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| The title screen for the updated version of the game. |
Crylon
Germany (or another German-speaking country)
GSA (developer and original publisher); Multisoft (Later publisher)
Released in 1984 for Commodore 64; re-released in 1990Rejected for: Insufficient character development
Crylon is a somewhat incomprehensible genre-blender from Germany, sold in mail-order catalogues. Someone thought enough of it to update its programming and re-release it six years after the original release.
The goal of the game is to find 5 magic stones and bring them to Limbol Castle, which will somehow save the kingdom. In the original, the stones are called limbolsteine, but in the sequel, they're called crylonsteine (Crylon Stones); this suggests that the game was originally meant to be Limbol. You create a character from a list of classes: adventurer, wizard, warrior, elf, thief, and Knight of the Light. Each class starts with different values in strength, intelligence, experience, skill, courage, and magic. All classes begin with 20 rations (you use 0.25 per move), 100 thalers, and a short sword.
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| Character creation. |
After character creation, you begin in the southwest corner of a world map. It looks like there are a lot of squares on the map, but the character moves three tiles per move, so the map is really only about 14 x 7. You begin in your hometown of Arsa, but something has caused it to become completely deserted. On the map is a temple, a bazaar, something marked with ????, and Limbol castle. Those last two places are on the other side of Todesschlucht, or "Death Gorge," crossed by a single bridge.
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| The world map. |
The game must have come with some documentation, unavailable anywhere that I can find. I mostly figured it out, but there's clearly still something I'm missing. Movement is with the WASD cluster in the original and WASZ in the remake. In certain encounters, you can hit "F" to flee, "K" to kill, and "H" to parley. The character and inventory screens come up with "Q" in the original and "I" in the remake. You enter locations with the SPACE bar. Spells are cast with the function keys. Each requires you to have a material component, found in random encounters across the map. My best guess is:
- F1: "Magic Missile," but you have to have a physical missile (throwing stars) to throw.
- F2: "Invisibility."
- F3: "Charm." If it works, the opponent gives you a hint.
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| Casting "Charm" after several misfires. |
- F4: I'm not sure. I just know that it requires a mirror and, like "Charm," it results in the opponent giving you a hint, but then the game crashes.
- F5: Some kind of physical attack spell.
- F6: "Create Food." It requires a magic bag.
- F7: I don't know. It requires a magic potion.
Each time you move, there's a probability of some kind of encounter. Some of these are fixed at certain locations, but most are random. Some examples:
- "This is a test!" You get a question about the game's lore (e.g., "Who is the current king of Crylon?"; "Who conquered Arsa?") For each one you get right, you gain 15 strength and 10 intelligence. Wrong answers have no consequence, but you keep getting the same question until you get it right. Some of the answers are determinable from in-game, but others would have had to come from the manual. I was able to answer them eventually by inspecting the code. The questions stop coming after the final one.
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| I was deep into the game before I could answer even this question. |
- You enter an area ravaged by plague and lose 2 points of strength.
- You find an elegant bow. You need it for the next encounter.
- You see some animals called "zenills," the game world's answer to deer. You can shoot them for rations.
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| Living off the land. |
- You find a magic spellbook. This allows you to cast spells.
- You find a pot of honey, a mysterious mirror, a throwing star, or a wooden paddle. I think these are all necessary for spells.
- You meet between 1 and 6 robbers, uruks, ogres, wolves, bats, or cunning snakes. You can try to defeat them in combat, through magic, through diplomacy, or by fleeing. Success raises your courage by 10. Fleeing reduces strength by 3, skill by 10, and courage by 5. Winning sometimes gets you gold.
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| The simplistic combat screen. Only strength seems to matter. It serves as both power and hit points. |
- You find a shimmering lump of Mithril, a huge diamond, a sapphire, or a lump of gold ore. All of these can be sold at the bazaar.
- You meet a man named Wesil. He wants you to escort him to the temple. Saying yes increases your intelligence by 10 and courage by 25. Once you deliver him to the temple, all your attributes go up by 30 points and you get one of the Crylon Stones.
- You find a heavy Dragonsword. I believe this is necessary to cross the bridge.
- You find a fishing rod. I don't know how to use it. I stood by the lake and hit every key.
