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Having just finished a marathon session of playing this game, I can say it is still as good as I remember. Of course I was only fourteen in 1984, still wasting summer days away indoors typing programs in on my Commodore Vic 20. I saw an ad for this game in my computer magazine of choice at the time Creative Computing. I knew then that I had to have a Commodore 64, just so I could play this game. Well, I got a 64 and the game for Christmas that year. I must have spent weeks and weeks exploring the dark dungeons of Telengard, building my character slowly but surely.
This game was part of the craze to get a playable computerized version of Dungeons and Dragons for computers. Random dungeon generation, a good but limited inventory, and simple character development are things that make this game re-playable.
This Goal of the game is to kill monsters and collect gold, which you trade in for experience points. Exploring is also apart of the game but it is not all that fun. Moving around can cause you to be separated from your life pretty quickly in the beginning. Remaining stationary can also cause random monsters to appear, but it is safer if you are close to the inn. Inns are where you can save your game, heal your character and trade in your gold for experience points. Random item encounters also occur some of these things are:
- A fountain to drink from with varying results.
- A jewelled throne to sit upon.
- An altar to donate gold upon.
- A strange coloured cube that you must open and get treasure.
- A misty teleport cube.
- Random monster encounters are pretty generic: vampires, Orcs, Gnolls, dragons and numerous others.
Well, I don’t believe this is a game with an ending; I have never gotten to it. It runs slow and requires a lot of patience to not get bored when loading the game. The tape version is even slower.
Game play is turn based and timed. You have to enter a keyed response before it automatically enters a null response. This null response can get you killed sometimes, and is partly responsible for the frustration created playing this game. Overall, I would say for what this game is it is pretty fun, and a good way to kill a couple of hours if you are bored.
Downloads: Music
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| GRAPHICS - 5/10 |
Stationary sprites and customized character set graphics. Written in basic. It sounds slow because it is.
Graphics are functional at best. The dragons look quite good.
| | SOUND - 4/10 |
No music except at certain points in the game. The jewelled throne (Celtic Frost anyone?) has some when you encounter it.
The game has functional music and sound effects only.
| | PLAYABILITY - 6/10 |
Game play is slow, but the randomness and the save anytime feature keep you going. It is fun to see how powerful you can get your character. There is the hint at some strategy in how you use and gain spells to use on different monsters. Sometimes the only way to kill a high level encounter is to use the proper spell on it. If the spell fails when cast, then you can die from the counter attack. This can be frustrating, especially when you get a level 15 Dragon on the first level of the Telengard dungeons fifty levels.
| | OVERALL - 5/10 |
This is a good game, although it is no Ultima I.
Some game design problems exist, for an early 1980’s game what can be expected. It is a good dungeon romp overall, and makes for an enjoyable play if you like D&D type games.
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; "Click to zoom!")
