1993/1994

1993 was a disappointing year with a few highlights.

       

(Note: This entry includes a link to a survey that I'm hoping every reader fills out. I wanted to put it here at the beginning in case you don't make it that far.)

 

It's been so long since we had a yearly transition entry that I almost forgot that I had to do one. We last started a new year almost five years ago, in April 2021.

   

At the time, I noted that 1993 was a peak year, containing more RPGs than any year before or after. I had the idea that if I could just get through 1993, it would be all downhill from there. Alas, owing to new discoveries, 1995 is now the top year (77) until we reach 2012 (88) and 2013 (104) for computer RPGs. (I haven't logged everything for 2014 or 2015 yet). If we consider all RPGs (including consoles and handhelds), we'll also hit a peak in 1995. There really is no "downhill."

    

Hence, my announcement a few months ago that for 1994 and each year thereafter, I would be capping the total number of RPGs explored at 25. I will still alternate "primary" year games with "backlist" games indefinitely, so any game that I skip has a chance of coming up as one of the latter titles. 

       

Current results from my master game list.

      

Many commenters have opined that RPGs entered a slump around 1993 from which they didn't recover until the late 1990s. I'll reserve my opinion on the existence, nature, and duration of the slump until I've played games from those years, but I agree that 1993 feels like the beginning of one. The average GIMLET for 1993 regressed to 31.37, lower than not only 1992 (35.64) but also 1991 (32.29), 1990 (33.2), and 1989 (31.89). Only two titles came anywhere near the top of the list, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds, both of which rated in the 60s. Number 3, Ambermoon, is all the way down at 51.

   

I have some fond memories from some of the titles in the 40s and 50s. I didn't like Betrayal at Krondor as much as many of my commenters, but it was at least unique in its approach. I think Bloodstone: An Epic Dwarven Tale might have been the height of the Magic Candle series. Unlimited Adventures preserved one of my favorite game engines. But most of the rest, even good ones (Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness, Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle, Dungeon Master II, Might and Magic V) are lesser than earlier games in their respective series.

        

Eye of the Beholder III was one of many titles this year that were shadows of the glory of former games in the series.

        

What astonishes me about such an underperforming year is that we're running out of time! Diablo is coming in 1996, Fallout in 1997, Might and Magic VI and Baldur's Gate in 1998. Maybe as soon as the end of the current decade, I will be blogging about huge, open worlds, immersive 3D graphics, lush ambient sound, in-game lore that a player can get lost in, and NPCs so fully realized that I prefer many of them to my actual friends. I rather expected we'd ramp up to those things. But the way it's been going, one day I'm going to be slogging through Whale's Voyage II and then suddenly, boom, Daggerfall. I suppose it's possible. Ultima Underworld seemed to come out of nowhere, after all.

          

How is this only four years away?

       

So 1993 could be the beginning of a slump. Or—again, I say this in complete ignorance of what awaits me in 1994—it could be a momentary pause in which developers were sort-of gathering themselves. The transition from 1993 to 1994 was at the cusp of a lot of things: CD-ROMs, Windows, the availability of the Internet to the average member of the public, the presence of a computer in the majority of western households. A lot of these things were there in 1993, but not long enough for developers writing games for 1993 releases to have made much of them. Maybe 1994 will see that burst of quality that I've been waiting for. Don't disabuse me.

     

1993 Game of the Year Nominees 

       

I'm going to do something different this year by selecting the nominees, letting you vote, and then selecting the final "Game of the Year." I'm not promising to go with your vote, but I'll at least lean towards it. These are what I would consider to be the top contenders:

   

1. Dark Sun: Shattered Lands. I went into this game expecting very little and came out seeing it as a worthy evolutionary step between the Gold Box series and the Infinity Engine games of the later 1990s. Not only was it the highest rated game of the year, but it also rated above a 5 in every category except "Economy." It had all the trappings of a modern RPG: tactical combat, a complex inventory system, full-sentence NPC dialogue, a world steeped in lore, and copious side quests as well as a compelling main quest. What a delight.

       

Full-sentence dialogue is important to my conception of a good RPG.

      

2. Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds. It would be weird to give the 1992 "Game of the Year" to Ultima Underworld and then next year's to the sequel, but then again, these two games are so good that perhaps I ought to drive it home by giving the top prize two years in a row. Not only did I think that Labyrinth was equal to the original in its mechanics, but I also thought it was a far better Ultima game.

         

And 1993 featured it in two excellent games.

     

3. I'm going to pretend here that Ambermoon has a shot because I honestly liked both it and its predecessor, and as I said in my follow-up: "Almost nowhere does the game achieve, or even stray towards, brilliance. But it is almost uniformly not bad." That's almost hyperbolic for 1993. But honestly, most of its strengths are eclipsed by Dark Sun.

     

Ambermoon: a good game. "Good" is a superlative in 1993.

