Realms of Arkania: Star Trail: Summary and Rating

 

What moment from the game do you think this box image was trying to recreate?

      

Realms of Arkania: Star Trail

Original German name: Das Schwarze Auge: Sternenschweif ("The Dark Eye: Star Trail")

Germany

attic Entertainment Software (developer); Fantasy Productions Verlag (original publisher); Sir-Tech Software (U.S. publisher)

Released 1994 for DOS

Date Started: 8 January 2026

Date Ended: 21 April 2026

Total Hours: 60

Difficulty:  Moderate (3.0/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)     

   

Summary:

     

This sequel to Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (1992) uses the same interface —first-person dungeon and town exploration, overhead world exploration by menu, combat on a grid with an axonometric perspective—with a few improvements. Thematically, it's quite a bit different, requiring the party to visit only a small number of locations in its small world, offering only a couple of side quests and dungeons.

   

The plot concerns the recovery of an artifact called the Salamander Stone, which will help unite the Elves and Dwarves against the orcs, who seem to be conquering everything. The plot seems to lose its way a few times, and both it and the game world are difficult to interpret without external sources covering Das Schwarze Auge setting. The game has a lot of logistical considerations, particularly when it comes to overland travel, which sometimes created satisfying moments strategically and sometimes just annoyed me. In general, though, the game offers a full, sophisticated set of RPG elements, including detailed character creation, meaningful NPC interaction, tactical combat, inventory logistics, and a meaningful economy. In each of these areas, it regrettably has a number of negatives that balance its positives.

    

****

    

On a reload, I was able to win the final battle without losing anyone. I chose the quickest option, just re-fighting that battle, this time understanding how it worked. (It helped that one of my warriors had the Dragon Slayer equipped, which did a lot of damage.) My characters were still dying of thirst as I exited the dungeon, but I trust that doesn't carry into the next game or, if it does, that I'll be in a city when the game begins.

     

"All of you, this time."

       

As for the rest of it, there were a lot of things that worked well and a lot of things that didn't. The game has solid RPG elements, including its use of skills, the utility of leveling, tactical options in battle, a number of special encounters with role-playing options, and the survival elements. On the negative side, I think it was a bit sloppy in the way that it revealed story and lore to the player; inventory upgrades are few and far between; the translation from German is a bit wonky in places; and I never really warmed to traveling across the game world by menu.

      

You have my comments on combat from the last entry, and with apologies to those who disagree, I simply don't think the spell system works very well. It has the same problem as skills, really: Until you've played for a while, you don't have a strong sense of what will actually be useful. With skills, you get so many points that it isn't as much of a problem. With spells, so many start deep in the negatives (and in many schools, you can only advance by one per level) that you really need some experience or spoilers to know what to focus on. On the plus side, I do like that many spells have out-of-combat uses.

       

My mage's spell values at the end of the game. That's a lot of negatives.

         

Then you have a bunch of stuff that's simply weird, annoying, or both:

      

• A party created in Star Trail spends the entire game getting to the same experience level as an imported party. 

• You're told not to loot anything in the first dungeon, which would be absurd if taken literally, since the Girdles of Might are practically essential. Plus, I think you need to take some items to get through the dungeon.

    

There are only about six recipes in the game, and here are two of them—but, apparently, I wasn't supposed to take them.

     

• You can create new characters at any temple but can only add them to your party if you go all the way back to Kvirasim. (Some reviews made it sound like it was possible to create and add characters elsewhere, but if it is, it never worked in the places that I tried it.)

• The subtitle of the game refers to a side quest that cannot be completed. 

• The party irrecoverably loses all its equipment (except magic items) midway through the game.

• The main quest is for the Salamander Stone. After finding it, the party has it stolen in scripted encounters at least three times.

          

Adding insult to injury, I still don't know who this jackass was.

        

These are just the major ones. I think my entries documented a lot of minor annoyances, such as a chest that could only be opened with a specific interface setting, a series of deadly traps that there is no way to avoid, characters throwing tantrums and injuring themselves on locked doors, and an encumbrance system that's absurdly punishing given all the stuff the game wants you to carry for survival purposes. 

      

I've played plenty of games with difficult doors. This is the only one where my characters were this uncool about it.

          

But I'll end with some miscellaneous pluses: an excellent automap, a helpful diary (that I under-used), a welcome auto-combat option for easy battles, and an economy that never stops being relevant, particularly with the ability to donate to temples for favors. 

         

The game manual's screenshot of the diary makes a joke about reading the manual. This is getting too meta.

        

I don't know what the GIMLET will show, but it feels to me that Blade of Destiny was a better game. Star Trail makes definite interface improvements, particularly in combat, but Blade had a more sensible plot, more side-dungeons and side-quests, and better reasons to explore its large game world. I would expect Star Trail to come out a couple of points behind.