- You find a Crylon Stone. Only one stone is scattered randomly like this. I always found it in the southwest.
- You find a boat. This always occurs on the east side of the lake in the northwest. It allows you to row out to the island in the lake.
- The island has Ruhl Castle, former capital of someone that the game calls ein Toliman. "From here, he ruled the entire empire." You find two Crylon Stones that the Toliman left there.
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| Two stones at once! |
- In by far the most annoying encounter, "You come to an unknown area with hidden pitfalls." Ten "rounds" follow; in each, you must choose to move forward, left, or right. Theoretically, if you choose the correct option, nothing happens, and if you choose the wrong option, you fall down a pit and have to climb out. I verified through save states that what happens is completely scripted, and you always fall down a bunch of pits and always lose about 5-7 strength.
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| Falling into a pit on Step 3. You have to do this 10 times in a row. |
The priests in the temple just kick you out if you show up without Wesil. At the bazaar, you can theoretically:
- Buy better weapons for between 148 and 191 thalers.
- Buy armor for between 148 and 154 thalers.
- Buy rations for 1 ration per thaler.
- Get a hint from a fortune teller about a dragon guarding the bridge for 100 thalers.
- Pay a magician 1000 thalers for boosts to courage and magic.
- Sell gems to a moneychanger.
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| The weapons available in the bazaar. |
The problem is that you only start the game with 100 thalers and the most lucrative encounters only give you 2 or 3. Gems sell for between 10 and 50, but finding them is rare. It was deep in the game before I could afford anything in the town, and I never lasted long enough to get up to 1,000.
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| My map of the game world. |
If you approach the bridge before you find the Dragonsword and I think before you get the hint from the fortune teller, you are automatically killed by an unknown creature. (Other automatic deaths include falling into the gorge or entering water without a boat.) Once you have both, you can just blithely cross the bridge with no dragon encounter.
On the east side of the bridge are two locations of note. One is Limbol Castle, where the endgame must take place. If you go there before you have all five Crylon Stones, you're captured and imprisoned by someone named Ashna and the game ends.
The second location is marked with question marks on the game map. It turns out to be a circle of stones where a voice announces you'll be "tested." In my case, the test always failed, with the voice telling me my skills aren't high enough. This encounter has to be the location of the fifth stone.
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| I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, and doggone it, no one likes me. |
The problem here is that while courage increases from combat, and skill and magic increase from just walking around, I can't find any reliable way to increase strength once the "test" questions have all gone away. I just watch as my strength is slowly sapped by plague-infested areas and those idiotic "pitfall" encounters until I'm dead.
I was willing to cheat just to see the endgame, but no key combination seems to allow saving the game in progress, so there's no save file to edit. I tried editing the save state, but I couldn't figure out how attribute values were stored and I gave up. There is some endgame text in the file that reads: "With the help of the stones, the cruel rule of Ashna is ended! Since the dragon is dead, peace finally reigns in the kingdom!" You then have the chance to play again.
Although it almost meets my definitions of an RPG, Crylon plays a lot more like a "campaigner" (see the glossary) albeit with a single character. I'm going to reject it on character development grounds, as skill and courage (the only attributes to increase from battle) don't seem to do anything to make battle easier.
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| This ad from 1991 is one of a few pieces of evidence that the game existed. |
The game is credited to R. Fischer, with 1990 updates by T. Schultz and O. Ludwig. I don't have any information about any of them. I found ads for it in 64'er and GO!64 as late as 1997, but no sign that anyone had ever written anything about it.
*******
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| "Which Medellin?" would be an interesting question if this were a more interesting game. |
Guarida-Dragon
"Dragon's Den"
Colombia, Mexico, Philippines, or Spain
Macrisoft (developer and publisher)
Copy of Dragon's Den (1985), published as type-in code in the December 1985 Compute!'s Gazette
Released in 1986 for Commodore 64Rejected for: No character development; not even its own game
A game that first seems intriguing—our first RPG from one of four countries!—falls apart on scrutiny. The game is nothing more than Clark Book's Dragon's Den (1985), as published as type-in code in the December 1985 Compute!'s Gazette, but with Spanish-language instructions at the beginning and a pre-title screen.