       

4. Yes, sure, Betrayal at Krondor. As I said earlier, its approach is the most unique of the titles I'd consider for "Game of the Year." Its high-quality prose and immersive storytelling set a standard unrealized by any other title I've played except perhaps quasi-RPGs like Star Saga. It also set the bar for RPGs integrated into the canon of a fictional setting. I also liked the open-world exploration and the variety of encounters, but I think Dark Sun did those things just as well, with better RPG mechanics besides. But if you think Krondor deserves "Game of the Year," you're in good company. Computer Gaming World gave it the "RPG of the Year" award in the June 1994 issue. 

       

I didn't love it, but I will always remember it.

      

Let's consider some honorable mentions that have no chance at the top spot but make me wish I gave out more than one award per year.

       

• Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness. It's a great adventure game, atmospheric and fun, but the authors aren't even really pretending that RPG mechanics matter anymore.

• Perihelion. Talk about atmosphere! I still watch a video of this game's opening every once in a while.  

• Daemonsgate: Some of the best lore, including in-game cataloguing of that lore, that we've seen so far. The developer did a reasonably good job making the physical environment and NPC dialogue match that lore.

          

I didn't do a very good job selling the idea that there's much of a contest, but I honestly want to hear your thoughts. Remember, "Game of the Year" is supposed to be about influence as much as quality. Anyway, I've created a survey for you to vote, but I thought I'd take the opportunity to do something that I've never done before and poll my readership on your demographics and opinions. I'd thus appreciate if everyone reading this entry took part in the survey, even if you don't have a strong opinion on "Game of the Year." And don't let the survey stop you from talking about your preference in the comments.

      

Year-End Superlatives

     

Total Games: 63 played, 11 BRIEFed, 2 put on the "Missing and Mysteries" list. In total, I wrote about 75 games. That's 11 more than 1992 and the largest annual number for my blog so far. I guess that's the highest number that there ever will be.

 

Highest-Rated Games:  Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (64), Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds (63), Ambermoon (51), Bloodstone: An Epic Dwarven Tale (50), Betrayal at Krondor (50), Unlimited Adventures (50), NetHack 3.1.3 (48), Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (47).

 

Lowest-Rated Games: Ultimuh MCMLXVII: Part 2 of the 39th Trilogy - The Quest for the Golden Amulet (3), Mechanical Anarchy (11), Magische Steine (14), Black Dawn (14), Blade of Doom (15), Schelober's Quest for a Babe (15).

      

The worst game of the year. It didn't even know what it was parodying.

        

Longest Played: Ultima VII: Part Two - Serpent Isle at 112 hours. If you want to know why I didn't even give this one an "honorable mention," that's why.

 

Longest Between Start and End: It took me 372 days (but "only" 62 hours of play) before I allowed myself to admit that I wasn't going to finish Angband.

 

Percentage Won: As of right now, I've won 52 out of 59 winnable games, so 88%. I suspect it will drop to 87% after The Fates of Twinion. 

 

Highest Category Scores

   

• Game World: Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, Daemonsgate, and Betrayal at Krondor (8s).

• Character Creation and Development:  Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds and—gods forgive me—Princess Maker 2 (7s).

• NPCs: Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (7s).

• Encounters and Foes: Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Dungeon Master II: The Legend of Skullkeep (8s).

• Magic and Combat: Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, NetHack 3.1.3, and Unlimited Adventures (7s).

        

Dark Sun is the odds-on favorite for its fascinating game world and tactical combat.

       

• Equipment: NetHack 3.1.3 (9). This is the highest score I gave all year for anything.

• Economy: Princess Maker 2 (8). Maybe this belonged on the nominee list.

• Quests: Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (7).

• Graphics, Sound, and Interface: Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds and Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness (7s). 

• Gameplay: Warlords II (8). This isn't the first time (cf. Pirates!) that we've seen a non-RPG or quasi-RPG take the prize in this category.

   

Best Game with an Awful Category: Dark Sun: Shattered Lands with a 2 for "Economy." The SSI crowd just never learns.

 

Lowest-Rated Game with a Good Category: Stronghold, barely an RPG at all, got a 7 in "Gameplay" for its utterly addictive and replayable nature. Quenzar's Caverns and DragonMaze were both afternoon RPGs that managed to hit a 6 in "Gameplay" for offering the perfect length and challenge for their content.