   

On the GIMLET, I give Star Trail:

   

• 4 points for the game world.
• 6 points for character creation and development.
• 5 points for NPC interaction.
• 6 points for encounters and foes.
• 5 points for magic and combat.
• 4 points for equipment.
• 6 points for the economy.
• 4 points for quests.
• 6 points for graphics, sound, and interface.
• 5 points for gameplay.

   

That gives us a total of 51, which to my surprise is 7 points higher than Blade of Destiny. Looking through my final entry for that game, I guess I had more complaints about its mechanics than I remember.

          

This doesn't strike me as the most competent of ads. You really have to struggle to see the name of the game.

       

If you have any experience with my GIMLET, you know that a score of 51 puts it in the top 10% of games rated so far, which may seem to be at odds with the tone of some of my entries. This has happened before, and it generally happens when the game could have scored higher in some of its categories if not for an equal number of flaws. "Character creation and development" is a good example. I'd love to give the game an 8 in that category. Classes are well-differentiated; class composition truly matters; leveling up feels rewarding; the large variety of skills gives you the chance to create unique "builds" for characters; there are (albeit limited) class-specific dialogues and encounters. All very positive. But then you have things like arbitrary caps on the number of times you can allocate skill and spell points per level, the chance of "failing" each allocation and wasting half your skill points, skills that aren't used, random rolls that give you only 2 hit points per level, and numerous irrevocable choices about swapping points that can't possibly be understood until you've already played the game. And so the game gets the same score (6) as, say, one of the Gold Box games, which don't do anything particularly spectacular in character development but also don't give me anything to complain about. Some games, in short, reach a 6 by simply adding; some reach it by adding and then subtracting. Those latter games are going to offer more sources of complaint.

        

Those fans upset with my coverage of the game would really take issue with some of its contemporary reviews. Here's Petra Schlunk from the December 1994 Computer Gaming World: "To say that I had fun would be inaccurate; to say that I cursed and raged against this game, yet could not stop playing it, would be closer to the truth." She goes on to complain about encumbrance issues, getting kicked out of NPC conversations, boots that always wore out, and the length of combat. ("Actually hitting an opponent or successfully casting a spell is a rare thing," she says in a nice moment of solidarity.) In the first star rating I can ever remember seeing in CGW, she gives it 3/5 stars. "Extremely aggravating in spots . . . For the hard-core only."

      

These bastards are going to live in my head rent-free for a while.

         

I don't know why I still bother to consult Dragon magazine, which never knew what it was doing with computer game reviews. It would stop reviewing computer games entirely within a couple of years, and at this point in its life was offering them in an "Eye of the Monitor" section that featured an annoying back-and-forth between two reviews (Jay and Dee) instead of a single coherent review. Here, they thought it was too logistically complex and difficult, but they praised aspects of the interface and combat system. I'd like to hang my hat on some choice quotes (""Why can't a game be challenging without being whimsically evil?"), but it's clear they didn't make it far out of the starting city, and it's hard to respect that. 

      

Before moving on to the European reviews, I should mention that at least one western source, the February 1995 PC Gamer, felt a lot better about the game: "Everything diehard roleplaying enthusiasts have been waiting for." While it allows that the game might be confusing to newcomers, and that "its complexities can take a bit of practice to master," it promises real rewards for players who "invest enough time to master its wonderful subtleties."

      

A wonderful subtlety.

      

German sources rated it generally more positively, including 86% from the June 1994 issues of both Play Time and PC Games,  87% from the May 1994 Power Play (which also gave it RPG of the Year), 90% from the November 1993 PC Joker, and 92% from the July 1994 ASM. It's impossible not to suspect a certain amount of native pride in those reviews, but they probably also benefit from playing the game in its native language with a baseline understanding of Das Schwarze Auge setting. There's also the stereotypical German affinity for logistics, to which this game particularly caters.

    

The Dragon reviewers mentioned playing with the cluebook. I was interested in taking a look to see whether, as with many games of the era, it provided a bit more lore and background. It doesn't, alas. It's a very workaday cluebook, with maps of all the areas and a "walkthrough" that gives simple instructions without explaining anything. It elides most of the optional areas and encounters in the game, although it does take the party through the entire Star Trail episode, which I believe was optional. However, the cluebook does have an interesting interview with attic co-founder Guido Henkel. He relates how he,  Hans-Jürgen Brändle, and Jochen Hamma founded the company in 1990 after their previous company, Dragonware Games, folded. Their first productions were Lords of Doom (1990), Die Drachen von Laas (1991) and Spirit of Adventure (1991). As fans of the tabletop Das Schwarze Auge, they dreamed of developing a computer game in the setting but were too nervous about approaching the owners of the rights. Eventually, those owners came to attic rather than the other way around.

