Game 583: Escape from Ragor (1994)

Motelsoft co-owner Harald Breitmaier is given exclusive credit for this title.

      

Escape from Ragor

Germany

Motelsoft (developer and publisher)

Released 1994 for DOS 

Date Started: 11 July 2026

Date Ended: 14 July 2026

Total Hours: 8

Difficulty:  Easy (2.0/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)

        

This is the same game we've seen from Motelsoft before, in the form of Arcan (1993) and Walls of Illusion (1993): A Dungeon Master-inspired dungeon crawler with lots of mechanical puzzles. When I played Illusion, I remarked that the RPG elements, which are already flimsy in many Dungeon Master clones, seemed like afterthoughts. Ragor goes even further in that direction by giving the player control of only one character, and with significant limitations in equipment and combat options.

      

The only "character creation."

           

Ragor is the industrious developer's first RPG for DOS; all its previous efforts had focused on the Atari ST. Perhaps that's why they stripped so many elements. To start, the only character creation decision is whether to take a male or female character. (I rarely choose a female protagonist, and I didn't like the look of the guy, so I went with her here.) The character is presumed to be trapped somehow in the dungeon of Ragor, ruled by someone named Megrim, and he or she must escape. "Megrim" was a character race in both Seven Horror's (1988) and Sandor (1989), but notes in the dungeon make it clear that it's a personal name here.

      

The opening. A pit lies ahead, a message to the left, an item to the right.

        

Let's deal with the RPG parts first, since it won't take very long. The character has no wearable inventory and only two weapon slots, one in each hand. I have no idea whether a second weapon in the off-hand made any difference. I'm not even sure which slot is the primary hand. The manual warns the player that weapons are so inferior to spells in this game that when you click the only "attack" button, the game assumes you want to cast a spell as long as you have any magic points. Weapons only come into play when mana runs out.

       

The character/inventory screen. You'll notice two "hand" slots but no armor or other wearable items. The main inventory has 19 additional slots, but the chest (right) has hundreds of slots. You never really need to put down anything you find. The spell is set to "Ice Ball."

        

There are, meanwhile, only three spells found in the game. Early, the player finds a basic fire spell, followed a few hours later by a basic frost spell, followed a few hours later by an advanced fire spell. That's it. As I said, there's only one "attack" button, which automatically fires the selected spell if the character has enough mana points and uses the equipped weapon otherwise. The best weapon (the sword, which you get for about 30 seconds) does about 1-10 damage, whereas the spells do roughly 1-30, 1-60, and 1-120 damage, so getting to the point that you're actually using a weapon is bad planning. It happens extremely rarely, particularly since if the character rests more than six or so squares from the nearest enemy, he or she restores all health and magic points. So even the most difficult battles involve the player attacking until health or mana get too low, rushing off in any direction with at least half a dozen tiles, resting, and then re-entering combat. 

         

Destroying a monster. The number at the top of the screen is how much damage I'm doing to him. I like the way they explode.

          

Enemies are unnamed and mostly minor annoyances. They all have ranged attacks. They have no facing direction other than forward, so they can't be combat-waltzed as in most Dungeon Master clones. The attacking and running away trick works for most of them, although there are a few battles in cramped quarters in which the player has to rely on potions. The character gains experience and levels from kills, but enemies mostly keep pace with the character's level. Wherever you are in the game, killing an enemy basically involves 30 seconds of furious mouse-clicking.

     

Attacking a rare pack of foes. Fortunately, these late-game enemies are curiously easy.

       

The other major simplification involves the control system. Every part of the game is controlled by the mouse, with the sole exception of four occasions in which the player has to enter the answer to a riddle with the keyboard. I thus had to spend 8 hours clicking around with the GTFO panel, which isn't exactly huge. It's very easy to turn when you intend to move or strafe, and to move when you intend to attack (attacking is the little gem in the center of the panel). There is music in the game, but no sound effects whatsoever.