    

1994 Preview

    

So, once again, the official 1994 play list, in the order that I will cover them, is:

   

1. Realms of Arkania: Star Trail 
2. Dark Designs IV: Passage to Oblivion 
3. The Elder Scrolls: Arena
4. Yendorian Tales, Book 1
5. Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse
6. Escape from Ragor
7. Pagan: Ultima VIII
8. Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession 
9. Jiji and the Mysterious Forest, Chapter 1
10. Aethra Chronicles: Volume One - Celystra's Bane
11. Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard
12. World of Arch
13. Darghul
14. Darkmere: The Nightmare's Begun
15. Ishar 3: The Seven Gates of Infinity
16. Nahlakh
17. Robinson's Requiem
18. Crystal Dragon
19. Superhero League of Hoboken
20. Realmz
21. Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager
22. Alien Logic: A Skyrealms of Jorune Adventure 
23. Menzoberranzen
24. Ironseed
25. Newcomer
26. Istanbul Efsaneleri: Lale Savascilari 

 

We will have appropriate pre-play discussions as each title nears the starting date. If any of these games ends up getting rejected or otherwise BRIEFed, I will draw a new title from the list at random.

      

As a devoted Elder Scrolls fan, what will I think of the first game in the series?

      

I believe that this is the first year since 1980 for which I have never played any of the games on the list to their conclusion. I have never played any of the 1994 games that didn't make it on the list to their conclusions, either. In fact, I have never played any of the 1994 games at all except about 5 minutes with Pagan (I quit once I saw it had jumping puzzles) and maybe two hours with Arena about 20 years ago. As such, I have no idea at all what to expect.

 

I am most looking forward to Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager based on the quality of its predecessor. I'm most curious about Arena; knowing so much about the Elder Scrolls universe these days, I'm eager to see how it differed when it was new. I'm equally curious about Ravenloft given the quality of the module on which it was based; though I assume that if the game reproduced that quality, I'd have heard a lot more about it over the years. I also have a lot of curiosity over the foreign games on the list, including World of Arch (Finland), Newcomer (Hungary), and particularly Istanbul Efsaneleri (Türkiye).

   

A preview of the first Turkish RPG.

       

I wouldn't say I'm particularly looking forward to Realms of Arkania: Star Trail, Dark Designs IV, or Ishar 3, but I suspect they'll all be reasonably acceptable. I had a decent time with their predecessors. I wouldn't say that I'm dreading any of the games—I don't know enough about them—but I will say that I don't have a lot of expectations for Jiji and the Mysterious Forest or Superhero League of Hoboken.

     

We'll definitely see a lot less variety in platforms in 1994. Microsoft is dominant, and only three games on the list—Dark Designs IV (Apple II), Darkmere (Amiga), and Crystal Dragon (Amiga)—lack DOS or Windows releases, at least if my original research is correct. Of course, we'll still continue to see plenty of other platforms in the "in between" games. 

     

Please remember to fill out the survey. Without further ado, let's jump into Realms of Arkania: Star Trail! 

Moving Forward: The 1994 Game List

 

 

It's time to talk about some changes that I have in mind for the CRPG Addict as we continue to progress into the 1990s.

     

I wrote my last yearly transition post, "1992/1993," over four years ago. It has taken me that long to get through the roughly 65 games, not including BRIEFs, that made up my 1993 list. At that time, I noted that 1993 had 74 games, "more than any other year until 2012," but more were added and some were lost during the four years that I covered it. More were also added to later years, so now 1994 has 68 games and 1995 has 76.

     

I am no longer satisfied at the pace that I'm making through these years. I don't want to be 66 when I cover the original Fallout or 88 when I can finally replay Morrowind. So here's what I have in mind:

    

• During my first pass through each year, from now on, I will cover about 25 games. Specifically, I will hand-select about 10, randomly select another 10, and then hear your arguments for which other games deserve "landmark" status, choosing the best 5 (roughly). 

• If any of the 25 selected titles turns out to be the wrong year, or not an RPG (i.e., I BRIEF it), or otherwise disappears from the list, I'll replace it with another random selection from the same year. 

• I will continue to alternate "new" games with those from the backlist. So any game that I don't cover on my first pass through a year will have an equal chance of appearing later on from a random selection. If one of the random selections from the backlist turns out to be a sequel (literal or spiritual) of a game that I haven't covered, I'll go back and cover that game first.

• There will no longer be any "surprise" games. Everything I intend to play, including the occasional console game, will appear on my "upcoming" list and you'll have a chance to anticipate and discuss them.

    

In some ways, this system is what I've been doing all along. Because we keep finding old games, it has proven impossible to ever fully clear a year. 1992 was the last year that I completed, and yet it has half a dozen new findings since I "finished" the year. 1983 has 30. So under this new system, I'm simply relegating a lot of minor titles to the backlist at the outset instead of doing so after discovering them later.