     

According to MobyGames: "The image [of the] Elvenking during the end scene was inspired by David Bowie. There was a contest about this image. The first player who would send the correct answer to the designers could win a prize."

          

Henkel seems to regard Blade of Destiny as particularly flawed and is proud of the ways that his team fixed its problems in Star Trail. He is also particularly proud of the automap and in-game journal. The company went with Sir-Tech for American distribution on the strength of the Wizardry history; Henkel was playing Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992) at the same time they inked the deal.

  

We are early in the life of the Dark Eye setting. Realms of Arkania III: Shadows over Riva (1996) will be with us in a couple of years. I don't think we'll be seeing a group of mobile-only games in the early 2000s (e.g., The Dark Eye: Nedime - The Caliph's Daughter, The Dark Eye: Secret of the Cyclopses), but assuming I survive that long, we'll definitely see The Dark Eye: Drakensang (2008). In the 2010s, there are several games under the Blackguards label, Demonicon (2013), some titles that MobyGames classifies as adventure games, and of course the 2015-2017 remake of the first two Arkania games using the Unity Engine. As of 2026, the latest PC game in the setting is The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes (2020). There's a later iPhone game called Forgotten Fables: Wolves on the Westwind that sites list as part of the universe.

       

Combat in the 2017 remake of Star Trail. It keeps the tactical grid, but you can zoom around and rotate it.

           

Alas, attic Entertainment Software wasn't around for this resurgence. Shadows over Riva was their last and only game after Star Trail, although they did publish games from a few other developers, including one that we may see: Druid: Daemons of the Mind (1995). In interviews, Guido Henkel said that the licensing costs for The Dark Eye prevented the series from being profitable for the developers. He left attic in the late 1990s, and the company closed in 2001.

      

Henkel went on to work at Interplay, where he produced Planescape: Torment (1999) and apparently modeled for the cover art of the Nameless One. He reportedly lives in California now. He dabbled for a while in mobile games and now works as a film restorer. Johchen Hamma remained in the games industry. He was the executive producer of ArcaniA: Gothic 4 for Spellbound Entertainment. He's also listed as a consultant on the Blackguard titles (2014-2015). Hans-Jürgen Brändl went to work for Blue Byte Software and worked on the Settlers series of city simulators. He died in 2005.

 

Despite my rocky experience with Star Trail, I am authentically looking forward to its sequel, and I don't think there's any chance I won't select it for the primary list in 1996.  

      

****

    

Previous entry in this series

 

For further reading:

     

My coverage of attic Entertainment Software's other titles:

    

• Lords of Doom (1990) 
• Die Drachen von Laas (1991)  
• Spirit of Adventure (1991) 
• Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (1992) 

04/26/2026 

Arena: First Seed

Alduin the World-Eater?

         

As this session began, I had recovered four pieces of the eight-piece of Staff of Chaos. I had the quest for the fifth. But owing to an exploit by which you can get more than one artifact quest if you temporarily divest yourself of existing artifacts by leaving them for repair, I had a lead on a second artifact: the Oghma Infinium, which of course will play a big role in Skyrim.

   

I decided to go for the artifact. It turned out to be a good choice. Like all quests in the game, it was two parts: I first had to explore the Catacombs of Skulvor, in Skyrim, to find a map to the Oghma Infinium, then explore a dungeon in Summurset to find the artifact itself. Each dungeon was four levels. 

        

I haven't mentioned the journal much. It definitely helps you keep track of the location of the next quest.

        

Nonetheless, it only took me about half an hour. Random dungeons always generate stairs in the same locations, and the object of the quest is always on the fourth level. Thus, once you enter the dungeon, you can just zoom from staircase to staircase, using "Passwall" if you want to make it even faster. I don't think I used "Passwall" here, but random dungeons are open enough that it's easy to find your way even if you have to run around a few walls.

   

Here's one thing that didn't help: the "Remove Floor" spell. I had hoped it would allow me to just drop to the next level. Unfortunately, it just removes the literal floor tile, usually revealing water underneath. I suppose it might be useful to stop an enemy reaching you, but it doesn't help with navigating the dungeons more quickly.

      

"Remove Floor" performs quite literally.

       

The artifact was definitely worth the trip. "All who read the Infinium," the game said, "are filled with the energy of the artifact which can be manipulated to raise one's abilities to near demi-god proportions. Once used, legend has it, the Infinium will disappear from its wielder." Sure enough, when I found it, the game let me allocate 50 points to my attributes, as if I'd just leveled up 10 times. 

        

Worth the trip.

