Think back, way back… The first pentium? No, no further, much further… 3 inch double sided floppy disks? That's a bit too far... Dangerous Dave? Now we're talking! Good ole 16-color-graphics games. Now a particular one has recently caught my attention and rekindled some long lost memories.
In 1989, Mike Riley released a shareware game based on the books of Stephen R. Donaldson, which follow the anti-hero Thomas Covenant in the fantasy world of The Land. Riley's game allows you to take the role of one of the many peoples that inhabit Donaldson's imaginative realm and through exploration discover the grand quest. Long before
The Elder Scrolls:Arena, The Land (as Riley named the game) provided a more or less free-roaming RPG experience. It is up to the player to find out what must be done by talking to the many citizens in the various towns and hamlets, but what the player does with this information is entirely up to the him or her.
The Land featured some interesting game play elements, such as randomly generated dungeons filled with a large variety of monsters (twenty something), including traps, hidden doorways and naturally: treasure. Dungeons are intially dark and require illumination (torches, magic) to explore, much like a fog of war. Searching on the spot may reveal hidden doors or traps.
The magic was especially impressive (for the time), having great variety beyond the standard near or ranged damage spells. Clairaudience and Clairvoyance allowed the player to see monsters in the direct area, certain classes had their own torch type that could be activated with magic (also providing greater lighting range), teleportation spells like Blink that randomly teleport you to a point in the vicinity (useful for those hard to reach spots!), Spells that improve reading skills etc etc.
The game also featured item identification: any item you have never posessed already identified would rather be described (Purple potion, Shield, Short Staff) and could be identified by magic or by finding identification scrolls in the dungeons. Many scrolls are scattered around, mostly holding common knowledge (location of cities etc), but some are much more useful, such as the before mentioned Identification scroll and the rare Scrolls of power that grant you a new spell!
Players, as they grow with experience, not only acquire new spells, more hp and mana, but also new skills (such as Charm, Reading, Riding (for mounts)) and especially more status. The player can recruit bystanders in his or her team, which back you up in larger monster battles. In the outside world, this is usually the case (random battles while travelling, putting the player in a large 'arena' face to face with the monster(s)), but in dungeons, this differs. In the first dungeon you will eventually enter, the monsters are all singular and thus the dungeon itself is the battleground. In later dungeons, each monster represents a group, thus collision initiates an arean styled battle (after which you return to the map). Two advantages are that the player can use the assistance of party members and that monsters that surprise you from the dark don't have first-strike. The disadvantage is that battles become increasingly long. Still, if you manage to recruit some spell casters in your party, the monsters tend to melt-away. Be wary though, you do not receive experience for any monster a party member kills!
Basically, this
Rogue style game (or as the creator puts it 'Rouge' ;) ) took a lot of good D&D elements and made a true gem. The game is only available as shareware as far as I know, although it is actually the entire game without the manual. This manual,however, must have dropped of the Earth, for it is imply unfindable. Make sure that you use the EGA (16 col) graphics when playing, as it has some advantages, such as a clearer mini-map (yep, even got a mini-map in this game!).
PS: A download can be found at
the Underdogs. Check the readme doc, so you figure out how to use the EGA graphics mode!
