BRIEF: Caer Shiraz (1984)

 

     

Caer Shiraz

Australia

Screen Play (developer and publisher)
Released 1984 for Commodore 64

Rejected for: Insufficient character development; combat based solely on equipment

         

Care Shiraz is a trite little game with no winning condition. I found it in some online catalogs, but I'm not entirely sure about its country or if it was ever even sold commercially. A lot of sites link it to Screenplay, a small publisher out of North Carolina, but I don't think Screenplay ever styled itself as two words (as the title screen does here), and its games were generally more complex than this. I haven't been able to find a manual, box, or review. I had no luck tracking down author Paul Kay, a very common name.

 

[Ed. As per the comments, the company was out of Adelaide, South Australia.]

     

The game begins by giving you 81 gold pieces and asking you to buy weapons and armor with it. There are some difficulties during this process. First, the lists of items give no prices; you don't find out how much an item costs until you select it. Second, when you select an item, you're asked how much you're willing to pay for it. The game acts like it's willing to haggle with you, but in fact if you type anything other than the asking price, you're told to make another offer. Third, if you can't afford the item on this screen, there's no way to back out of it. You're trapped in an endless loop of either making an offer that the shopkeeper rejects or making one that you can't pay.

       

Why pretend that I have any choice?

    

In fact, during this starting session, the only way you can afford both a weapon and armor is if you buy a dagger and a suit of leather--the worst items in both categories. Weapons start at 24 and increase by 12 gold per level, maxing at a 72-gold-piece longsword. Armor starts at 51 and increments by 25, maxing at field plate (226). From experimentation, I decided that a starting character has a greater chance of survival by purchasing the best weapon and no armor.

     

After these purchases, you give your name and decide whether you want to control the character with a keyboard or joystick. 

      

"Character creation."

    

After that, you're thrust into a multi-screen dungeon with fairly simple wall configurations. You start with 23 hit points and however much gold you have left from the beginning. The character remains in constant motion in the dungeon. He'll keep moving in the last direction you indicated until he hits an obstacle, then bounce off in a random direction if you don't otherwise input something.

     

Encountering my first enemy . . .

       

Each screen has a chance of hosting an enemy. If it does, it runs towards you and attacks you. You retaliate by holding down the joystick button. There are no other tactics or inputs. Combat is resolved in a few seconds based on your weapon and armor and the enemy type. I'm not sure if your "rank" plays a role or not.

      

. . . and immediately dying.

     

If you manage to kill the enemy, there's around a 50% chance that it has some treasure to loot, which goes into your treasure pile. The enemy may have a weapon upgrade or an elixir that restores your health, but they never have armor upgrades.

      

I did better in a rematch.

      

You periodically find doorways back to the shop, where you can trade your treasure for better weapons and armor, then re-enter the dungeon (you can even specify a new name when you re-enter). Some weird stuff happens during this process, though. Sometimes you lose your weapon and armor; sometimes you get a "bonus" weapon or armor, which may or may not be better than what you had.

   

If you die, you can immediately re-enter the dungeon, keeping your weapon and armor but losing your gold, or return to the trader, keeping some of your gold. Either way, you lose whatever rank you've accumulated.

      

Options if you die.

    

There are 10 ranks: newman, veteran, warrior, fighter, cleaver, slayer, dicer, warmark, barlow, and lord. You gain one for every battle, I think. If not, it's never more than two. Every new level increases your maximum hit points by one, up to a maximum of 34.

   

The hard part about the game is surviving the first few battles. It took me five or six deaths before I won one. But since you can keep your gold even in death, you only have to win a battle now and then, then upgrade your weapon or (particularly) armor when you can afford it. By the time you have the third armor rank, you'll win about half your battles, and by the time you have field plate, you'll win almost all of them.

     

Late in the game, I'm relatively immortal.

     

I don't think the dungeon has a fixed number of screens. I think that every time you leave a screen, the next screen is completely randomized, something the game hides by always closing the door behind you (sometimes doing damage to you) when you move from one screen to another. 

   

Anyway, that's about it. I don't think there's any winning condition. The game files don't contain any winning text, anyway. Once you have the best weapons and armor and "lord" status, you're pretty invulnerable anyway, and it eventually gets boring just coasting through the hallways killing enemies who can't hurt you and collecting their treasure. It took me only a couple of hours to reach this point.

     

Another enemy. The screens either look like this or the configuration in the other shots.

        

In the end, I don't think I'd call it an RPG. Its character development is insufficient, and I don't think your level has any effect on combat. If I took the time to give it a GIMLET, it would definitely be in the single digits. 

   

The name is curious. Caer of course means "castle" or "fort" in Welsh. Shiraz is a city in Iran and it gives its name to two varieties of wine grape: one actually grown near Shiraz and the other a synonym for "Syrah." That factoid was perhaps the best thing I got out of the game.