      

With that quest accomplished, I recovered my repaired Necromancer's Amulet and then turned to the next piece of the Staff of Chaos. The Mages' Guild had asked me to recover a magical diamond from the Temple of the Mad God (an early appearance of Sheogorath?), which was in Summurset. The Temple was two large levels with a "catacomb" theme. There were numerous rooms with gravestones and markers. Enemies included ghosts, snow wolves, and for the first time, monks.

   

I got a bit annoyed with how quickly the monks destroyed me, particularly after just infusing myself with 50 new attribute points. The difference was essentially unnoticeable. A monk could still kill me in three or four kicks. The game still isn't hard because the generous economy means I'm traveling around with 100 or more healing potions at any given time, but I do keep making the same mistake. An enemy will knock my health meter down to, say, one-third. I figure I can take one more hit before I need to swallow a potion. And then it turns out I was wrong; I couldn't take one more hit. Soon, Jagar Tharn is mocking me again.

        

A monk kicks me in the face.

       

While I'm on annoyances, here's another couple. First, I defeated a lot of enemies this round by spamming "Firestorm" from my Longsword of Firestorm. I also had to frequently use Potions of Healing. To use any magic item, you have to click the "Use Item" button on the interface. But if the game is in the middle of its own thing, like playing a monster animation or sound clip, it won't register your click until it's finished. It then registers your click based on where your mouse is at the time. So if you click on the "Use Item" button, then move the mouse a bit to the right, by the time the game gets around to addressing your click, it thinks you're trying to camp. I can't tell you how many times the "you can't camp" screen has come up while I'm trying to use an item.

   

Like so.

      

Second, here I am, hours into the game at Level 16, and the game still really isn't playable as a pure mage. Any offensive spell I cast takes at least 20% of my mana bar, probably more. Five offensive spells barely gets you through one battle (though that may change when I get "Paralysis"). Meanwhile, the "Restore Magic" potion that you can buy at the Mages Guild only restores about 10%. You need a metric ton of them. Good thing the economy is so generous. 

  

Level 2 of the Temple of the Mad God had a "prison" theme, with lots of barred cells and chains hanging from the ceiling. I met a new enemy for the first time: the iron golem. It took forever (and a lot of healing potions) to kill, and once it died, it remained standing upright, its body pitted with holes where I presumably hacked away its armor.

    

This guy is intimidating. In a later game, he'd be a centurion of some type.

        

The diamond was behind a door with an easy riddle ("What flares up / and does a lot of good / and when it dies / is just a piece of wood?"). Before long, I was back at the Mages Guild in Lillandril, getting the location to the Crystal Tower.

   

The Crystal Tower had an interesting description: "This bastion of sorcery seemingly transcends normal human conceptions, existing in many planes other than this." It sounds a bit like Stephen King's Dark Tower.

     

I really enjoy these dungeon title cards.

        

The four levels of the tower were reasonably large, but they also had a lot of wide hallways and big rooms, which had the effect of making them seem smaller. There were a lot of trolls in the hallways, plus other enemies that I'd already faced, including snow wolves, hellhounds, ice golems, and wraiths.

     

There was a high density of trolls in this dungeon.

        

Level 3 had an interesting theme, with about two dozen small cells with a single enemy in each, labeled at the cell door with the type of enemy and information about it. Examples:

   

• "Snow wolf. Warning, specimen has a breath attack."
• "Ice golem. Warning, this specimen has a damage aura."
• "Medusa. Warning, gaze attack. Do not stare." (Despite the warning, she never paralyzed me.)

        

Arena gets the award for the most non-sexualized nudity of any game so far.

       

One ominous cell had my name on the cell door. "It seems someone has been expecting you." I didn't enter. 

 

There was an iron golem in a treasure room, and a new enemy near the stairs to Level 4: a fire daemon. He killed me a couple of times before I defeated him with "Resist Fire" and various magical attacks. I had to fight him on the way back out, too, as levels respawn.

     

The most difficult enemy in the game so far.

       

To get to the staff piece, I had to find a couple of diamond keys, then answer another riddle:

        

The "within a fountain crystal clear" part threw me off.

        

This one took me a few minutes (EGG). 

   

As usual, Ria Silmane congratulated me and said that the next piece was in the Crypt of Hearts. She didn't know where it was, but "only three provinces remain." Jagar Tharn didn't appear until several days later, when I was wandering into a city. This time, he sent a fire daemon and an ice troll after me.

         

I'm starting to like this guy.

        

I tried Black Marsh first, visiting the city of Gideon. As noted in my first entry, Argonians here are just humans with gray skin and Romanesque names. They directed me to High Rock, which I could have sworn already had a piece, but I guess that's just where I emerged from the prison.

         

There's a big gulf between these folks and the Argonians of later games.

