Futurewar and Brief BRIEFs: Adventure Creator (1984) and Jajamaru Gekimaden: Maboroshi no Kinmajō (1990)

I managed to make it to Position #3. The only two characters above me are creations of the game's author.

     

Between Wednesday and Friday, I had to watch about 8 hours of interesting but not engrossing video, and I knew I could do it alongside a game that required a little mapping but not much concentration. Futurewar seemed perfect for that. I was confident that with another 8 hours invested in the game, I'd be able to show you the winning screen, and we could all move on. Instead, the game managed to chew up and spit out about a dozen characters, ultimately leaving me not much further than when I originally reported on the game a few weeks ago.

    

The pattern was predictable: I'd roll up a character, march out of the base, and start mapping some section of the dungeon that I'd not yet explored. I'd get up to character Level 3 or 4, maybe find a couple of good pieces of equipment. Then an enemy would pop up--usually a "worleyman"--surprise me, and get four attacks before I could even respond. My attempts to shoot him would all miss, and my attempts to flee would all fail. My hit points would descend alarmingly, and inevitably I'd get the "you have died" message. 

     

      

I'd erupt out of my chair, fists ready to fly, and have to remind myself that the monitor is just a dumb device. I'd scream a few obscenities, shut down the game, and vow to spend the rest of my video-watching time mapping the corridors of Centauri Alliance instead. After 10 minutes, I'd calm down, launch the terminal emulator again, and roll a new character.

   

Compounding the difficulty of the game is that encounters are not random. Once a dungeon level is completely cleared, it is re-seeded with enemies and mines. This is the best time to launch a new character because there are plenty of encounters close to the home base, where you'll need to frequently retreat for healing and restocking of ammunition. But as you clear these enemies, you have to move farther from the home base. If your character then dies, a new Level 0 character has to start on a dungeon level in which the first encounter is a few minutes away. This isn't dangerous (as long as you've mapped) because once cleared, corridors are safe. But it does take a lot of extra time. 

    

My map of the "American" level.

      

Finally, just a few hours ago, I managed to get a character relatively stabilized. Finding a bullet-proof vest (and remembering to put it on) was a key part of it. I almost have all of the first five levels mapped and I'm ready to take on the War Zone again. Since I blogged about the game last time, author Erik Witz wrote to me and agreed that the man-beasts were far too hard, and he either removed or nerfed them.

      

The vest is a game-changer.

     

So I'm going to keep at it and hopefully have something to report in another week or so. In the meantime, here are a couple of brief BRIEFs.

   

Time so far: 13 hours

   

****

     

        

Adventure Creator

United States

Spinnaker Software Corp. (developer and publisher)

Released 1984 for Atari 800 and Commodore 64

Rejected for: No character development

      

Adventure Creator is an extremely basic game writer in which you can create a custom dungeon (theoretically, anyway; I couldn't get that feature to work) or play a randomly-generated maze. Your goal in either case is to collect a certain amount of treasure or a certain type of treasure. You do this by making your way through a maze of monsters, obstacles, and treasure chests, avoiding (as best as possible) the first two and opening the third before your energy runs out. Obstacles blink in and out of existence, and you take constant damage if you're touching them. Monsters wander in fixed patterns and either damage you or knock you back to the other side of the area.

      

Getting through the maze.

      

Your only help is an inventory of ferrets, hobbles, nippers, torches, and shields, all of which do different things to monsters or obstacles (e.g., shields make you invulnerable to both; hobbles freeze monsters), none of which involve killing anything. Despite the fact that the adventurer is shown with a sword, you don't slay the monsters you come across. Some of them will even trade with you for better items. You also don't get any better during the dungeon run, just worse. It thus isn't an RPG by my definitions. I won a game anyway, because it's relatively easy and quick. 

          

Lots of obstacles in this room. They flash on and off.

       

The interface drives me crazy. It's all joystick except the "T" key, which rotates you through the different items in your inventory. For the millionth time, I cannot get into the mind of a developer who requires a joystick and requires the player to sit within reach of the keyboard. If you have to use the keyboard anyway, why not just map the game's five items, all of which start with a different letter, to separate letters?

       

Won!

