MUD1: Little Specks

I know that I promised that my next post would be my final one for MUD1, but I've only just started exploring the north-west island. It's very mysterious and intriguing, so I'm still playing. I also don't have much time or energy for a full post, so here are some minor tidbits that I've discovered:

• There's a seagull fluttering around near the beach at the bottom of the waterfall. If you wash it in the birdbath it turns to solid gold and can be swamped for points.
• There's a sundial in the pine forest, but it has no gnomon. If you put a stick on it, then TELL TIME, it zaps you with some energy and increases your score.
• There's an Ox wandering around the Land, and for some reason hugging it turns it into a worthless statue. I'm not sure how to give it some value.
• I'd been puzzled for a while by a hole in the ground, but it turns out it's just a rabbit burrow, and putting a rabbit in it earns you some points.
• Another thing that had puzzled me for ages was a golden bolt that was stuck in the railroad track. A strong lever was required to pull it out, and on a whim I tried my axe. It worked, to my surprise. The pickaxe works as well. It's weird when real-world logic triumphs in an adventure game.
• I've mentioned before that there was a pancake in the larder that was stuck to its pan by magic. I tried flipping it, which I was able to do, and again I earned some more points.
• I also mentioned a brass ring that I couldn't lift due to a magical force. Elsewhere there's a secret room that can be opened by blowing a conch, and in the room is a finger bone. Stick the finger in the brass ring and it turns gold and can be taken and - of course - swamped for points.
• I found a statue of a lion in the pine forest that I'd somehow missed. There's a sign not far from it that says it will point the way if dropped in the "garden of the dead". Sure enough, if you drop it in the graveyard it will direct you to the tomb.
• Speaking of the tomb, it can be pried open with the axe or the pickaxe. I think I've explored it fully, but more on that next time.
• Finally, with the help of commenter PK Thunder who told me that the relevant quote was "for all intents and purposes", I was able to figure out that the answer to open the west tomb was 1547. Inside I found a sarcophagus and a firestone. The firestone can be used a light source (much safer to carry around than the torch), and apparently makes you immune to being summoned by other players. The sarcophagus contains a body that can be swamped for points.

That's all I have time for at the moment. I should be back with a post in a week or so, and hopefully I'll have explored the north-western island. There's just the matter of the pesky dragon that keeps incinerating me... 

MUD1: Drying Up

I've been playing MUD1 solidly since my last post, and I think I'm finally getting to the point where I've explored most of the game. There are still a load of things I haven't discovered a purpose for, and a few areas I can't get to, but I'm pretty sure I've experienced the bulk of the game. I have some time off work coming up, so I reckon that I'll be able to wrap this game up with one more post.

Because MUD1 is so large, and I've accomplished a lot in the last week or so, I'll break up what I've done into smaller categories.

The Mausoleum: I have to give a special shout out to commenters Brian and Voltgloss, who gave me some hints that allowed me open three of the six tombs in the mausoleum. The various riddles are shown below:

The answer to the north tomb's riddle was indeed 'one': if you begin with one rat, of course you will only have one at the end. This was the first puzzle I (okay, Brian) solved, but I did have a fair bit of parser trouble while figuring it out. I tried all sort of variations of SAY "ONE", or just "ONE" in quote marks, but the correct method was just to type ONE with no other command or punctuation. This opened the tomb, and inside I found a sceptre and a gold filling.

The south tomb's riddle was a cryptogram, which Voltgloss helpfully decoded for me: "A monument has a relief painting with three shepherds pointing at a tomb. Beneath it are eight letters. What are they?" A spot of Googling revealed that this was a reference to the Shugborough Inscription, a mysterious sequence of letters carved into an 18th century monument. Nobody is sure what the letters mean, but they read OUOSVAVV. Sure enough, typing that in opened the tomb. I didn't find anything inside though, which was a genuine disappointment. I don't think it matters really, but more on that below.

The southwest tomb's riddle is very clever, and again it was Voltgloss who alerted me to the answer being searchable via Google: the numbers refer to the birth dates of John Wayne (the Duke), Queen Latifah, and Elvis Presley (the King). The answer then is Prince's birth date, which is June 7th 1958 (or 6758). Based on this riddle, it seems as though the riddles are updated periodically, because I very much doubt that Queen Latifah was relevant when MUD1 was first created. Even Prince might have been a stretch.

Finally, the southeast tomb was the only one that I figured out myself. I didn't actually solve the puzzle, I just reasoned that if I kept typing out locations in the wilderness I'd hit on the answer eventually. It took a while, but the answer was RUIN.

You can see how many points any treasure is worth with the VALUE command.

Normally I'd be annoyed by the nature of these puzzles: two of them require a decent amount of research, and knowledge that exists outside of the game world. This is the sort of thing that breaks the verisimilitude of a game, but it works better for me here than it would in a lot of other games. Maybe it's just that they're not critical puzzles; you don't have to do them, they're just there as obstacles hiding some treasures.

There are still two tomb riddles I couldn't solve, but I'm not fussed about it. Every time I've been back the contents of the tombs have been different, so I figure that it's randomised, and I've probably seen whatever's in them.