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| Any clues in the use of Spanish? |
The adapter didn't even change the key commands, which only make sense in English (e.g., L)eft and R)ight), nor did they omit the English title screen. It might not be plagiarism; it might be an honest attempt to just make the game accessible to Spanish-language players with no attempt to commercialize it, but the "Por: Macrisoft" bit on the title screen must give us pause.
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| The game's source. |
Even the English original isn't all that original. The basic idea goes back to Robert Clardy's Dungeon Campaign (1978): You're thrown into a dungeon and need to find the exit, ideally after grabbing as much gold as you can. In this game, gold is hidden under trap doors, which may also hide the titular dragon.
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| The game begins. |
The are a couple of cute innovations. If you do reveal the dragon, you have a split second to enter a valid command to exit the room. To avoid getting lost, you can sacrifice your rations to leave a literal trail of breadcrumbs, although this increases the risk you'll starve. Trap doors may have gold, food and water, or one-use magical swords. It's entirely possible that these features exist in some earlier game that Dragon's Den was based on. There are a lot of these proto-RPGs out there, and I haven't played most of them.
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| Seems a waste to enchant a sword for one hit. |
There are no statistics, no combats except for the occasional dragon, which are automatic victories if you have a sword and automatic defeats if you don't. I "won" in that I escaped the dungeon with some gold, but it would be silly to number and rate such a simple game.
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| I could probably beat that in another attempt. |
Unless something else comes up later, this was Colombia's and Mexico's only shot at appearing on the blog. The next game from Spain will be Hero Quest (1994) for the ZX Spectrum. The Philippines will have to wait until Anito: Defend a Land Enraged (2003).
Oh, while we're at it, we might as well . . .
****
Dragon's Den
United States
Independently developed; published as type-in code in the December 1985 Compute!'s Gazette
Released in 1985 for Commodore 64Rejected for: No character development
I didn't even realize that this was a separate game on my list until this entry was nearly published. It's the same game as above minus the Spanish title screen and instructions. I trust we've already covered it adequately.
Regarding Guarida-Dragon, it seems that Macrisoft translated several games from Compute!'s Gazette magazine to Spanish for Commodore 64 at that time. I'm not entirely sure which MedellÃn would be (although Mexico and Colombia are closer to the United States), but I think we can rule out Spain, since its MedellÃn is a town with just over 2,000 inhabitants today, and I can't imagine a software company there then (there probably isn't even now).
ReplyDeleteIt could have been a single developer going under the name Macrisoft.
DeleteAll of the eight Macrisoft games showing up on GB64 and the Internet Archive are type-in programs - three from Compute's Gazette and the other five from the book Commodore 64 Fun and Games which was published in Spain as 'Commodore 64 pasatiempos y juegos' (see e.g. entry here).
DeleteWhile whoever produced the Spanish versions should have and did not acknowledge the original author(s) on the title screen or elsewhere when running the program, the origin of each game mentioned above is contained in the code (with issue for the magazine & page numbers) which was at least easily readable.
Crylon's title screen speaks of 'the first strategy-adventure with a 3D-papercraft of the playing area'. I'm imagining a pop-out carton map like you see in some children books, any trace or way to salvage that?
ReplyDeleteCrylon seems to be one of the inumerable mostly rather basic C64 games collected from hobby programmers and pumped out to the market in the mid- to late 80s and even into the 90s by small German companies like Multisoft.
ReplyDeleteTo get an idea about that time and environment, you can e.g. check out the entries on Multisoft and others (like the game's later distributor Goodsoft) linked there in the C64 Wiki (in German) and this 2021 story (in German as well) about 'S+S Soft' (part of which the founder/owner of Multisoft was earlier) which includes copies of correspondence with a programmer.
Apparently, just changing the title screen or adding a load screen plus updating the copyright to make the program seem newer and better was not an uncommon practice. Documentation often was limited to a piece of paper or two which came with the disc - most of which therefore probably don't have survived, same as the '3D papercraft', I assume.
