finally caught up with him and faced him one-on-one. After a disastrous first attempt, I killed him with a single blast from a "fire stick" that I found somewhere in the dungeon. It only had one blast, so I'm glad I saved it.

    

That was my Indiana Jones moment.

     

Before meeting Tesnak, I'd found a note written by him: "The shadow has come to help us free Erlsteinberg from the dwarves, and we will rule! Still, I wonder about the price we had to pay to the shadow for its help." A few squares after I killed Tesnak, I met this "shadow," Morangok. "Not bad, my friend," it congratulated. "The kobolds will devise a cruel punishment for you . . . but they won't get you, and we will meet again!"

    

I took Tesnak's head back to the dwarf king, who told me the sword was on a lower level, to which he gave me access. The level was a teleporter maze, but it had no enemies or encounters. Without even having to carefully map, I was able to find my way to the sword, after which the game automatically teleported me out of the dungeon.

        

Why wouldn't I?

      

Back at headquarters, Arnagard took the sword and congratulated me for helping the dwarves. "I'm satisfied with your performance," he said, "although a lot of kobold blood was shed." I don't know whether he always says that or whether it's a hint that I could have avoided some of the battles if I hadn't bungled the password. Anyway, I got 500 experience points.

    

Or "The Big Riddle of Wizardry," as the translation has it. I thought it was talking about the game at first.

      

Ternados gave me the second spell level ("Better Light," "Pull Enemies," "Fire Claw," "Great Healing," and an offensive spell that translates as "Sword Case") before sending me off on the second quest: "To improve your intelligence, enter the Hall of the Riddlemasters and solve the Great Riddle of Magic. Then you will also have passed this test."

       

The second quest took place in a fortress with only one level and no battles. There were three major sections, each culminating in a riddle to which I had to provide the answer (again by scrolling through letters one by one). Unfortunately, the first riddle in this section only makes sense in German (I think) and the input wasn't translated in the English version, so I had to look up a German LP. If you get a riddle wrong, you get teleported to an area with a couple of hints. For instance, after my first mis-guess, the area I was teleported to suggested, "Speak it like it is." Then there was this longer hint:

      

"Hah-und-ay" doesn't exactly mean "dogs," but I get where it's going.

    

So, I get the basic premise, but I couldn't make it work with the clue, which was just "TE!," with no und in between. If I speak those letters like they sound, they sound like "Tay-ay," which if it means anything in German, I can't figure it out. Even "tay-und-ay" doesn't sound like anything that I can guess. Within the exclamation point, it would be "tay-ay-ausrufezeichen," which doesn't help. The answer from the videos—which remains identical in the English version—is TANNE (known even to English speakers from "Oh, Tannenbaum"), which I understand refers to a fir tree. If someone can figure out how I was supposed to get there, I'd appreciate the clarification.

   

The English version translated the next riddle as: "Nobody can catch me; nobody can stop me; my opposite gets me and destroys me. I can be a friend and a pain." I figured it out from this, but I checked the German version and confirmed that the translation isn't great. It ought to be: "No one can grab me; no one can get rid of me; my opposite creates me and destroys me. I can be a friend and a bitter pain." The answer is SHADOW, but I still don't see how it goes with the last part.

      

Answering the final riddle. I don't know what happened to the translation here, but in the original a woman (not necessarily a "wife") asks: "Have you discovered the foundation of the sorcerers? Tell me what it is!"

     

The final riddle was pretty easy. "Find the hidden clues and compare them!" a message said as I entered a large area with a lot of side passages and nooks. There were six clues altogether:

    

• True greatness comes from within.
• The power of the sorcerer is magic.
• The wise sorcerer controls himself.
• Live in control of yourself; that is the most important thing.
• Nothing can separate the sorcerer from his power.
• Control your actions and your mind.

    

At last, I came to a woman in white who demanded the "foundation of the sorcerers." Since three of the clues mentioned the word, I guessed CONTROL. I was right. I got 250 experience and was sent back to the Castle of Wizards. Ternados congratulated me and sent me on to the third quest, which he indicated would test my fighting abilities. He also gave me Level 3 spells ("Opponent Away," "Wind Suction," "Compass Trick," "Fire Wall," and "Fire Storm"), which is a bit odd since I haven't had a chance to experiment with Level 2 spells yet. He then kicked me outside.

     

Ternados seems to lose his train of thought.

    

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• I mapped the first level of the first dungeon, but the automap does a decent enough job that I just relied on it for the next two.

     

The automap.

     

• Gems, which you occasionally find, fully restore magic power. They're vital if you run out in the middle of combat. 

• The game has an amusing message when you die:

     

     

• I found a compass at some point, which replaced the KOMPA spell. Similarly, torches can be used instead of MAGLI.

• I think there was an alternate path by which I could have killed the dwarves as well as the kobolds. 

• There were several secret doors. They're easily detectable if you're facing them, as you can see their handle. But you can't see it at all from the side view, so you have to turn and face every wall that might contain one.

    

A "secret" door.

        

Die Prüfung has a couple of original ideas, and the backstory is uncommon if not unique, but gameplay feels a bit like a standard Bard's Tale knockoff. I'll finish it because it doesn't seem like it's going to be long, but this sort of a game was hardly a treat by 1993, if it ever was.

    

Time so far: 4 hours