     

The dungeon is around 10 or 12 levels of 30 x 30 each, although not all the space is used on all levels. Like Arcana and Illusion, Ragor is no level-by-level dungeon crawl. The character starts somewhere in the middle and must immediately drop through a pit to a lower level, and for the first quarter or so of the game spends a lot of time negotiating a maze of chutes and ladders, often returning to the starting area via a new wall section that opens from the other side. Eventually, the game stabilizes a bit, with the character going all the way to the bottom and then working his or her way up to the top levels using the level space that wasn't previously explored. The whole thing is very linear; rarely does the player have more than one major direction to go.

     

All or at least most of the enemies in the game.

        

The game features one of the most detailed automaps we've seen in RPG history, recording just about all of the dungeon's features. It is so detailed, in fact, that it spoils many of the game's challenges. There is no need to hunt for buttons, test for secret doors, or worry that you've missed a treasure; the map tracks all of that for you. If you press a button that opens up a new area, you can see it on the automap even if it's far away from you.

       

I agonized about whether to create my own maps, a process that I enjoy and often use to annotate puzzles that are still in need of a solution. Eventually, I decided it would be a waste of time, which I think turned out to be a good call. 

     

The automap clearly shows explored and unexplored squares, illusory walls, ladders, pressure plates, pits, levers, buttons, and keyholes.

              

Dungeon Master clones live and die by their navigational puzzles, and honestly, they're not very impressive here. You've seen them all before: buttons, switches, pressure plates, pits (both visible and hidden), teleporters, illusory walls, invisible walls, switches for keys and coins, and so forth. Rarely are the puzzles more complicated than finding a key in one place to open a door in another, or pulling a lever to open a nearby wall. In Dungeon Master and its best derivatives, you don't necessarily activate every switch you see because it might cause something to happen that you're not ready for. Or it might do something subtle, and you need to finish mapping the rest of the level before you'll be able to detect its effect. There's none of that angst here. You see a button, you press it.

     

Using a key to turn off a force field.

       

A gem goes in this lion's mouth.

That button might be hard to detect if it didn't show up on the automap.

A pressure plate activates a trap.

        

The few stand-outs wouldn't be stand-outs by most standards, but they livened things up here. There are a couple of levers that have complex effects, such as rotating which secret door is open among a group of four. There are a couple levels that make extensive use of spinners, always annoying but even more so when you can't quickly correct with a keypad. There are some pressure plates that launch you forward in your facing direction, so if you want to go through an adjacent wall, you have to sidle into them. (In what game did I first encounter these? I remember feeling that it violated a ton of rules. I was really offended by it.) There are a couple "conveyor belts"—sequences of pressure plates that move you along a particular path, and you have to carefully time your exit.

      

Lever puzzles sometimes introduce additional complexities.

        

I did not find any "walking dead" moments or dead-ends, which is to the game's credit. In a game as fond of pits, one-way ladders, teleporters, and snaking up and down levels as this one, it must be hard not to occasionally trap the player. 

   

There were three absolute nightmare puzzles involving futuristic-looking panels. They require the player to insert colored diodes in a sequence. To figure out which colors to use, you have to interpret the colors of flashing lights. Or something. Irene figured it out, but I didn't understand her explanation. All I know is that if you put in the wrong colors, the machine blows up in your face for significant damage.

     

I never really understood this puzzle.

        

There are four places in the game in which the player meets a "Guardian of the Passageways" and must type a word to lower a force field. The first time, the guardian just asks for a "magic word." I tried several things like BITTE ("please") to no avail. I never found the answer to this one, and it bothered me for the rest of the game that there might be something vital on the other side of that field.

         

I even tried OPEN SESAME. I don't think I tried ALAKAZAM.

       

The other three are all in a row, and they're accompanied by message squares which provide a little riddles:

   

• It brings death to many a tree. It helps humans in their time of need. If you want to have it, you must tell me its name. 

• What is being sought here isn't difficult. After all, without this thing, there are no more new knights. 

• Sharp is the thing, and small to boot; it rests quietly upon the belt. Its name is sought here—you rogues, tell it to me.

            

I got the first one (AXT) without much trouble and found an axe in the room beyond. That made the other two (SCHWERT und DOLCH) even easier to figure out. The middle puzzle got me the only sword in the game (previous weapons had been dagger, club, and axe). Even though weapons play essentially no role in combat, I was pleased with the upgrade. But almost immediately afterwards were a series of slots on the walls that demanded the axe, sword, and dagger, busting me back down to a spare axe.