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ReplyDeleteI've never heard of a spell (Zauberspruch) being titled as "Änderung" ("change" in English, here "Aenderung misslungen" = "change failed") in my language. It seems like they were they trying to save space and just used a generic word which doesn't fit at all.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I think we can safely rule out the Philippines for Guarda-Dragon. Not that it really matters but I think interestingly enough I read some time ago while names and places there can be Spanish, nobody actually speaks the language today. Besides a ton of native languages and dialects they speak a Filipino called lingua franca derived from a native language called Tagalog and some English.
ReplyDeleteI have to add, a minority of about 5.000 Spanish speaking people seems to still exist according to web resources.
Delete"Any clues in the use of Spanish?" Ha, I had the same idea and to me the Spanish used in those games' instructions reads very much as from Spain. This does not necessarily rule out it having been written in México or Colombia by a Spaniard, however. I'm pretty certain it was not someone who grew up with Mexican Spanish, though I can't be as sure with Colombian Spanish which in my impression of the Latin American variations is closest to Spain's in vocabulary and pronounciation.
ReplyDelete'Macrisoft' could even just have been an individual calling himself that for purposes of writing/publishing stuff on the C64 without there being any formal company to speak of (I recall me and a close friend did the same for highscores etc. because it just sounded cooler to us back then). No need for more than a single person for those translations and title screens.
Regarding the use of Spanish, now that I think about it the game is clearly made in Latin America. In Spain we do not use the verb "monitorear" but "monitorizar", and we do not very commonly use the verb "chequear" (whose origin is the English "check") but rather "comprobar".
DeleteOn the other hand, "Macri" is a surname of Italian origin common in Argentina, where there is also a MedellÃn, although only with 500 inhabitants.
It seems to me that Colombia is the best bet. It's the only country that can just use an unqualified "Medellin." El Explorador's notes about the use of Spanish seal the deal, I think.
DeleteFor a moment I thought '20 de Febrero 1.986' was a street adress (Argentina seems to have a notable event on that date), but if that's a date, it seems to be a quite curious style of writing the year - is this a common way of doing that in Spanish-speaking countries?
DeleteYes, in Spain we usually write the full year when we write dates, except when we use the form DD/MM/YY, which we sometimes even use in the form DD/MM/YYYY (our order for day and month is also different, as you see).
DeleteAnd I also bet on Colombia, its MedellÃn is the largest by far, with more than 2 million inhabitants.
@Explorador: Good catch on the "monitorear" and yes, MedellÃn as standalone makes most sense for Colombia. There are some Macris there, too.
Delete@KarbonKitty: I assume you refer to the "1.986" instead of "1986". At least in Spain it's not usual and according to the official language institution for Spanish (RAE), the former is considered incorrect as recently repeated for "Happy 2025!" (links in Spanish).
I had exactly the opposite impression, translations from Spain are usually easy to spot if you are from other spanish speaking countries. I think this is not from Spain. I agree Colombia is the most likely option
DeleteBusca is right, the period is not used in the year, I thought that what was curious was the use of the year including the centuries, instead of just using the year without the centuries, as I think is often done in English.
DeleteRandom thought, but are there any other 4 digit numbers in the game? Maybe by default all 4 digit numbers are in the x.xxx format
Delete+1 for Colombia. The shown text uses "Usted" (UD) and use the third person as secon person which, while correct and of common use, it is quite formal in modern Spain Spanish, something (some) adults use when unknown to each other or as a courtesy form towards the elderly, customers or authorities.
DeleteAs far as I understand, in Colombia "Usted" is much more commonly used, replacing the more colloquial Spanish "tu" in many situations (in a similar way to the Brazilian "você" compared to Portugal Portuguese).
@Busca Yes, the dot in the year was what I was referring to. It's interesting for me that it is apparently common enough to be pointed out as a mistake - I don't think I have ever seen the year written out in this fashion in my life, save for dates where year is five or more digits of course.
Delete...Which is kind of weird, given that otherwise a thousands separator would be totally appropriate in this position. Huh, never though of it this way before.
Ironically, given the Macrisoft games are erroneously categorized as Italian on the Internet Archive, there is also an Italian version of Dragon's Den produced by the same magazine scene encountered before on this blog - they called it Dragon's Castle.