     

Let's see how this would work for 1994. Looking over the list of 68 games on my master list, applying what I know about the genre, supplemented with a little time on Wikipedia, I would hand-select the following games as being particularly notable, fun, or important:

    

• Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse
• Ancient Domains of Mystery [turns out to be a 1996 game]
• Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager
• The Elder Scrolls: The Arena
• Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard  
• Ishar 3: The Seven Gates of Infinity
• Jagged Alliance [turns out to be a 1995 game]
• Menzoberranzan
• Pagan: Ultima VIII
• Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession
• Realms of Arkania: Star Trail  

  

Already that's 11, but that's fine. I don't need to be rigid. Now I take 10 random titles:

    

• Aethra Chronicles: Volume One - Celystra's Bane 
• Crystal Dragon 
• Darghul 
• Dark Designs IV: Passage to Oblivion 
• Darkmere: The Nightmare's Begun 
• Escape from Ragor 
• Jiji and the Mysteirous Forest: Chapter 1 
• Litil Divil
• Newcomer 
• Power of the Hired [seems like Wikipedia is wrong about a Windows port of this SNES game]
• Telnyr III [turns out to be a 1993 game]
• World of Arch 

    

Do these lists together give a decent idea of what 1994 has to offer? What else would you argue deserves to be covered now rather than waiting for a chance to be covered later? 

 

****

 

Edit: And with the nominations based on the question above, we have the rest of the games necessary to flesh out the chosen 25:

 

• Alien Logic
• Ironseed
• Istanbul Efsaneleri
• Nahalkh
• Realmz
• Robinson's Requiem
• Superhero League of Hoboken
• Yendorian Tales: Book 1

Game 549: Pathways into Darkness (1993) and BRIEF: Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete (1992)

     

But do they journey into the realms?

       

Pathways into Darkness

United States

Bungie Software Products Corporation (developer and publisher)

Released 1993 for Macintosh

Date Started: 25 April 2025 

      

For a company that is primarily famous today for launching the Xbox (2001's Halo), Bungie oddly spent its first decade resolutely faithful to the Macintosh. Pathways into Darkness was the company's response to Wolfenstein 3D (1992) for DOS, and I believe that Pathways is the first first-person Macintosh game with continuous movement (as opposed to tiled movement). [Ed. Nope. That would be David Smith's The Colony from 1988.] This landmark status convinced me to play it despite its extremely thin CRPG credentials.

   

Chicago-based Bungie was launched in 1991 by Alexander Seropian, who had already published Gnop!, a variant of Pong, as freeware in 1990. His next title was Operation: Desert Storm (1991), a top-down tank game. That same year, Seropian met Jason Jones at college. Jones had written a multiplayer combat game for the Apple II in 1988, which Seropian offered to publish (as a Macintosh port). The result was Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete (1991), which was successful enough that Jones was soon a partner in the company.

     

(Minotaur is listed on some sites as an RPG, but it really isn't. I nonetheless checked it out prior to starting Pathways, and I offer a BRIEF at the bottom of this entry.) 

         

The manual cover is explained by the backstory.

        

Pathways started as an attempt to make a first-person version of Minotaur, but the pair soon decided that they wanted a single-player game. They went through several plots before settling on the Lovecraftian story presented by the game: An alien race called the Jjaro has contacted the President of the United States with a dire warning. Millions of years ago, an ancient, powerful, malevolent being arrived on Earth with the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Buried deep in the Earth, the ancient god slumbered for millennia but has recently begun to stir. Strange creatures have been seen in the forests of the Yucatan peninsula, around a strange pyramid that does not seem to be of Mesoamerican origin. There's a mention that Hitler sent soldiers to investigate the pyramid just before World War II, but none ever returned.

   

The Jjaro say that they are on their way to Earth to deal with the creature permanently, but they won't arrive for a few years, and the alien god will be fully awake in a week. Their recommended solution is to send a strike team as deep into the pyramid as possible, where they can detonate a nuclear device, stunning and burying the creature. Two days later, an elite team is airlifted to the Yucatan. The player is a member of this team, but a parachute accident leaves him off-course, unconscious, and bereft of equipment except for a flashlight and a survival knife. He gets himself together and enters the pyramid, presumably a couple of hours behind the rest of his team. He has five days to find the device, activate it, and escape the pyramid before it detonates. A secondary goal is to find ancient treasures and return them for study.

      

The game begins.

     

Gameplay begins with no character creation. The player faces a long hallway on the ground floor. The interface is arranged in four windows: character, inventory, messages, and exploration, each of which can be resized and rearranged. That's good in theory, especially if you want to increase the side of the exploration window to experience a greater sense of immersion, but you really do need to see the other windows much of the time. I wish the game had a full-screen exploration option with a button that called up and dismissed the other windows as needed.

     

Movement is with the arrow keys or numberpad. The SPACE bar attacks. I find the numberpad the easier of the movement options, as strafing is mapped to 7 and 9. On the main keyboard, strafing is mapped to Z and X, so you have to use both hands at once to get all your movement options. 

   

Movement and turning are both smooth and well-timed, neither too fast nor too slow. The graphics are crisp and the controls responsive. Tutorials pop up as you explore to help get you accustomed to the game. A "Map" command brings up a very clear automap. Overall, Pathways doesn't feel like a "first" anything.