         

In Daggerfall, I was told to try in Camlorn. NPCs there directed me to the Brotherhood of Seth. The priest there said that one of their members, Barnabas of Tethis, had recently gone mad, "raving that the Emperor had been captured!" Seeking pieces of the Staff of Chaos on his own, he went to the Mines of Khuras and probably died there, taking a valuable map with him. If I return the map, the priest will tell me the location of the Crypt of Hearts. 

   

While I was in Daggerfall, I visited the king, who gave me a quest to go to the Black Wastes "to the west" and find a representative of the Dark Brotherhood in the Mages Guild. He would give me a writ that I needed to bring back to the king within a month or so. "The UnderKing will try to stop you," he warned. 

       

The UnderKing tried to stop me.

       

Sure enough, every time I tried to rest at an inn during this quest, enemies appeared to attack me. Tough enemies, including two iron golems at once. I eventually completed the quest and got 7,500 gold pieces and 8,000 experience points from the king. While I was in Black Wastes—which is, incidentally, to the east of Daggerfall—I did a quick fetch quest that got me 800 experience points and a few hundred gold pieces. In comparison, one of those iron golems is worth 29,170 by himself. A fire daemon is worth 42,425.

        

Question: Do any of the random quests ever send you to a random dungeon? Or is it only artifact and main quest stages that involve dungeons? 

      

Arriving in the Mines of Khuras.

      

The Mines of Khuras were two enormous levels, clearly designed by an insane person. It took me about five hours. The levels had a volcanic theme, with numerous lava pools and fire-oriented monsters like hellhounds and fire daemons. (Other enemies included homonculuses, zombies, and a new one: stone golems.) I had to jump across a lot of lava pools, and half the time the jumping would fail, and I'd plunge into the pool.

     

Part of the absurdly large first level.

      

I almost always approach dungeon levels by finding an outer wall, then following it counter-clockwise until I've mapped the edges. Then, I fill in the middle by slowly nibbling away at its edges. If I find a stairway during this process, I generally take it, although sometimes I have to return to the earlier level to find a key or something.

     

A new enemy makes an appearance.

     

These levels seemed designed specifically to screw someone using my exploration pattern. The stairway to Level 2 was deep in the middle of the first level. It was practically the last thing I found. The body of Barnabas of Tethis, on Level 2, was also towards the center, and behind a secret door besides. 

          

Poor guy. Maybe Ria Silmane should have helped him.

       

Several hours and two character levels later, I was back in Camlorn. The priest of the Brotherhood of Seth took the map and marked the location of the Crypt of Hearts.

   

Instead of heading directly there, I left the city and started exploring the wilderness. I hadn't done much of that since the game began. The developers put a lot of effort into the process of procedurally-generating territory around each city, assembling each map out of a series of pre-defined "blocks," but you could easily play the game without ever experiencing it. No fixed or even random quest ever asks you to do anything except fast-travel directly to the destination. As we've discussed, you can't even reach destinations by trying to walk there the "slow" way. The game keeps generating new wilderness blocks but the character's world location remains fixed at the last fast-travel point.

       

Enjoying a bit of the wilderness.

               

I made my way through mist-covered forests and across rivers before finding an island with a dungeon in the middle. Until now, I didn't realize that random dungeons could appear on the wilderness map. I entered and found a small, single-level dungeon with a "crypt" theme. It had some treasure in every room and just a few ghouls and skeletons. It struck me as hand-crafted rather than randomly-generated. I wonder how many more of these small dungeon "templates" the authors designed.

       

This small dungeon felt hand-crafted, though I'm sure its appearance in the world was randomized.

       

While outside, I verified the recollection that the sun in Arena rises in the west and sets in the east. I think that if the creators wanted to make the world seem more "alien," they should have left the sun alone and had people live in, say, giant crustacean shells or something. 

           

In retrospect, I guess this screenshot doesn't mean anything if you don't know that it's 06:00 in the morning.

          

With that little side-adventure out of the way, I fast-traveled to the Crypt of Hearts. Like all other locations with a piece of the staff, it had an evocative title card:

      

What is that beast?

         

And a welcome message as I entered:

         

Manacles in the entry hall. How welcoming.

         

It also had the relief on the entry wall that you see at the top of this entry. The dungeon was four levels, the first easily as large as the two Mines of Khuras levels, perhaps even larger. But my exploration pattern served me well. I arrived in the northeast corner and found the stairs to Level 2 in the middle of the northern wall, about five minutes after I arrived. I missed 90% of the rest of the level. 

    

On Level 2, the same pattern brought me to the stairs after exploring only about a third of the level. Same with Level 3 to Level 4. I began to worry that I would eventually need a set of keys, one from each level or something, but fortunately this dungeon didn't require any such thing.

    

A couple of homonculuses attack in a hallway.

       

Level 4 broke the pattern. The staff piece was in the center of the dungeon, so I had to work my way around the entire perimeter and then move inward. Still, it didn't take very long. The door to the central room had, as usual, a riddle:

   

There is a thing, which nothing is,

Yet it has a name.