Inside the Badger's Sett: I had previously found a badger's lair in the forest, but when I tried to enter the badger stopped me by trying to claw my face off. I finally went back, and I was able to get in. I'm not sure what made the difference, but maybe it was that I was higher level than the last time I tried. Inside I found a chamber with a magnifying glass and a belt buckle, both worth points when dropped in the swamp. The lens had a message that I'm pretty sure commemorates a former player who passed away in 2015.

The room description mentions that treasure can be stored safely in the sett, and that the badger will guard it. Maybe that's why I couldn't get in before? Perhaps the badger only allows the first person inside to enter, or the first person to store some treasure there?

The Graveyard: I did some poking around on Richard Bartle's MUD1 site, and found a map of the graveyard. Following it led me to another tomb, and a silver cross that I was able to swamp for some points. I wasn't able to open the tomb, but I was given this clue "A prise will open the tomb". I can't think of any items I've found that would suffice.

The Mine: Looking over my notes, I saw that there was a shed in the mine that I hadn't unlocked and investigated. Inside I found a pickaxe (good for mining tin ore from certain mine areas) and a safety lamp. The lamp is a handy item: it replaces the flaming brand, which has a tendency to explode in certain areas (most notable the swamp). Unlike the brand, it has a time limit, as once the wick is burnt out it can no longer be used. I haven't found a way to replace the wick, if it's even possible.

Also in the mine are some narrow cracks that can only be explored if you're not carrying anything. This includes light sources, so these tunnels have to be navigated in the dark. I went in, carefully mapping the various exits and rooms, hoping I'd eventually get to a lit area. I never did, and I'm pretty sure I explored every possibility. Obviously I've missed something here.

The Dwarf Realm: Quite a while ago I'd made it through the mine and into the dwarf realm, only to be immediately killed by a dwarf (what else?). This time I was armed with an axe and some extra levels, which meant that I could kill those dwarves with impunity. There were about half a dozen roaming around, as well as a golden eagle that very nearly did me in.

About to murder some dwarves. Wizterm, the program that I use to access MUD1, logs every single game you play as a text file, so I grabbed some images from there because I'm terrible at remembering to get screenshots.

The realm itself was little more than a large cavern with some forested areas and a fortress. At the top of the fortress there was a gate that I was unable to open. A clue read "Drop the key on me and I shall open". I had the key with me, but no amount of dropping could get the gate to open. I wonder maybe if I had to drop it on or give it to a dwarf, or maybe the eagle? It's something else for me to try.

The Cellar: Previously I've mentioned that the cellar under the house is crawling with nasty rats. After gaining a few levels and arming myself with the axe I was able to head down there and clear the place out - I swear there were over a dozen, and you can only fight them one at a time. There are two exits from the cellar. One leads into a coal bunker, which will explode if you go in with a brand. The bunker is filled with more rats, and a piece of anthracite which can be swamped for points.

South from the cellar is a tunnel with soft, earthy walls. You have to be careful navigating this tunnel, because the walls will collapse with one wrong move. You also can't turn around to go backwards once you're inside, as the tunnel is too narrow. It leads to a chamber that's underneath the woodsman's hut, containing a moose head and a marble pillar. The pillar is valuable, but it's also too large to get back through the tunnel. I remembered that there was a space for a moose head in the hut though, so I went back there and hung the head on the wall, which opened a trapdoor in the floor. I was then able to get the pillar out and swamp it for more points.

The Attic: Also in the house is a cupboard with a stepladder inside that seemingly led nowhere. The ladder was too heavy to move, so I figured that there must be a way up from the cupboard, but every time I tried to climb it I was asphyxiated due to its cramped confines. Eventually I figured out that this was due to the flaming brand, as I was able to climb the ladder safely once I had the lamp. It still didn't lead anywhere, until I climbed it with the cupboard door closed. This opened a secret door, and I was able to get into the attic.

The attic is a treasure trove. Inside I found all sorts of stuff: a candlestick, a doll, a painting, an issue of "Micro Adventurer", a cricket bat, the fabled "Goat Cup" (whatever that is), and a violin. All of these are worth points. There's also a trapped chest that kills you if you open it, but that can be swamped as well if you just take the chest without looking inside. Alongside all of this is a canvas bag, which greatly increases your carrying capacity. Getting into the attic was definitely worth it, but the problem was getting out. You can't get in without closing the cupboard door, but you also can't open the cupboard from the inside. The game flat out tells you that the only way out is to wait for another player to open it. In 2019 this is a much less viable option that it originally would have been. Instead I dropped all of my stuff, quit the game, restarted, and went back to the cupboard. I was then able to open it and claim everything, which probably would have been harder back in the day when the game would have been full of other players scrambling for treasure.

The Attic. It's a lot to take in all at once.

The Wrecked Ship: In my last post I mentioned that I had found a boat, and using it I was able to head out into the ocean to the wrecked ship. The ocean is somewhat dangerous: a shark that's difficult to kill is swimming about, and if the weather gets rough you're likely to get killed. There are a few useful items to be found on the ship: some earrings in the crow's nest, some silk and a raft in the hold, as well as some gunpowder and a fuse. There's a wafer that can be eaten to restore some health. The captain's logbook has some cryptic clues that seem to involve a wizard.

