Game 498: Exeter (1988)

 

I used to live down the street from Exeter, New Hampshire, where there was a famous UFO incident in 1965.

         

Exeter

Australia

Independently developed; published by Blaxland Computer Services

Released 1988 for Tandy Color Computer 3

Date Started: 14 November 2023

Date Ended: 18 November 2023
Total Hours: 5

Difficulty: Moderate-Hard (3.5/5)

Final Rating: 14

Ranking at Time of Posting: 76/508 (15%)

      

We see a lot of Ultima clones on this blog but not a lot of Akalabeth clones. That's what we have in the curiously-titled Exeter from Blaxland Computer Services in New South Wales. From Lord British's first-published game in 1980, this one takes:

      

• The basic quest structure to descend into a dungeon and kill a specific enemy.
• The size and structure of the dungeon levels (9 x 9, worm-tunnels).
• The method of increasing hit points by awarding them as you exit the dungeon based on enemies killed.

When you're low on health, better find some monsters to kill.

 

• A recursive approach to allocating enemies per level, discussed below.
• The look and feel of the dungeon levels, including the chests, pits, traps, and ladders that you find.
• The combat system.
• Thieves who steal your weapon. 
• Enemies flee and heal when their health gets too low.
• The need for food.

      

You'd think that in the intervening 8 years, author G. J. Doak would have been able to out-do Akalabeth, but alas Exeter has even fewer features. Where Akalabeth had an overland map with multiple dungeons and infinite levels, Exeter has only one dungeon of 20 levels. It lacks any magic system. What it adds are color graphics, slight monster animations, and some very, very annoying monster attacks.

        

Lord British had you build up to the final boss with lesser creatures first. This guy doesn't have the time or patience for that.

        

The manual's framing story says that Exeter used to be a peaceful, prosperous kingdom until a dragon showed up with "its many disgusting and evil followers." The Master Wizard seeks adventurers to go to the bottom of a dungeon and slay it. 

    

As the game begins, the game automatically rolls for strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, and constitution. Akalabeth lacked intelligence and wisdom, but neither of them really do anything here. Intelligence supposedly affects the bargaining ability with the trader, but there's no real need to bargain with him. Wisdom supposedly improves your chances of finding secret doors and traps with the S)earch ability, but this is not an ability that you often need. Dexterity, which directly affects armor class, is probably most important, followed by strength, which determines accuracy and damage.

       

This character is doomed, oddly, by wisdom.

       

After you choose a name, you're taken to a marketplace where you can buy weapons and armor. You can buy most of what you need with the starting gold, and you can buy everything else after a few easy trips to the first few levels. The economy stops being any use quite fast. Despite this, the game makes you keep a stock of food going, with one meal consumed with every action. You can return to the surface at any time to visit the stores and gain your hit point rewards.

       

Buying weapons.

       

The dungeon is randomized for each new character. I made a couple of level maps before I realized this. All levels are 9 x 9 with one ladder up and one ladder down. There may be one or more additional pits going down only, and on some levels one of these pits is hidden and can only be revealed with a S)earch and avoided with a J)ump. About half the doors are hidden doors, so you have to bump into most walls.

        

I mapped a couple of levels before I realized they were randomized.

        

Enemies start attacking the moment you enter, usually from behind or to the side, so you have to spin around a lot looking for them. Like Akalabeth, the game adopts a recursive approach to stocking the levels with enemies. Level 1 always has one thief, one orc, and one goblin. Level 2 has those three enemies plus one "bogbear." Level 3 adds a skeleton warrior, and subsequent levels add beholders, mind strippers, mimics, trappers, and horned devils. No new enemies appear after Level 8. There's never more than one of each enemy on any level, but levels respawn as you climb up and down. Thieves, mind strippers, and trappers are the only enemies with special attacks; the first two are discussed below. Trappers cannot be seen. They cloak you in darkness when you're in their squares, and you have to fight your way out.

        

An orc approaches with a chest in between us.