      

An excellent automap.

      

The first level, titled "Ground Floor," is small. In the first large chamber, next to a blue rune that I'm not sure what to do with, I find the body of a German soldier, complete with a copy of Mein Kampf. He also has a Walther P4 pistol and four magazines. The manual warns the player to conserve ammunition, so I keep my knife active for now.

     

The game eases the player into its mechanics.

     

The level branches into two directions, each leading to a different ladder, both going up. I thought I was supposed to be going down! Each ladder has a red rune in front of it; red runes are the only places in the game that you can save.

    

One of the rooms has the level's only enemy, this red thing on two legs with a mouth on the top of its head and a tongue coming out of it. He dies with two knife thrusts, so that's not so bad. As I walk over his body, the game tells me that it's a "headless."

      

My first kill.

      

I head up one ladder to a level titled "Never Stop Firing," except the game has already made me paranoid about using ammunition, so I do my best to get through it with my knife. This is difficult because the level is swarming with headless, sometimes appearing three or four at a time. They have a ranged attack, some kind of poison spitball.

       

A few seconds of combat.

      

Amid multiple reloads as I test different strategies, I come to realize that timing is vital. The headless always wait a few seconds between spit balls, so if I can dodge one, I can run forward and stab the creature before he spits another one. This is of course harder when there are multiple headless, or when they're close and I don't have enough time to strafe away. Success involves a lot of keyboard agility, which I have never possessed. Enemies move as fast as the player, so once they have your scent, there's no outrunning them.

    

The level is quite large, with a lot of stone doors that open as I approach, but only from one side or the other. There are two chains that must be pulled to open a room in the far north, which has a yellow crystal. Crystals are magical objects. They come in a variety of colors, and according to the manual, yellow ones let you speak to the dead. When I ready it, it gives me a power bar underneath my health bar. "Dead" must mean human dead, because the dead headless have nothing to say.

       

Finding the yellow crystal.

       

In addition to the headless, there's a single "zombie" (the game's term) on the level. I later encounter a lot more of them. They're particularly annoying because they cannot be stabbed fast enough to kill them before they get to throw at least one bone at you.

   

I need to heal frequently, and the only way to heal so far is to rest. This of course takes time, and if you do it too often, you run the risk of not completing the mission in the five-day window. This is another thing the game has made me paranoid about.

    

Those red runes show up rarely enough that taking screenshots is a big problem. Basilisk has no keyboard shortcut for screenshots, so I have to use the Windows snipping tool. I can't be fumbling with that while I'm trying to avoid spitballs from headless.

     

This happened while I was adjusting it from "rectangle" to "window."

     

"Never Stop Firing" has no more ladders that I can find, so I head back down to "Ground Floor" and try the other ladder, which leads to a level called "Lock and Load." It has a lot more headless and zombies, and there are times that I have to use the Walther. The game's claim to RPG status, incidentally, is that each weapon has a skill level associated with it. I started at "Expert" level in "Melee Combat," the Colt .45 pistol (which I have not found), and the M-16 rifle (which I have also not found). After I fired a couple of shots with the Walther P4, it showed up in the proficiencies list with "Beginner" next to it. These skills otherwise haven't budged. The only other type of "character development" is that you earn points for certain plot milestones, which add to your maximum health.

   

I'm only halfway through "Lock and Load" when I find another ladder up. I figure it's a better use of time to just take ladders when you discover them, so soon I'm on "They May Be Slow . . ." Amidst more headless and zombies, I find the body of a German soldier and use the yellow crystal. This pulls up a keyword-based dialogue screen. The manual says everyone responds to NAME and DEATH.

   

The German laments that he no longer remembers his name or his life, but he had seen people pass through the room since he died. When I press further, he tells me that someone walked through the wall on the other side of the room. I give it a try, and sure enough, it's illusory. There's a blue crystal on the other side.

      

This game has a bleak view of the afterlife.

      

Again, before I complete the level, I find another ladder. It goes up to ". . . But They're Hungry." I'm immediately attacked by some kind of wraith, which seems immune to my knife and bullets. I imagine I'll have to use the blue crystal on him, but after my death, I wrap it up for the night.

     

You can barely see him, but he's there.

      

I'm not in much of a position to judge what makes a good first-person shooter, but Pathways into Darkness feels like an excellent one to me. Despite somewhat limited graphics (not for the era, just in general), it manages to be atmospheric, visceral, gory, and a bit terrifying. Not since Dungeons of Daggorath have I felt such dread at the sound of enemies in the next room, or felt that I really needed to "get gud" lest I run out of time or ammo.

   

I really could do without the time limit, though. Mostly because of resting, it's already 14:47 on Sunday, about 8.5 hours after I started. I don't know whether that's good or bad for where I am, but even if you tell me it's okay, I'm never going to be able to take my eye off that clock.