         

The game is noteworthy for its author, Dale Disharoon, a prolific designer, programmer, and executive who transitioned right about this time between educational games and adventure games. He also transitioned the spelling of his last name to "DeSharone," a name adventure gamers will recognize from Below the Root (1984), Alice in Wonderland (1985), and the Magic Tales series (1995-1996). His last credit is 2005's Chris Moneymaker's World Poker Championship, a few years before he died of leukemia.

 

You knew it wasn't going to be good anyway because of the Title Interchangeability Rule.

            

Cambridge-based Spinnaker Software Corporation, I should mention, is notable for taking out a full-page ad in the March 1990 Computer Gaming World to promote Star Tribes; Myth of the DragonLord, a "futuristic role-playing adventure of epic proportions" that was never released, meaning we will not encounter them again. Though simple, Adventure Creator was remembered fondly enough by one fan that he created a modern remake. You can find more about Dale DeSharone from a 2012 HardcoreGaming101 article.

*******

I'll take their word for it on the translation, but it doesn't feel like there are that many words in the Japanese version.

      

Jajamaru Gekimaden: Maboroshi no Kinmajō

Japan

Jaleco (developer and publisher)

Released 1990 for NES

Rejected for: No character development 

      

Jajamaru--sometimes stylized JaJaMaru--debuted unnamed in a 1983 arcade game called Ninja-kun ("Ninja Kid"; there was an earlier unrelated MSX game of the same name). As I understand from this HardcoreGaming101 article, Jaleco was hired to port the arcade version to the NES, and they decided to develop the kid into their own IP, naming him "Jajamaru" along the way. He showed up next in Ninja Jajamaru-kun (1985), Jajamaru no Daibōken (1986), and Rad Action (1987), all side-scrolling action platformers.

But with the success of Dragon Quest (1987), Jaleco apparently decided to thrust Jajamaru into the same arena. Jajamaru Ninpō Chō (1989), which most sites list as an RPG, has the kid run through a top-down landscape, talk to NPCs, and find gold, often with the kidnapped Princess Sakura in tow. I don't have a strong opinion as to whether it's an RPG, as I've only been able to look at Japanese language versions. I'm told it has experience and leveling, and combat takes place on a Dragon Quest-like turn-based screen. When Gekimaden came up on a random roll, I did try to look at Jajamaru Ninpō Chō first, but the only English patch I could find didn't work with NEStopia (something the patch site warned about), and there's a limit to how much effort I'm going to put in for a console game.

     

The interface shows hit points, gold, and spell points but doesn't say anything about experience points.

     

In any event, most sites also list the next game, Gekimaden, as an RPG, too. Having played admittedly not much of it, I disagree. Where Ninpō Chō (1989) cloned Dragon Quest, Gekimaden clones Zelda, losing most of the features that made it an RPG. I don't see any sign of experience and leveling, nor do I see any mention of them in descriptions of the game, just possible increases to maximum health and magic power. I require leveling in some kind of skill or attribute to call a game an RPG. Combat now takes place on the main game map and is all action-oriented, with Jajamaru wielding a variety of weapons against enemies that bob and weave around him, again just like Zelda. 

     

Fighting samurai-like enemies.

      

The plot has something to do with monsters invading a land and kidnapping (again!) Princess Sakura. There's talk about the return of a Great Demon. One of the princess's subjects manages to make his way to Jajamaru's monastery, carrying the Holy Mandala. He explains that the demon's return can be stopped by collecting the spirits of 8 mini-bosses in the region. Jajamaru's master gives the Mandala to him and charges him with rescuing the princess and stopping the Great Demon.

     

A villager visits the ninja clan.

      

I guess maybe Jajamaru gains new powers with every mini-boss he traps in the Mandala, but I still don't consider it an RPG if character development comes at defined intervals without player agency. Descriptions indicate that the world is nonlinear but the plot is linear; you need items from each area before you can successfully complete the next one. The land is populated with NPCs who give one-line hints when you crash into them, and you can buy weapon upgrades and usable items like bombs at stores.

  

I don't know. You know how I feel about playing squat, child-like protagonists in toy games with repetitive music. I admit I'm predisposed to see games like this as non-RPGs just because they don't satisfy anything that I'm looking for with RPGs, even if they could squeak by definition-wise.

   

The character continues to appear in entries right up to the present day, but most sites agree that later releases are just straight action games.