        

Combat is just a matter of mashing A)ttack. There are no spells, no tactics, no healing potions, no objects to use. If enemies get too low on health, they'll back up and move away, healing with each step. You have to chase them down to kill them. You can use missile weapons (bows and crossbows), but for reasons explained below, I think they're a bad idea. 

        

The toughest enemy in the game.

              

The enemies honestly aren't very hard, and it doesn't take more than 30 minutes of traveling around the first four or five levels to have a couple thousand hit points and everything you need from the store. There are really only two very annoying problems to hinder your progress:

   

• Thieves steal your weapons. You can carry up to four at a time and equip one. They'll steal both equipped and unequipped weapons. When you kill them, you only get back the last weapon they stole. On low levels, this isn't so bad, but after Level 4 or so, it becomes nearly impossible to kill the thieves with your bare hands, and they could easily strip all four of your weapons before you get anywhere near killing them. So you get into a death spiral in which you're unable to do any damage to them to get your weapons back, and other enemies are pounding on you from the sides. This dynamic also makes missile weapons a bad idea, because you don't want a thief to steal your two-handed sword and short bow and then only get the short bow back if you finally kill him. Instead, you want to adventure with four two-handed swords.

• Mind strippers have a "mind blast" attack that drains your wisdom. There's no way to protect yourself from this except to try to kill them before they use it, but it's random. There's no way to avoid or defend against it. If your wisdom drops to 0, you instantly die.

           

An enemy who exists just to make the game artificially harder.

         

These two factors make it very difficult to reach the lower levels no matter how many hit points you build up. You inevitably get killed by a mind stripper or get stuck because a thief has stolen all your weapons and you can't kill any enemies without them, which means you can't get past them.

    

All you can do is a lot of save scumming, saving at a ladder and reloading if you don't like the configuration of enemies when you get to the bottom of it. Using such "tactics," you can try to make your way quickly from ladder to pit to ladder and get down to Level 20.

       

Dying in the depths.

       

Unfortunately, that's where the game breaks, at least for me. There are no ladders or pits down on Level 20, so I assume it's supposed to be the last level. I mapped it, so I know I didn't miss any squares. There's no dragon that I can find. There is one square that looks like it has a chasm that you shouldn't be able to cross, but you can walk on it. If I press the key to go down (X) on this pit, the screen goes blank as if it's loading something and then crashes with "UL ERROR IN 5."

   

As far as I can get before the game crashes.

      

I decided to carry it as a BRIEF instead of an unwinnable game. [Ed. I reversed this decision when I won it; see below.] While I don't know what other category to use for it, it doesn't meet my criteria for an RPG because the only way the character improves is by increasing hit points. I think. The hit points you earn depend on the number and level of enemies you killed in each foray, which means the game is tracking a hidden experience statistic. I suppose it's possible that this statistic influences combat effectiveness. I don't think so, though.

     

Overall, Exeter is a frustrating, annoying, boring game that was eight years obsolete before it hit the shelves. I don't imagine it sold well. If Doak or Blaxland ever made another game, I can't find it.

*****

    

Well, I should have predicted it: Within a few days, commenter Twin Valley had diagnosed the problem and commenter LanHawk had fixed it. With a new version in hand, I loaded up my save state and descended into the pit again. This indeed turned out to be the right thing to do, as it brought me face-to-face with the dragon. The monster animation shows the dragon breathing fire, but I couldn't get the timing right to capture it.

       

It's not a horrible graphic, but the artist really phoned it in on the feet.

         

Defeating him took me a few attempts. All you can really do is stand there and mash A)ttack. Ideally, you'd have about 2,000 hit points at this point, and I had slightly less. I lost the first two times but beat him the third. When you defeat him, the image of the dragon fades away to be replaced with the image of the Master Wizard congratulating you on your success.

        

There you go.

      

Well, now I'm going to give it a number. It gets a 14 on the GIMLET with the best score in "Gameplay" (3) for being short and challenging. "Economy" and "Graphics, Sound, and Interface" deserve 2s; everything else is a 1 or 0. Thanks, guys. It's always nice to be able to document the end, especially when it's just one screen away.