   

I'm not so far into the game that I'm loath to start over if I've already screwed up or missed some key game mechanic. Hints are welcome.

   

Time so far: 3 hours

     

******

       

Despite the name, no minotaur appears in the game.

       

Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete

United States

Bungie Software Products Corporation (developer and publisher)

Released 1992 for Macintosh

Rejected for: No meaningful single-player version; no character development

    

Minotaur is a simple, RPG-ish game in which, as the manual has it, "two or more players on different computers are thrown into a huge, randomly generated maze and through the use of various magical and mundane items attempt to find and kill each other." As the computers must be connected by a serial cable or AppleTalk, the game is nearly impossible to emulate today, although this video shows a couple of players who managed to do it recently. 

    

"Character creation."

      

Character creation consists of assigning a name and distributing 60 points between brawn, agility, and lore. When the game begins, each player finds himself in a different part of an enormous maze. Judging by the video and logic, gameplay occurred in two phases. The first was running around collecting items: weapons, armor, spells, and usable items. You can keep four of each. They appear in the upper left-hand corner in four columns, and the player moves a cursor in each column to highlight the active object. Clear statistics indicate what effects the objects have on gameplay. There are common items and unique items, and which ones are close to your starting point is the luck of the draw.

        

The second phase was the actual battle, engaged when any two players first encountered each other, although with more than two players, it was possible for some to form temporary alliances. 

         

Wandering the maze.

      

There are dozens of objects with as many effects. Players can raise and lower attributes, turn invisible, paralyze their opponents, disguise themselves as skeletons, levitate over walls, teleport, attempt to trap their opponents in areas with "stalkers" (the dungeon's only monsters, which players cannot directly engage or kill), turn themselves into stalkers, slow opponents, negate magic, and do a bunch of other things to gain a tactical advantage.

    

There's no "character development," which wouldn't make sense in a game that only lasts half an hour at best. There is technically a single-player mode, which sets you up with an opponent named "Bill the Pincushion" who cannot move, does not attack, and cannot be defeated. The only purpose of the mode seems to be to introduce players to the controls and to let them try out different items on the hapless Bill. 

     

I'm repeatedly stabbing Bill with my dagger here, but it does no damage.

       

In an October 1992 Computer Gaming World review, William C. Fisher lamented that Bill didn't have some rudimentary AI, which would have allowed lonely Mac owners to enjoy the game. (He also whines about the lack of mouse support but otherwise calls it "an engaging and playable game.") I agree. It looks fun, with evocative graphics, lively sound effects, and boisterous gameplay, and I can see how it put Bungie on the map. It feels like a blend of Gauntlet, Sword of Fargoal, and early Stuart Smith games like Fracas or Ali Baba.

   

Four years later, Paranoid Productions licensed Minotaur's code from Bungie to create Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis (1996), which is a proper RPG, so we'll see something like these screens again.

Whale's Voyage: From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee

This game has simply award-winning NPC interaction.

       

My crew ended the last session rich, fully equipped, and in possession of that damned heart we'd been trying to get rid of since the first mission. We had been instructed by an unknown party to return to Lapis and meet someone at a pair of coordinates.

   

For the first time in about 25 voyages, I was not attacked by pirates on the way to Lapis. Perhaps killing one of them scared the rest of them away. I launched the glider and flew to the indicated coordinates, at which point a button appeared on my toolbar that said "Beam to Mine." I'm curious what happens to your glider when you just beam off it. I guess it returns to the ship automatically. 

     

Skimming across the landscape in my glider.

      

The mine was a small map. Other than our contact, we met only one NPC, a miner named Gryx Gwyn who said he was mining for titanium, but then after barely any prompting let it slip that he was actually looking for gold. 

     

Our contact had the unfortunate name of Jenns Nippel. He was standing next to some sort of computer, which he said was a device that allowed him to bug all of the phones on Lapis. When prompted for other information, he referred us to a paragraph in the game manual. It's in an appendix, and it's the only one, so this won't become a regular thing.

          

I dare you to introduce yourself to Ben Affleck.

        

I guess I won't reprint all the dialogue--it's just a smidge too long--but in summary, Nippel said that he's an agent of a resistance group seeking to overthrow the government. "We live in a democracy," he says, "but in reality it's more like a dictatorship." His evidence for this is, alas, a bit thin. First: "Where else would you find a complete absence of political parties?" Why would anyone think that political parties are necessary to democracy? A democracy with no political parties was George Washington's dream and mine. Dictatorships have one party, not no parties. Second: opinions that differ from the government's are suppressed by the incompetence of a massive bureaucracy. Unfortunate, but not really a sign of a "dictatorship." I'd really like some more evidence. Are there elections? Is there any reason to think they're not fair? Is habeas corpus still around? That kind of thing.

      

See, it's this kind of thing I worry about in a dictatorship.