It's sometimes tall

And sometimes short

It tumbles when we fall

It joins our sport,

And plays at every game.

   

Not only had I heard this one before (SHADOW), but I was also pretty sure I'd heard it in this exact format. I couldn't find it in a search of the blog's text, though.

        

That analogy doesn't really make sense.

         

Two fire daemons flanked the inner doorway and killed me the moment I entered. I had to reload and do a bunch of the level again. No matter how often that happens, I still save less often than I should. I don't know what's wrong with me sometimes. 

   

Enemies in the dungeon were harder than most—homonculuses, stone golems, hellhounds, iron golems, wraiths—with multiple enemies sometimes attacking at once. I ended up chugging a lot of "Restore Magic" potions and keeping "Mana Theft" (which works unreliably) and "Shrug Off Spell" going almost all the time. 

     

Every time I killed a stone golem in this area, another appeared on a different platform and started firing spells at me.

      

I used "Passwall" to facilitate my exit from the dungeon. As usual, Ria Silmane appeared the next time I rested to tell me that the seventh piece would be found in the Murkwood, "the dark forest that ever moves," I guess a fusion of Tolkien's Mirkwood and Fangorn Forests. She pointed out that the only two provinces left were Morrowind and Black Marsh, although if I were Tharn, I'd fool the hero by disrupting the pattern and putting at least two pieces of the staff in a single province.

      

Maybe Tharn should stop sending exactly two guys to attack me every time I find a piece.

          

Before I go, let's talk about equipment. I haven't had a real "upgrade" in a long time. Battle mages can only wear leather armor—cuirass, helm, left and right pauldrons, boots, gauntlets, and greaves—and leather armor never seems to have enchantments attached to it. For other classes, I've never seen anything other than chain and plate, but because I can't wear those items, I haven't been identifying them. I think additional materials might be revealed with identification.

   

For weapons, I've seen regular (iron), steel, elven, dwarven, mithril, adamantium, and ebony varieties of just about every weapon, which includes one-handed (e.g., daggers, maces, longswords), two-handed (e.g., war axes, claymores, dai-katanas), and missile (e.g., short bow, long bow). If there are levels above ebony, I haven't found any. Certain monsters can only be hit by certain weapon levels.

     

A wraith guards a couple piles of treasure. I think they might be immune to iron and steel weapons.

            

I've been carrying an ebony longsword for as long as I can remember. One of the game's quirks is that items aren't leveled; you can find some of the best equipment in the first dungeon.

    

Weapons can be enchanted with attribute-buffing charms (e.g., Dwarven Mace of Speed, Steel Dagger of Luck), resistances, and spells that cast when the item is used (e.g., "Paralyzation," "Lightning"). I've seen these enchantments on most levels of weapons, but never so far on ebony. Enchantments can only be used if the item is equipped. I have an extremely useful  Steel Longsword of Paralyzation and an equally useful Longsword of Firestorm, but some enemies are immune to their metals (not their spell effects), so I have to go into the inventory and switch weapons to finish them off if the spells don't do it. Again, it would have been great to have weapon hotkeys.

       

It's nice that he's paralyzed, but now I have to switch to my other sword.

       

(On the subject of enchantments, I should emphasize that all items in the game have to be purchased or found with the enchantments already applied. Arena doesn't offer any way of enchanting items yourself.) 

      

There's no dual-wielding in the game. If you have a one-handed weapon, you can put a shield in the other hand. My guy has been limited to bucklers and round shields; other characters can carry tower shields and kite shields. Shields seemed like such an afterthought to me that I haven't been identifying them, and I didn't learn until this session that they can also be made out of different metals and enchanted.

      

Some of my current equipment.

            

In addition to weapons, armor, and shields, a character can wear or wield one set of bracers, one crystal, one mark, one ring, one amulet, one belt, one bracelet, and one torc. Bracers, belts, torcs, and amulets only seem to have attribute-boosting enchantments while the other items only have spellcasting enchantments. Bracers, belts, torcs, and amulets also come in different metal types (e.g., elven, dwarven, mithril, ebony), and here again I've never seen an item that was both made of ebony and enchanted. I've mostly been sticking with the ebony stuff because it lowers armor class a lot, and I apparently need that badly. I feel like a character of my level shouldn't still be threatened by skeletons, but here we are.

   

At this point in the game, the only items that I regularly change out are crystals, marks, and rings, discarding or selling them as their charges run out. In general, selling magical items is how I make most of my money. 

    

Magic items for sale. Note that there's just an Ebony Belt and a Belt of Luck, no Ebony Belt of Luck. I don't know whether that exists.