From the crow's nest I was able to see two islands, one to the south and another to the northwest. A chart in the captain's cabin has incomplete directions for getting to the northwest island, so I gather that one will harder to reach. I'll try to explore them before my next post.

The Goblin Lairs: With a weapon, a key and some levels I was finally able to wipe out all of the goblin lairs and raid their treasure chamber, where I found a gold plate, a flute and a bracelet.  Past the goblin lair I found an area with two rooms and some sliding panels. One of the panels I couldn't move, and another caused a force field to appear and block me in. I have no idea what to do here.

Not far from the goblin lairs I had previously found a cannon, and now I had some gunpowder and a fuse. Together with a platinum sphere that I used as a cannonball, I was able to use the cannon to blow apart an especially sturdy door. Behind the door was a magical fountain, which gave me loads of points when I jumped in. The water turned yellow, and I was tempted to take another dip, but caution held me back.

Blasting my way into the Fountain Room.

Following another tunnel out of the goblin lairs led back around to the gate near the idol. I wasn't able to open it from this side either, but at least I knew where it led now. In this area I found a brass ring, but due to a mysterious force I wasn't able to lift it.

Also nearby was a guardroom, wherein I found another axe, a die, and a carpet. The die increased in value depending on the number that came up when you rolled it, but constant rolling is a risk because a 1 will kill you. The carpet is magical, and when you unroll and ride it, it transports you to the temple under the yew tree.

Under the Yew Tree: With the lamp I was finally able to fully explore beneath the yew tree. As I probably mentioned before, there's a tree you can chop down with the axe, opening up some tunnels below. I'd been there before, exploring some temple chambers, but there was one tunnel that I hadn't been able to get past with the flaming brand due to some very dry and flammable roots. Cue the lamp, and a new area to explore.

This tunnel lead to a large chamber, with three branches. The southern branch led to a room with a barrel full of reddish liquid, and another room with muddy walls. I wasn't able to figure out what to do here, although emptying the barrel did give me a description of the water running away and soaking into the walls, so I gather that has something to do with it.

The west branch leads to a steaming pool, with a pendant on the far side. Crossing the pool is deadly, but it can be frozen with an icicle that can be found not far from the temple. The pendant, of course, can be swamped for points.

The east branch is the most interesting, and potentially the most deadly. The first room has a vicious wolf, which might have killed me had I not remembered the wolfsbane in the garden (which you might recall drained my score quite significantly when I tried to smoke it). After a quick trip I returned and fed the wolfsbane to the wolf, which killed it. The rooms beyond were all scorched with fire, and I started to suspect a dragon might be present. Instead, they ended at a fiery pit, that served seemingly no purpose. As I've discovered, there's very little in this game that's just for show, so I figure there's something to do here that I haven't figured out.

Killing the wolf. That number in square brackets lets you know when your score has been increased.

So that's my progress for the last week-and-a-bit, which feels pretty significant now that I've typed it all out. The ultimate goal of the game is to become a Wizard, but with a requirement of over 100,000 points I'll probably skip it. I'm currently an Enchanter, with a score of around 7,000. I'd probably be able to reach the Wizard level with some perseverance; instant deaths don't wipe your character, and most of the battles aren't a problem for me anymore. Other players are the only real danger left.  Even so, if I do try to go for Wizard it's going to be on my own time. The blog must progress.

Here's a list of the most obvious loose ends and mysteries that I'd like to take another stab at solving before I finish up:

• The gate in the tunnel leading from the beach
• The gate in the Dwarf Realm
• The northwest island
• The southern island
• The sliding panel rooms
• The brass ring
• The tunnel that's guarded by an ogre
• The tomb in the graveyard

That's a decent amount to go on, and I'm thinking now that this game might have more left to offer than I had thought. Regardless, my next post will be my last for MUD1. It's time to wrap up the next few games, and get out of 1978.

MUD1: More Beneath the Surface

I could quite easily stop playing MUD1 now, and move on to the next game in the queue, but every time I play it I find something new.  It's a large game, with an interesting world to explore, and even though there are no concrete goals to it, I'm finding that I never have a shortage of self-imposed tasks to complete.  So, alas for the blog and forward momentum, I'm still plowing ahead with this game and enjoying it more than I had expected to.

The first of these self-imposed goals that I set myself was to properly investigate the items in the Sorcerer's Room: a crystal, an amulet, a mirror, an oracle, a black cat, a potion and a stethoscope.  I already knew that sniffing the vapours given off by the crystal resulted in a change of gender.  Unfortunately, the oracle, the amulet and the mirror are all currently beyond me; I can't use any of them until I reach a higher level.  A clue in a book told me to "do as my curiosity directs me", which I interpreted as meaning that I should kill the cat.  It gave me a satisfying message telling me that I had "graunched" the cat's head in, but no other benefits were forthcoming.  As for the stethoscope, I still have no idea.

The only positive progress I made was with the potion.  The same book with the clue about curiosity also directed me to mix the potion with some medicine found in a bathroom upstairs.  This I did, drinking the concoction, and I got a pretty decent bonus to my score.  I'm able to do this once a day or so (whenever the game resets to its default).

Mixing the medicine with the potion.