             

The heart, meanwhile, "is for an important man who has been very active in support of our organization." But the Secret Service has been trying to block the man from getting it. We gave it to Nippel for $100,000, which is pocket change to us now. "I have got another well-paid job for you," he then said. He wanted us to escort a ship to Nedax for $10,000 and some fuel, basically as much as we can make selling a single ton of perfume. But the game doesn't let you say no, so I guess we're in. Down with the bureaucrats and their paperwork in triplicate!

        

Back on the Whale, we got a phone call from Commander Tenz on the ship we were supposed to escort. We set a course for Nedax. Sure enough, on the way, the ship was attacked and Tenz put out a mayday.

        

       

The resulting battle was with six Federation ships, four coming in from the left and two from the right. I'm proud to say I won the battle on my first try, but my hits got down to 2 before I did. The trick was to make them come to me and save most of my movement points for firing. Some of them had longer ranges than I did, though, which was hard to gauge. Ultimately, I destroyed the two on the right and then zipped back and got the four on the left. I assume we're the most wanted people in the galaxy now, having committed multiple terrorist acts for $10,000.

       

Destroying the last three ships.

       

Commander Tenz called to thank us and said to meet someone named Kevin Grove on Nedax. 

    

Nedax is almost entirely covered with water. People live in small settlements built on the sea floor. The default city is called Aqua, another small enough area that there's no point mapping. We found a store and bought an infra-red scanner for no reason than I didn't already have one. The shop also sold what seemed like more advanced weapons, including a "plasmagun" and a flame thrower, but I decided to continue to see how far I could get with my machete.

        

That's not "growing up." That's just "getting bigger."

      

I found Kevin Grove wandering around somewhere, and he said that the pirates wanted to join the revolution. Their leader, Sam van Varn, wanted to meet a resistance agent, and somehow that's going to be us, despite the fact that we just heard about the organization yesterday. He gave us coordinates, which I assumed were on the same planet.

   

We beamed back to the ship, launched the glider, went to the coordinates, and found a city called Necth. We beamed in. Almost immediately, we got attacked by a guy in a spacesuit--a federation soldier. Like all of the game's battles, it was over in about three seconds with all party members dead. Maybe one of the shops on one of the other planets sells armor. Fortunately, the city had one of those places where you can pay for healing, and I had plenty of money, so I just had to keep at least one character alive and rush there after every battle. The planet wouldn't let us beam up until all the enemies were dead.

       

Every combat in this game ends this way the first time.

        

Complicating things, I had Mapple pick up one of the soldier's dropped plasmagun just to check it out. This apparently put him over his encumbrance limit, which the game doesn't bother to tell you. The game's solution to overencumbrance is to have the character start taking damage, with no warning, until he dies. Since I was getting attacked on the planet anyway, I didn't realize that I was also taking damage from another source. I had to resurrect Mapple about eight times.

Elsewhere, an NPC named Hermes Rue told us about an alien ship seen beyond Inoid. "The ship is visible on every map but nobody realizes it." Later, on the ship, we looked at the map, and indeed, you can move the cursor past Inoid to an object called Grfdfvxlts.

        

We knew there were aliens, right? Otherwise, what are those squid things during character creation?

      

In the northern part of town was a tavern, where the bartender said he ran out of drinks.

         

You know how many Bourbon Street bartenders have tried that ruse on me?

        

He also said that an hour ago, some Federation officers had entered and tried to arrest a man sitting at the table behind us, but he had escaped. The only thing on the table was an ashtray, but it had a number etched into its surface.  

     

If there's a highlight of this game, it's examining objects.

          

Back on the Whale, we called the number. The voice on the other end, Sam van Varn, recapped that he had to flee, but he saw us fighting federation soldiers, so he knew he could trust us. A Mr. Wostock had told him to go meet Jenns Nippel on Lapis. He said he'd wait for us there.

   

We returned to Lapis to find Nippel's body crumpled in the corner where his  machine had been. Sam van Varn, complete with an eyepatch, was standing nearby with a shotgun. When we demanded answers, he said he thought Nippel was a Secret Service spy. "We have to hush up this murder," he said. "Mr. Wostock will arrive very soon. [He] should think that the Secret Service killed Jenns." I couldn't think of any way to do this. Van Varn and I just stood there staring at each other for a while and nothing happened.

     

Why did you think that?

            

Rather than look up a spoiler, I decided to see if I could pick up the next thread through open exploration. I verified that each planet has coordinates between (0,0) and (50,50). They all wrap, of course. The screen is capable of showing about 5 x 10 at a time. Findings for each planet:

     

1. Lapis. The manual describes it as hot, dry, and "extremely inhospitable." This plus a certain distance from the center of the system give it a "wild west" vibe, with lots of associated crime. The main city is Algo. I had already explored it, but I took a tour again. An NPC named G. J. Styx begged for money; Baumann said he was collecting taxes (but didn't ask me for any); John Styx said it was hard working in the mines; Krueger told us about Hypo-Coco disease. The shopkeeper, Ferdinand, said that trade is getting more restricted and controlled. I bought some explosives from him in case we needed them later. On the surface, I found a few things that looked like they could be buildings or settlements, but none of them gave me the option to beam down.