ReplyDeleteUnless Chet changes his approach, we'll probably still see a lot of (BRIEFs on) not-really RPGs from GB64. That database has a rather broad definition which combines RPGs with adventures for a total of 343 games with "RPG" marked as part of their genre (194x "Adventure - RPG 2D", 79x "Adventure - RPG 3D", 70x "Adventure - RPG Text").
For Crylon I can confirm you receive the fifth stone after the test in the southeast and from there you can go straight to Limbol and win the game (you get the winning screen upon entering the location).
ReplyDeleteNo idea what the thresholds are to pass, my values were Str140/I106/E133/Sk57/C150/M120. Given strength is the most likely to go down and not up again, as you write, I picked the character with the highest starting value in it (warrior, all starting values are fixed).
With a high strength you don't lose any of it in battles (not sure if there is a threshold or it's gradual), so you just have to get somewhat lucky with test questions and Wesil & the temple while not encountering too many pits and pests before getting the Dragonsword to cross the bridge.
Other random notes:
- The wizard starts with the magic spellbook in addition to the short sword. In spite of this and the next point, he seems less viable due to his very low starting strength.
- Magic also increases by entering Arsa as an action. So by doing that repeatedly (does not use rations and there are no encounters), you can pump your magic to the maximum (120). Not sure if this is a bug, it does not happen e.g. at the temple or bazaar and other values don't seem to be capped (that low).
- The honey pot allows you to negotiate if attacked by a bear, who leaves with it.
- While Wesil is accompanying you, he randomly (?) gives you answers to potential test questions.
- You can also find the boat at the other (small) lake.
From a quick look at the code with a basic text program, I gather:
- The paddle should be necessary together with the boat to get to the island, but isn't. It seems you can get it from priests at the temple as well.
- I didn't see fishing and/or the rod mentioned anywhere else in the code besides finding it, so maybe that mechanic wasn't implemented.
- Supposedly, the magic potion protects you from pests (not tested / experienced).
- The code appears to contain a fight with the dragon. It also has a 'draw' as result of a battle round. I saw neither.
I don't know if all the equipmemt in the bazaar is useless or helps with strength/fights (I did not need any of it to win) or if Wesil or anything else can protect you from pits. Given the buggy/unfinished, unbalanced and random nature of the game(play), I did not feel like investing more time than I already had to find out more.
PS: "pests" = plagues (the plague is "Pest" in German / the game...).
DeleteThere were still Commodore 64 magazines in 1997? And people were still placing advertisements for games and selling them???
ReplyDeleteThere are still Commodore 64 magazines in 2025.
DeleteThere are still magazines in 2025? And people are still placing advertisements and selling them??? (j/k)
Delete@P-Tux: I think the moment a platform becomes (mostly) retro, platform-specific publications only work as a subscription model, but the GO64! Chet mentions was just -started- in 1997 and lasted until 2006 (see e.g. here, with links) and if you want a printed C64 magazine in 2025, you can still find one, e.g. here. Though I doubt there is still much selling of commercial C64 games going on.
DeleteI was going to mention that, any C64 publication in 2025 is explicitly retro-hobbyist, but tech usually goes through the "useless trash" stage before it becomes retro-cool.
DeleteI am not surprised. The C64 lived on as a viable(ish) platform in Europe until well into the 1990s. The UK's Commodore Format was still being published after the release of the PlayStation!
DeleteAnd that's just the UK. In Germany and further east, the C64 was even more popular.
The C64 was very popular in the demoscene, that might also have helped extend its relevance, as the limitations of the machine were a bonus here instead of a drawback. I'm not too familiar with the scene though, so maybe by the 90s it had already been replaced there by the Amigas.
DeleteHello! Jason Dyer pointed me here. About the Guarida-Dragon game, there's a really good chance the person who made it may have found the code in a locally translated magazine, or possibly a book. I looked at Macrisoft's profile in a few C64 games and it seems that they were all originally printed in magazines or books.
ReplyDeleteI've found multiple Spanish translated type-in books at the internet archive over the past few years. And back in my day, Spanish editions were just... printed and localized in Spain and sent down here to Mexico and Latin America as is. (It was a pain in the butt, I hated having to read Spanish translated books... in Spain Spanish. Gross.)
Anyway. I probably said something that's already been mentioned but I hope this helps out a bit. Cheers!