While I was tinkering around in the Sorcerer's Room, four zombies and a skeleton appeared out of nowhere.  They didn't attack me, but they also wouldn't let me leave.  I was able to defeat the zombies - it seems you only ever have to fight one on one - but the skeleton killed me.  Fighting skeletons with a 2nd level character has proven to be deadly, but I've been able to defeat them upon reaching 3rd level.  I'm not certain where they came from, but it's possible they were summoned as a result of my failure to activate the room's magic items.  If that's the case, I could always keep this in mind as a way to grind for points.

Also in the house is a locked kitchen that I had yet to explore.  Inside I found some dirty groats, which I was pleased to find increased in value when I washed them.  (You can VALUE any item in the game, and it will tell you how many points it's worth.)  In a side pantry I also found a kipper and a half-eaten bagel, and eating both of these increased my score as well.  There was also a pancake, but it was stuck to a pan and I couldn't take it.  Dropping the groats in the swamp (which is the standard way to dispose of treasure in this game) got me some more points, so I've found a sure-fire way of quickly increasing my score at the start of every session.  Drinking the potion, eating the food in the pantry and "swamping" the groats are generally the first things I do when I play.

There's a garden with some potatoes just outside the house, and off to the south is a deaf, dumb and blind beggar.  Kicking the beggar gets you points if you're first level, but giving him the potatoes is more valuable: the potatoes turn to into gold and can be dropped in the swamp.  This is another thing I usually do early, as long as I can find the beggar.  Near the potato garden is a flower bed with some herbs.  I didn't know what to with them, but a mysterious voice told me I should smoke them.  I was already off chasing another lead by the time this mystery person spoke, but I'll have to go back and check this out.

Punching down.  Way down.

South-east of the house is a dark cave that I finally got around to exploring.  It has a bunch of interesting features: a sacrificial altar, a "sleeping beauty", and an idol with a ruby for an eye.  Kissing sleeping beauty wakes her up, and earns some points.  The altar is a mystery, but I'm thinking of capturing an animal and doing a sacrifice.  I was stumped by the ruby eye, until another mysterious voice hinted that I should WORSHIP the idol.  This loosened the ruby, which I was able to swamp for more points.  There's more to do here: a gate leads further in, but is impassable without a second player, and there's also a cave guarded by a sleeping ogre that crushed me when I tried to pass by.

The bulk of my playing time was spent exploring the areas around the bottom of the waterfall.  In the house I had found a scroll with the following clue:

From beneath the crystal curtain,

Salt to west and hard to cross,

Go south to the death so certain,

Though follow me and have no loss...

South again, the danger stronger,

Once more, or you feel the spray,

Travel on that way no longer,

Southeast, else you slip away.

I figured that this referred to the waterfall and the slippery rocks, and I used the clue to make my way through to a sheltered inlet where I found a coracle.  It looks like I'll be able to use this to get across to the wrecked ship I can see in the ocean, but I haven't tried yet, as I was really set on fully exploring the goblin caves behind the waterfall.

The first thing I discovered was a use for the conch that's lying just behind the waterfall.  Blowing into it causes a slight reverberation.  At the top of the stairs behind the waterfall there's a Reverberating Room.  Blowing the conch opens a hole in the wall to a Fossil Room, but the only things I found in there were a skeleton (which I was now able to kill being 3rd level) and a finger bone.

From there I descended to the goblin caves, but before delving right in I explored a few side passages.  One led to an underground river, where I found a platinum sphere.  Another led to a cannon.  Now that I write it out I can see that the sphere can probably be fired from the cannon, so that's something else to try.

On my previous trip to the goblin caves I had found their treasure room, which contained a bracelet, a gold plate and a silver flute.  The only way out was through a locked door though, and I had no key, so I'd had to quit rather than making my escape with the treasure.  This time, I wanted to explore the caves fully, so I rampaged around killing goblins with impunity.  While I was there I met a friendly adventurer, who gave some helpful hints, including one that typing OUT is usually a good way to get back to familiar territory.  I didn't try it, because I wanted to keep exploring, but I'll keep it in mind.

Slaughtering goblins.

I found my way through to another staircase, which led to a Guard Room.  The room was unoccupied, but I did find an axe, a rolled up carpet, and a die.  I tried unrolling the carpet, but all this did was decrease its value.  Rolling the die caused its value to vary: the higher the number rolled, the more it was worth.

The stairs continued deeper, but at that point I was whisked away, magically summoned to the mausoleum by another player called Lux the Legend, who tried to kill me.  I quickly fled, dropping all of my stuff, and was able to escape.  I also lost a few hundred points, but it was better than dying; the Legend rank is higher than I had reached, and I wasn't going to win.  At that point I quit, further along than I had been but not as far as I'd hoped to be.

I wouldn't say that I'm an experienced player of MUD1, but I feel like I'm starting to grasp what it's about, and what playing it at its height might have been like.  I imagine it as something of a mad scramble to beat other players to the various things that can increase your score, and a fairly chaotic game experience.  Being almost murdered by a fellow player was frustrating, but also exciting.  The unpredictability of online multiplayer gaming has its downsides, but it can create a gaming experience that single player games just can't.

ADDENDUM:

While I was getting screen shots for this post, I tried smoking the herb and lost about 700 points, dropping me back to first level.  My enthusiasm for this game has somewhat lessened.