      

This looks like it should be something, but it wasn't.

        

2. Arboris: A large and lush planet, full of vegetation. The main city is called Sando, but exploring the surface led me to find a second city called Dymy. I explored Sando first, as I hadn't already. It was a large, open town with wooden buildings, meant to evoke a frontier town. Three wandering NPCs--Bimpf, Kirm Yuk, and Franz--had nothing useful to tell us, but another, Mrs. Patterson, was looking for a lost key. Julia S. said that more and more people join the revolution. The shopkeeper, Emil Cross, sold wine, an electrical staff, and a translator device (among other things). I bought them all.

    

In Dymy, shopkeeper Samuel Brown had some even more advanced-sounding weapons that I didn't buy. There was a whole locked complex in the southern part of the city that I couldn't access. Otherwise, I found nothing useful here.

       

The aesthetics of Sando.

      

3. Castra: The slum planet, where of course the game had started. From the glider, the map showed a reasonably accurate depiction of urban sprawl. There were some interesting physical features on the planet's surface, but nothing that gave us beam-down options. I took another loop around Penthe, the default city, and found nothing new.

4. Sky Boulevard, the central planet in the system, was originally called Decadence IV. Overpopulation and lax environmental laws caused an ecological collapse, and now the population lives in a huge space station orbiting the planet. Since you can't visit the planet itself, there's no glider option. Instead, you beam directly to the colorful metal corridors of the orbiting space station.

Again, I find virtually nothing. A shopkeeper, Reginald, sells a Sonic Absorber and a better electrical staff. Three guys named Wellsgoff, Spanjersberg, and Mr. Stocker stand behind counters but have nothing to say to me.

         

I'm definitely starting to get on board with the anti-bureaucrat movement.

     

5. Nedax. The water planet, which I just recently visited, has nothing new. I find no cities other than Aqua and Necth. In Necth, I do find a federation soldier that I somehow missed the first time, but he's not hostile anymore. When I try to kill him, a bunch of planetary guards show up and kill me instantly, the same way they do if you attack any innocent NPC.

    

6. Inoid, the frozen planet. The capital city is Glace, and I find no other cities by flying around the surface. While trying to talk to the NPCs, who have a tendency of walking away while you're trying to target them, I remember similar problems with MegaTraveller and wonder if the Paragon titles had more influence than I thought. A bunch of ski-mask clad denizens who yell at me to get out of the way. Two wandering NPCs named Ben Zock and Krycencov have nothing to contribute. There's nothing new in the hospital.

    

I already am.

       

7. Grfdfvxtls. The game treats the so-called alien spaceship as a planet, but it has no trade goods and no ship services. We beam down to alien corridors and, well, actual aliens. They speak gibberish but we have a translation device! With it, we learn that they have become "stuck in a time zone because of an engine trouble." They need a special "essence" for their engine called X-109-E. But they thank us for offering to help and say we can use their cargo bay for storage. 

       

40 aliens on the ship, and I meet the drunk one.

        

The ship is quite large, with many of the aliens, but they all seem to have the same dialogue, and I don't find anything else on the ship. When I leave, I discover I don't have enough fuel to get back to Inoid. Good thing I didn't save out here. I reload from the last place I saved, on Nedax.

        

My readers should know by now that I like to be challenged by games. I like it less when the challenge is purely physical (i.e., controller dexterity) and more when it's intellectual. There are a lot of intellectual challenges in games, from the logic puzzles of Dungeon Master to the observational challenges of adventure games to the statistical challenges inherent in every RPG. But there's also a kind of meta-challenge present when your sanity, patience, and credulity are up against a patently ridiculous game. Even when the game lacks anything else, there's always a bit of a thrill when I force myself through an absurd wreck of a game like Ultima: Escape from Mount Drash (1983), Kayden Garth (1989), or The Rescue of Lorri in Lorrintron (1991) and pull off an unlikely win. But I don't want that type of challenge to be my exclusive experience with RPGs, and boy does it seem like 1993 is serving up a lot of them.

     

In this case, I finally give in and look up spoilers. The solution to falsifying evidence in the death of Nippel is to take a damaged gun and armor we should have looted from the Federation soldiers on Nedax and put them on Nippel's body. I never saw the damaged items--not that I would have thought to take them if I did--because I didn't kill the last soldier. He's wandering around Nedax even now, but I can't kill him because he's not hostile. I thought about swearing a lot at the game at this point, but I think the sentiment I put in the subtitle is more thematically appropriate.

        

Time so far: 10 hours