     

One final riddle that I liked said: "One person hauls it off to the pub; another piles it up in their socks. Some hide it at home, while others throw it out the window." The only thing that made sense to me was money, which I had in the form of a single silver coin. But there was no way to type the answer to this riddle, and no nearby slot for the coin. Eventually, I realized the solution was to literally throw the coin out the nearest window.

      

This was clever.

       

Other than the title, the text is entirely in German, which for me made its verbose attempts to introduce some kind of clumsy plot rather annoying. In the first room is a message from your captor:

     

I, Megrim, Ruler of Ragor, am truly no monster. You may go wherever you wish. But as long as you remain within my walls, we play the Game of Games. WITH YOU! By *my* very special rules, of course! The game is called . . . Don't Lose Your Head. And the best part is: the one who loses will never remember it. HA HA HA!

      

If Megrim sounds like a bit of a dick, he certainly is. Later, you get this message in front of a pit:

      

I, Megrim, ruler of Ragor, wish to show you how generous I can be. Everything you need to leave my walls lies ready down here! A master key. A very good weapon. 2,500 gold pieces. An exciting partner—just for you alone! Trust me. Take the leap, and you will have reached the goal of all earthly happiness.

     

There is nothing but snakes on that lower level. 

         

Sigh. Back to Google Translate.

       

Other messages come up frequently as you explore, most offering unnecessary hints ("TRAPPED! WHO HASN'T WALKED THROUGH WALLS?") or unnecessary encouragement ("The courageous person lets nothing stop them. DON'T STOP!") "Beware of pitfalls" appears right before a room with illusory pits. "Step back safely to reach your new goal" appears near a teleporter that lets you bypass a lot of traps. I got annoyed that the game kept making me translate messages that were duplicative at best, spoilers at worst. The messages dwindle by the halfway point of the game, however, and are entirely gone by the end.

   

Meanwhile, a mysterious female NPC shows up a few times in the early levels. She emphasizes: "Forget about conventional weapons like daggers and swords. In Ragor, they are nothing more than fancy ornaments—otherwise useless against the creatures that dwell here!" The second time I met her, she exhorted me to: "Climb up and get the Blue Stone. It is the only effective remedy against Megrim and his daughter! But then come back quickly, because the creatures up there are still a bit too much for you to handle!" A sequence of ladders took me all the way to the top of the dungeon, but through very small spaces; I would later revisit those levels in more detail and fill in the rest of them. Anyway, I found the blue stone, but I never knew what it did for me.

     

A woman tries to be helpful.

       

The woman appears one more time as the player starts the final ascent from the bottom level to the top. She gives a key to an area that has food, water, and potion fountains (places to refill potions). Then she disappears with no clue as to who she was.

     

As for Megrim's "daughter," introduced out of nowhere, I guess maybe she's the final enemy: an indistinguishable form in a dark cloak. The player meets her on an upper level of the dungeon on which the auto map mysteriously doesn't work. It's not very big, though. She has thousands of hit points and takes forever to kill; maybe she would have been impossible without that blue stone. Fortunately, as with every other enemy, you can just run half a dozen squares away and rest, even in the middle of battle. Even though I employed every "power orb" I found in the game against her, doing about 5,000 points of damage right at the beginning of the battle, it still took me another 10 minutes and multiple rests to kill her.

        

Blasting the daughter with a power orb.

      

Killing her brought up the final screen: "You have successfully defeated Megrim's daughter. You have taken the FIRST STEP towards FREEDOM; now, the CONTINUATION awaits YOU." It promises the follow-up game as Escape Megrims Rache or maybe Escape: Megrims Rache; when it came out later that year, it was just Escape from Ragor II: Megrims Rache ("Megrim's Revenge").

      

Hey, where did that guy come from?

        

Miscellaneous notes:

   

• The README file jokingly suggests that the motel in the company's name is the "Norman Bates Motel."