MUD1: Wading In Once More

Thought I was dead, didn't you?

I am in fact very much alive, and ready to resume blogging. Over the last year I've had a hellishly long commute to work, and I haven't had the time or the mental energy for writing.  But due to certain very positive changes in my life that commute is gone, and I'm able to resume blogging.  I can't guarantee that I'll stick to any kind of decent schedule - because when have I ever - but for the moment I'm back, and I'm ready to continue exploring MUD1.

To be honest, though, when it comes to MUD1 I wasn't exactly looking forward to starting up again.  It's not that it's a bad game, but it is a nebulous one that has little in the way of concrete goals.  It's more of an environment to facilitate multiplayer interaction rather than a single player experience, so I'm struggling to find the motivation to play it.  I like a game with an end point.  I suppose I'll have to set my own goals to decide when I'm done with MUD1, but for now I'm not sure what those are.  Maybe I'll just explore it until I run out of interesting things to find.

In an attempt to finish MUD1 as quickly as I could, I went looking for a walkthrough or a guide.  I didn't find one, but I did find the following map on the website of Richard Bartle, MUD1's co-creator:

I've explored pretty much all of the large eastern area, but I haven't managed to get to the shipwreck or the island to the west.  I'd like to check them out before I give up.

Running from north to south, here are some points of interest to be found:

• There are some ruins at the far north of the map.  The only thing I've found there is a "silvery cord" which is actually the web of a giant spider, which will gruesomely kill you if disturbed.
• The jetty has no boat, but it does have an empty lobster pot.
• There's a railway line that cuts across the entire landmass, from the beach to the mine entrance.  About halfway along the track a golden bolt is embedded, but I haven't been able to lever it out.
• The mine is quite large, and a light source is needed to explore it.  The only light I've found so far is made by setting a branch on fire, but that lasts forever as far as I'm aware so I may not need another one.  Most of the mine is just empty tunnels, but I did find a valve that can be used to flood the whole complex, and a series of narrow tunnels that can only be navigated if you drop your entire inventory (light source included).  The most interesting find I made was an entrance to the Dwarf Realm, but I was killed by a dwarf very shortly after trying to enter.
• The mausoleum can be easily entered, though not so easily navigated. There are six tombs, and each one has a puzzle that must be solved before you can enter.  Rather than the more abstract, inventory-based puzzles that most adventure games go for, these are based on logic and mathematics, and I have no idea where to even begin.

Your guess is as good as mine.  Probably better, to be honest.

• The misty graveyard is full of headstones, each with a message of varying levels of relevance.  Once you enter it's impossible to escape unless you type OUT.
• At the front of the cottage there's a vegetable garden and a flower bed.  In the former there are usually potatoes, and in the latter a hyacinth and some herbs.  Off to the side of the cottage there's a gardener's shed, where I've found an axe and some keys.  As for the cottage itself, it has enough interesting features inside that I'm going to cover it in-depth below.
• Also not far from the cottage is a large yew tree.  It can be chopped down, exposing a series of tunnels underneath.  At the bottom there's a fancy temple.  I tried meditating and praying there, but all it did was put me to sleep for a while.
• There's a tunnel that leads from the beach, which can only be accessed by jumping from a cliff known as Lover's Leap.  The tunnel is blocked by a grate that's too heavy for me to move alone.
• Also at the bottom of Lover's Leap is the base of a waterfall.  Behind the falls there are some tunnels.  I found a lever there that dumped me into an underground complex that was full of goblins.  I managed to fight my way through two of their lairs, and found a chamber that was loaded with treasure.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to find a way out, but the good news is that I was able to quit the game without my character being erased.  So I couldn't get the treasure, but I also don't have to start with a new guy.
• Off to the east of the river is a swamp.  You can dump treasures into the swamp as a way of scoring points, which so far I've done with a parasol and a winged stallion.  (Yep, I totally Artax'ed a pegasus, and I don't feel bad about it at all.)

I have no regrets.

• There are a bunch of things in the large forest to the south: a mysterious sundial; a birdbath; a badger's home, complete with badger that tries to claw your face off; a tree with a golden apple.  There's also a shrine, at which I just tried to meditate, only to be told that "there isn't sufficient meditation going on elsewhere to provide the psychic energy to meditate in such a small shrine as this".

The cottage lies at the centre of the map, and has the highest concentration of interesting features.  I couldn't cover them all in a single paragraph, so I'm breaking them up as follows.