      

Characters can carry potions of various types (e.g., healing, restore magic power, free action, invisibility, strength, resist fire, resist cold), and since these items a) don't need to be equipped, b) stack, and c) don't weigh anything, they're a real money sink. I don't know whether there's a limit on the number of potions of a single type, but if so, it's more than a few hundred. As long as you can afford them, potions can compensate for almost anything. This means that they break the game a little, although I think a player who over-relied on them would soon run out of both potions and money.

      

This must be a powerful amulet, but it won't be more powerful than the Necromancer's Amulet. I can sell it without any angst.

        

Finally, as we've seen, the game offers artifact items of various types. My Necromancer's Amulet gives me -9 armor class to all body parts, meaning I sell every other amulet I find. I don't know what all the others do (I'll look it up for the final entry), but I've heard rumors about Auriel's Bow, Chrysamere (a sword), the Ebony Blade, the Ring of Khajiit, the Ring of Phynaster, Skeleton's Key, and of course the Oghma Infinium, which is a bit different since it disappears after you find it. Players of later Elder Scrolls games will recognize many of these names, along with many places (cities in each province, Dagoth-Ur, Labyrinthian), people (e.g., the UnderKing, Mannimarco), and organizations (e.g., the Dark Brotherhood). Oh, plenty of things will later be retconnned of course, but it's still amazing to me how many seeds they planted so early in the series, without any idea of how they would pay off.

    

Time so far: 32 hours 

Game 574: The Oracle's Cave (1981) and Information about MUD Day

 

The game had no title screen, so here's the cassette cover.

         

The Oracle's Cave

United Kingdom

Doric Computer Services (developer and publisher)

Released in 1981 for the ZX-81; remade in 1983 for the ZX Spectrum, 1984 for the Commodore 64 

Date Started: 19 April 2026

Date Ended: 19 April 2026

Total Hours: 2

Difficulty: Very Easy-Easy (1.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)   

     

This is one of those early games that isn't technically an RPG under my definitions, but at the same time, I'm not sure what I'd call it. My general policy is that if the game ends while I'm still trying to figure it out, it's not worth worrying about. That's what happened here.

 

The setup:  "You are an adventurer trapped at the entrance to the Oracle's Cave complex." To win, you have to gain at least 40 units of treasure, defeat your chosen monster, recover the treasure that he guards, and finally, defeat the Oracle himself. The four potential monsters are a giant, a spider, a dragon, and a knight. Every new game (which randomizes the dungeon layout) includes all of these enemies, and they're all guarding their respective treasures, so the only thing that changes is which one the player must kill.

    

The four quest options.

        

The player (represented by a "0") starts in a top-row room in a dungeon that fits on a single screen and has a maximum of 8 x 4 rooms. The player starts with 12 energy, which depletes as he moves and engages in combat. He starts with a combat skill of 18, which goes up and down with energy but can be increased with weapons and other means. Finally, the player starts with 0 wounds. If he reaches 6 wounds, he dies.

   

Each round starts with either (M)ovement, (U)sing an item, or (R)est to restore either energy or wounds. Movement can be (U)p, (D)own, (L)eft, (R)ight, or (S)ecret door. The latter option only works in some rooms, but it's the only way to reach rooms that are disconnected from the rest of the map.

     

I've met most of my goals, but if I want to defeat the oracle (southeast corner), I'll need to find a secret door to that area of the map.

      

If the character moved, and the movement brought him to a room with an enemy, he fights one or more rounds of combat. Energy and strength determine damage done to the foe and the damage the player takes. It's possible to run out of energy in the middle of battle and to have no recourse but to flee. If the player wins, he gains the treasure and items the enemy was guarding.

   

If the character doesn't meet an enemy or doesn't move, then his initial selection is followed by a random event, which might include:

   

• Finding a magic item.
• Finding a weapon. 
• A friendly wizard comes along and boosts strength.
• The player gets an offer to automatically move to one of the boss rooms.
• A passing dwarf offers a sip of a potion that restores energy or wounds.
• An annoying gnome chases the character and causes him to lose energy. 

     

Magic items to be found include ointment (heals wounds), balms (heals wounds), potions (restores energy), ropes (create paths for movement when they're otherwise blocked), food (restores energy), and magic invisibility rings (automatically win the next battle). You can only carry three at once. Of these items, the rings are the most useful. They work even on the boss enemies and the oracle, so there's little reason not to hang out in a safe room, repeatedly resting, until you have a couple of them.

     

Having defeated the spectre, I pick up a sword, my first weapon. The "RFM" means that I have a rope, food, and magic ring—or maybe that The Oracle's Cave is upset about my Star Trail entries.

      

Weapons are daggers, axes, and swords, which increase combat skill by 1, 2, and 3, respectively. You can carry two weapons, so the maximum bonus (6) is from holding two swords. 