• The game has a food/water system but both are so plentiful that it only occasionally plays a role. Sleeping to restore health and mana does not make any extra time pass for hunger/thirst purposes.

• One of the foods that you find is a kraftei, which I can tell translates literally as something like "power egg." It indeed looks like an egg. I was a bit startled when Google translated it to "rocket-powered aircraft." I understand why now, but I still thought it was funny. 

• Speaking of translation, I found a few bags of whatever this is. I couldn't figure it out from the word, and I never tried to use it.

      

Something about a little sack?

       

• You find a lot of potions, plus a number of places in which potions can be refilled. Antidote potions are crucial, as there are several places where you're unavoidably poisoned, and you can't rest while poisoned. Healing and mana potions are useful, sure, but it's so easy to just sleep in between every combat that I mostly did that. Oh, and here's another colorblindness complaint (I know you never get sick of those): the color of the healing potions is indistinguishable to me from the color of the background behind the potion jars; this means I can't tell the difference between healing potions and empty jars unless I look really hard and notice that I can't see the tile texture behind the full jars.

       

A "potion fountain."

        

• Some of the item graphics were clearly stolen from Eye of the Beholder. The axe, for instance. 

• My character reached Level 12 by the end of the game. Since enemies do not respawn, I don't think it would have been possible to go any higher. 

    

My final character sheet.

       

The game took about eight hours, and I could have gotten several entries out of it, but I don't think I would have had much to talk about. Since AlphabeticaAnonymous's work on The Search for Freedom gave me enough breathing room to get ahead of the game, I decided to finish it in one entry. I give it a 16 on the GIMLET, the worst score I've given to a Motelsoft game, three points lower than Walls of Illusion and seven points lower than Arcan. If the company keeps going in this direction, they'll eliminate equipment and enemies completely for the next outing and just offer a first-person game in which you run around pressing buttons. I ended up giving nothing for the interface, its excellent automap balanced by the tragic horror of a mouse-only control system.

   

I didn't put Escape from Ragor II on my 1994 playlist, but I fired it up for a few minutes just now. It appears essentially unchanged from its predecessor, but there's an opening narration that gives a more detailed backstory and answers some lingering questions from Ragor. It says that the PC is a vassal of Prince Markus III. She has just finished delivering a message from Markus to the Count of Huckenberg. "Since the prince had permitted [her] to take a leisurely pace on [her] return journey," she decided to see the sights. Asking around town, she was directed to an abandoned castle which was supposed to have the coolest stuff in it. Arriving, she found that it was not abandoned. Armed men seized her and hauled her before Megrim, the castle's ruler. Megrim ignored her pleas and threw her in the dungeon. "If you manage to find your way out of this castle, you may go wherever you please! But beware: we are going to play a game with you. A game unlike any you have ever played before." The narration also says that Megrim's daughter was named Bramenia and that the woman who helps the character (and appears early in the sequel to provide some hints) is named Lara. There's still no word on who Lara is in relation to Megrim or why she is helping, but perhaps that's explained later.

       

A shot from the sequel. There were no doors like this in Ragor.

            

For some reason, Motelsoft changed its name to "Nine Red Shoes" for the sequel and for their two RPGs in 1995: Dark Side of the Sun and its sequel. They were back to "Motelsoft" for Dark Side of the Sun III (1996) and from then on. The Dark Side series, which includes Trauma (1996), all seem to be Dungeon Master clones that use some variation of the interface seen in Ragor. It looks like it might be as late as Darkstone: Necromina (1998) before we see something truly original from them again, barring any surprises in the 1995-1996 games.

    

****

   

For further reading:

    

• My page of "Index of Games Played by Lineage" has all of the Dungeon Master clones so far.
• Motelsoft's Official Page for Escape from Ragor and its sequel.
• My coverage of previous Motelsoft titles:
• Seven Horror's (1988) 
• Sandor (1989) 
• Sandor II: Kotalan und die drei Schwester'n (1991) 
• Magic Tower I: Dark Stone Ritual (1992) 
• Arcan (1993), the starting point of going all-in on Dungeon Master clones. 
• Walls of Illusion (1993) 

 

08/04/2026