• In the bathroom there's some medicine.  I think I know where to use this, which I'll discuss below.
• Halfway up the stairs there's a ghostly voice reciting A.A. Milne, which is yet another mystery I haven't solved.
• In an upstairs bedroom there's a rattle.  Every time you shake it your score increases, but only so long as you're at the lowest rank.  More on this below.
• I've barely explored the cellar, because it's completely overrun with giant rats.  They're not too difficult to defeat on their own, but as far as I can tell, there's a never-ending supply of the buggers down there.  Once I develop a stronger character with a better weapon I plan to try and wipe them all out.
• In the study there's a bookcase that leads to a secret tunnel, where a zombie guards a rune-covered door.  The zombie can be killed in battle, although it takes a while.  The runes should be avoided, as reading them causes a fatal explosion.  Knocking on the door, however, whisks you into a sorcerer's laboratory, with all sorts of weird objects: a potion, a black cat, an oracle, a crystal, an amulet, a looking glass and a stethoscope.  I've barely scratched the surface of this stuff, but there's a book in the study that gives clues as to their respective purposes (as well as a warning about the exploding runes, and a hint about knocking on the door).  It seems that the potion and the medicine mixed together will do something, but I haven't been able to try this yet.   The clue regarding the cat tells me to "do as my curiosity directs", which I guess means I have to try to kill it?  The oracle, it seems, can be used to locate items.  The crystal, if sniffed, will change your gender.  The amulet can be used to force other players to take an action.  Finally, the looking glass seemingly has the power to let you spy on other players.  I have no idea about the stethoscope.  I tried just now to do some experimenting with all of these items, but a player named Good the Sorceress had scooped them all up before I got there.

There's a lot more to this game than what I've detailed above, as it's full of small details that serve to make it come alive as a dynamic environment.  There are animals that wander about, such as a seagull that's currently moving in and out of the area my character is idling in as I write this blog.  It rains occasionally.  Other players can be seen wandering around.  And of course, there are monsters: a skeleton, rats, a zombie, a dryad, dwarves, goblins, and more I'm probably forgetting.

As in a number of early text adventures, such as Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork, these monster can be engaged and defeated in combat.  So far I haven't discovered any tactics that can be used: it's just a matter of typing FIGHT or KILL, and watching the results slowly scroll by until one combatant is dead.  The main survival method is to flee, which is easy enough but results in you dropping your entire inventory.  It's better than dying though.

Backhanding a Zombie to death.

Death in this game is odd, in that sometimes it's permanent and sometimes it isn't.  If you're killed by a monster in battle, your character is dead and gone forever.  Other deaths, such as the explosive runes I mentioned above, are a temporary setback, as they don't result in your character being erased, just stripped of items and sent back to the start of the game.  I'm not sure what happens if you're murdered by another player, or if that's even possible.

The game does have a system for leveling up, which is tied to your score.  You begin as a Novice, with a score of zero.  Once your score reaches 400, you become a Warrior, which is the highest rank I've achieved so far.  Usually, I do this by using the rattle: every time you shake it you gain two points.  It only works while you're a novice though, so you can't use it to progress further than one level.  Shaking the rattle 200 times can get tedious, but thankfully your commands stay typed in after you hit enter, so you only have to type it once and then hit enter repeatedly.  Whatever you do, though, don't hold down the enter key to speed things up; you'll hit 400 points quicker, but you'll also have to endure like 20 minutes of messages that scroll by afterwards.  It ain't worth it.  (I was also reminded that you can do the same thing by repeatedly kicking a deaf, dumb and blind beggar.  I guess you can pick which if the two is more fun for you?)

In addition to a level, your character has stats: Strength, Stamina and Dexterity.  These are randomised for each character, but my current guy has scores of 60, 52 and 38 respectively.  Upon becoming a Warrior, all three of these stats increased by 10.  There's also an inventory limit of five items, which increased to six when I leveled up.

The only other thing to talk about is the multiplayer aspect, which I've had a couple of experiences with.  Mostly it results in the odd sighting of other players wandering about, and in items being relocated from place to place.  Fairly often I've gone to pick something up and found that it's not where I thought it would be.  Several times I've seen said item being carried around by someone else.  Once a character even stole an item right out of my inventory.

I've only ever had one extensive interaction, with a player named Saruman.  He explained the rattle to me, and a bunch of other stuff that I'd forgotten until going back over my game logs.  At one point he asked me to follow him, so that I could help him raise a portcullis.  At another, just as I was exploring beneath the yew tree, he used a spell to summon me to his location.  It was somewhere in the Dwarf Realm (I think) and it had a magic button that could be used to reset the world back to its default state.  The whole time we were playing simultaneously I could hear things he was doing: a dragon dying, a cannon being fired, various other screams and shrieks.  He was very helpful, actually, and it was nice to actually experience this part of the game.

So that's my current status on MUD1: still finding new things, and thus not yet giving up and moving on.  With my current schedule, my goal is to update once a week, so hopefully I'll be back with more of MUD1 next Saturday.  Given my blogging history it's unlikely, but miracles can happen.

Game 25: MUD1 (1978)

After that little detour into Richard Garriot's DND1, it's time to get back to my regular schedule with the similarly-named MUD1.  MUD1 (which stands for Multi-User Dungeon) was created by a student named Roy Trubshaw in 1978 at the University of Essex, on a DEC PDP-10 mainframe (with development later handed over to another student, Richard Bartle, in 1980).  Trubshaw had been a fan of Zork, and indeed MUD1 was named after that game when its original title was Dungeon.  And much like Zork, it's a hugely influential part of gaming history.

While it's not the first multi-player game (I've already covered a few in the course of the blog, including Orthanc, Moria and Oubliette ), it is the first to be completely text-based, in the same style as Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork.  It inspired a whole genre of similar games, called MUDs after their progenitor.  I don't think I'll be playing those, as single-player games are really my bread-and-butter.  I was curious about the first one, though, as it's of extremely high significance.  Perhaps I can be swayed on some of the others.