 

That's about it. It only takes the defeat of a few regular enemies to amass at least 40 treasure points. You then head to the room of your chosen foe, defeat him, and gain the treasure he guards. Finally, you head for the oracle's room (marked with an asterisk), defeat him, and exit to win the game. The only "winning screen" you get is a message that "Player 0" has escaped.

     

I defeat the oracle with a magic ring.

      

A few other notes:

   

• The game supports two players who alternate rounds and compete to win. In a single player-game, the second player (the "9") just sits there, doing nothing. 

• For some reason, the program doesn't work if you try to RUN it. Instead, you have to type GOTO 1 after it loads. I'd love for a ZX-81 expert to explain this difference.

• Any errant keypress sends you unapologetically to the system prompt. 

• You can't back out of a selection. If you choose (M)ove and then decide you don't want to move, tough. The game won't accept any input except a movement direction.

• A couple of times, the game inexplicably froze on me.

   

It earns an 8 on the GIMLET with a string of 1s in everything except "Game World" and "NPCs" (0s).

       

The only winning message you receive.

     

The game was created by a Chris Dorrell of Leicester-based Doric Computer Services, later Dorcas Software. His only other game is The Runes of Zendos (1984), a Valhalla-style adventure game.

    

A couple of years later, Dorrell remade The Oracle's Cave for the ZX Spectrum. The interface is the same, but the screen has been redesigned to minimize the map and to show a side view of the adventurer wandering through caves. The battles have some cute animations with the character running up and engaging the enemy in what TV Tropes calls a "Big Ball of Violence."

      

The title screen of the remake.

       

The boss monsters have been re-designated as mummy, centaur, fiery dragon, and black knight. Other than that, the game is as much (or as little) an RPG as its predecessor. It's possible The Oracle's Cave influenced the later Volcanic Dungeon (1982), which also kept track of inventory as a string of letters.

    

Facing the Black Knight in the remake.

      

And with that, I have again finished 1981. Until someone discovers even more. 

     

****

 

Mark your calendars: 16 May 2026 is MUD Day!

On Saturday, 16 May 2026 from 18:00-22:00 UTC (14:00-18:00 EDT in the U.S.), maybe longer depending on how things go, I will be playing the original Multi-User Dungeon (1978), as hosted on British Legends. (I will subsequently post an entry about it.) You will find me in the game as "Chester" or maybe some obvious variant. Please, no one be a jackass and confuse things by creating similar names or pretending to be me.

      

The modern iteration of a 50-year-old game.

         

MUD was created by  two students at the University of Essex on a DEC PDP-10, inspired by Zork (1977). Starting in 1983, players from around the world could access the game remotely. It was licensed by CompuServe in 1987 and renamed British Legends. It lasted until 1999. In 2000, Viktor Toth registered the domain british-legends.com and rewrote the game from its pre-CompuServe source code.

      

While MUD is not the first CRPG or even the first multiplayer CRPG, it is notable for going a slightly different direction than the multiplayer games that preceded it, predominantly the PLATO-based dungeon crawlers like Moria (1975) and Oubliette (1978). It mixed CRPG-style attributes and experience with the interface of a text adventure and spawned a subgenre of games that players enjoy to this day.

     

Here's all you have to do to join the game from a Windows 10/11 computer:

   

1. Go to the "Turn Windows Features On or Off" control panel.

2. Check the box next to "Telnet." 

3. Type Windows-R, then "CMD," then  ENTER.

 

(You can replace these steps with a dedicated terminal emulator like PTerm or PUTTY.)

 

4. At the prompt, type:

TELNET british-legends.com 27750

 

5. Enter a user name.

 

The game will then ask you for an email address. Once you type it in, it will send you a password. Then just repeat Steps 4-5, enter the password, and Jack's a doughnut, you're in the game!

           

Logging in to MUD.

         

Of course, you'll want to read some information about how to play the game first. The site has a "How to Play" page, a more elaborate "More Advice" page, and a "FAQ."

 

I've been in touch with Viktor Toth, the owner of the site, and he doesn't anticipate any problems. He warns that if there are more than 36 players, the server will create a second instance of the game, so you may end up in a world in which I'm not participating. 

       

A long and ultimately tragic battle with a zombie.

        

Since MUD is a multiplayer game, let's make this a multi-author entry! Record your notes and thoughts about your experience with the game, take screenshots, and either send everything to me within 48 hours of our playing session, or post your experiences to the comments after my entry is published.

   

And let's try to recreate the original experience. Take notes, make maps, avoid spoilers. Provide hints (but not outright spoilers) to other players. Hang out in the tearoom in chat. Yell! And of course kill each other (and me) to harvest our treasure and points.

   

Let me know if you have any questions; otherwise, I look forward to seeing you there!