The original game was shut down in 1987, so obviously I'm not playing that one.  The version that I'm playing is the one hosted at https://www.british-legends.com/CMS/, which was ported to modern platforms in 2000 by a fellow named Viktor Toth.  I don't know how accurate it is to the original, but that's a problem with all of these mainframe-based games.  They underwent constant development, and the originals are most likely lost to the ages.  It's sad, but we make do with what we have.  It's great that the game is available in any form, really.

MUD1 starts with a rather familiar premise: you must explore a fantastical land (called The Land, which might be a nod to Stephen Donaldson's Thomas Covenant series, though it's generic enough to be a coincidence), and collect treasures.  These treasures must be dropped into a swamp to score points, which doesn't make a lot of sense, but I can roll with it.  Nearly every text adventure I've played for the blog has this "plot", so it's something comforting for me to cling to in this terrifying multi-player world.

After some preamble where you have to give yourself a name and a gender, the game opens in an Elizabethan Tearoom, quite cozily described, with exits in all directions.  I've watched my son play a load of Fortnite recently, and I guess that this room is analogous to the "lobby" in that and other more modern games. (Yes, I'm an old man who doesn't do on-line gaming, isn't that obvious yet?)

The "lobby" of MUD1.  Another player named Scrofula entered and left while I was getting a screenshot.

I headed north, emerging in a dense forest, and proceeded with my usual method of mapping out the locations and interesting items and landmarks.  The first thing I was struck by is the descriptive quality of the writing.  After the terse adventure games on home computers of this vintage, and the garbled English of The Cottage, this was a massive relief.  The game has a real sense of place and logical design, and just feels more "real" than almost any other game I've played so far.  It's also very good about describing what you can see in the distance. Only Zork evoked something similar, so I can see why a lot of people spent their time here.

It's also a lot more dynamic than its contemporaries.  Creatures roam about the land: a viper, a rabbit, dryads, and others.  It rains occasionally.  I don't know if these elements are puzzles or just background detail, but they add to the sense of a virtual world.  I've been attacked and killed by the dryad, and poisoned by the snake when I tried to pick it up, so it's likely that they're obstacles I need to overcome or avoid.

I spent about two hours exploring and mapping, and I get the sense that there's still a lot that I haven't seen.  Here are some of the more interesting landmarks:

• A rusted railway track, with hints that it leads to an old mine.  I found a golden bolt in a section of track, which is probably a treasure.
• A maze-like pine forest, with a whole load of interesting areas.  For reasons I'll get into, this wasn't as difficult to map as the mazes in some other adventures have been.
• A bandstand deep in the pine forest, with a conductor's baton and a parasol.
• An empty birdbath in the pine forest.
• The entrance to a badger's den.  I tried to enter, but something clawed my face and forced me to retreat.  There's a lucky rabbit's foot on the ground nearby.
• An apple tree  in the pine forest, complete with golden apple.
• A jetty, with an empty lobster pot.  There's no boat there, but the game does suggest that I'll need one if I'm to go on the water.
• A mausoleum overgrown with moss.
• An onyx statuette of a lion, featuring a message telling me that I should drop it in the "forest of death".
• A shrine in the pine forest.  The description suggested that I ought to meditate there, which I'll definitely do once my initial explorations are done with.
• A sundial in the pine forest.
• A goat tied up in a pasture.
• A blind, deaf, and dumb beggar.
• An ebony staff found on a stony beach.
• A misty graveyard, which I got lost in.  Wandering around it I saw a lot of random gravestones, with messages that give hints as to various puzzles and dangers in the game.  I'll need to take more notice of them when I go back there.

It's plenty to go on already, but I suspect that the game has a lot more to offer than that.  It's standard adventure game fare, but the quality of the writing lifts it above the norm.  I'm intrigued by a lot of this stuff in a way that I haven't been by most of the adventure games I've played for the blog.

Mechanically the game is very solid as well.  I'm yet to have any parser issues (though I'm in mapping mode at the moment, so I haven't tried a lot).  It has one innovative command that I've found really useful: if you enter X, it gives a list of the area's exits as well as their destinations.  It's somewhat mitigated by the game using the same title for a lot of areas (I've encountered 11 different versions of "Dense Forest" so far), but it's still a large boon to mapping, and was really helpful for me in the pine forest.  I hope it's something that catches on as adventure games develop.

The only mechanical thing I'm a little annoyed with is combat.  You can initiate it with any other creature, and it cycles through various attack and their results until one side is dead, or you interrupt it with a command.  It's not that bad, and the ability to run away is a real help, but the problem is that other creatures can attack you as well.  Twice now I've been set upon and killed by a dryad while trying to map the woods.  I prefer adventure games without random elements, if possible.

The only other thing to talk about is the presence of other people in the game.  Early on I encountered someone called "Salacious the Witch", who wandered around and gave me a bunch of hints.  At first I thought she was part of the game, so I ignored her, but I'm pretty sure now that she was another player.  Later on, when I was lost in the graveyard, someone named "Scorpio" started trying to engage with me.  He said "hi", and I ignored him.  He teleported to my location somehow, and I continued to ignore him.  He tried to give me hints about why I was lost.  He handed me a rattle.  At that point, I quit the game.

To be honest, I found it a bit unnerving.  I don't like on-line games, and stuff like this is why.  He was just trying to be friendly, but I wasn't interested.  I just wanted to play on my own, you know?  In games, as in life, I just want to be left the fuck alone.  So sorry Scorpio, I was probably very rude.  I don't say hello to people when I walk past them at work, either.  I understand that for a lot of people this was probably the main attraction of the game, but I just want to solve puzzles and explore in solitude.  I get more than enough human interaction in real life.

Aside from the unwelcome intrusions of Real Humans, I've enjoyed MUD1 a lot so far.  It's a well-crafted environment that's fun to explore.  I'm not sure if it holds up as a game, but I'll find out once I start tackling some puzzles.  You know, as long as too-helpful people stay out of my way.

DND1: Played

Normally, my final post for a game would be titled with some variation of Victory, possibly modified with punctuation to indicate how emphatic said victory was.  DND1 has no victory state though, and to be honest I've rather more abandoned playing it than finished it.  The last month has been a hectic, life-changing one to say the least, and my limited gaming time has been given over to games rather more accessible and enjoyable than this one.  (Sorry, Mr. Garriott.)

I had said in the last post that I was going to explore the equipment options and spells that I had yet to get to.  I tried, but none of them seemed to work.  I had thought that the cross might damage undead, or that I might be able to attack with oil flasks, but for whatever reason those options didn't work.  I may have been doing it wrong, or it could just be that those functions weren't implemented yet.  Likewise, I had no success in getting spells to work.  Of the cleric spells, I only had success with those for detecting traps and secret doors.  For magic-users, I had no success at all.  Again, I'm not sure where the fault lies there.

So, in the interests of moving on from what should really have been a one post game, I'm going to wrap things up and give DND1 a Final Rating.  Before I get into it, it should be noted that this game was never intended for public consumption.  It wasn't a commercial release, and it wasn't played by students on a mainframe.  Perhaps it isn't fair to rank it against such games, but in the interests of being comprehensive I'm still going to do so.

FINAL RATING:

Story & Setting: The game has neither, which is pretty much a given when you take its origins into account.  The dungeon is a generic collection of rooms and corridors, and the only story is the protagonists purposeless quest for gold and power.  Calling it basic would be an overstatement.  Rating: 1 out of 7.

Characters & Monsters: There are no characters, but a decent selection of D&D monsters: orcs, skeletons, trolls, balrogs, etc.  The monsters have very little to differentiate them, however, so I can't rate it highly.  Rating: 1 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The problem here is that, this being a browser-based recreation of DND1 rather than the game itself, we have no way of knowing what the original actually looked like.  One of the versions I played featured ASCII art with a top-down display, and the other featured a graphical interface that emulated a teletype machine.  The second one was probably more accurate to the original, and what little I played of it was a bit of a nightmare, as the map wasn't permanently shown.  Either way, the game has little visual appeal.  Rating: 1 out of 7.

What the game might have looked like on a teletype.

Mechanics: There's a lot to like here, and a lot that seemed like it should have worked but didn't.  It has the basics of D&D all there: classes, ability scores, monsters, spells, and a good selection of gear.  It begins a decent little dungeon-crawler, with some neat touches like the ability to lead monsters into traps.  After a while, though, the monsters start dying instantly for no reason, and my inability to get the spells to work hurt it as well.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Challenge: It's often hard to rate a game in this category when it doesn't have a goal as such.  For DND1 I suppose that goal is to become strong enough to survive in the dungeon, and that's not at all difficult.  The game is quite easy, and made easier by whatever it is that starts mysteriously killing monsters.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Innovation & Influence: This is where this game is going to shine.  In terms of innovation, it's interesting in that it stands apart from the two main lineages of 70s CRPGs (the top-down line started by pedit5 and DND, and the first-person line of Moria and Oubliette).  It bears the most resemblance to the pedit5/DND lineage, but it's quite obvious that it was originated by someone who hadn't played them, and was just trying to recreate Dungeons & Dragons.  Pretty much everything it does has been done elsewhere in 1970s RPGs (except using traps against monsters), but it does them all in its own way.  As for influence, being the first game by Richard Garriott nets it a high score automatically.  Though virtually nobody else ever saw it at the time, it was the beginning of a line that eventually spawned Akalabeth and Ultima, and that's a huge deal.  Rating: 7 out of 7.

Fun: I had a small amount of fun with this game; it's a good one to play when you have a quick ten minutes to kill, as a dungeon delve rarely lasts all that long.  In the end, though, there's not a lot to it, and I ran out of things to discover about it fairly quickly.  It's more of a historical curiosity than an enjoyable game to play.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

DND1 doesn't get the bonus point, as I don't think I'll ever play it again.  The above scores total 16, which doubled gives a Final Rating of 32.  That places it equal 7th on the CRPG list, with Dungeon Campaign and Space.  The only game lower is The Game of Dungeons v8.0, which is a better game but one I grew to hate a great deal over the year that I played it.

ADDENDUM:

Somewhat later in this blog I made the decision to overhaul my Final Rating system, so I'm going back through and fixing all of the games I've already played as of March 2020.  I've ditched the Innovation and Influence category, and replaced it for CRPGs with a category for Combat.  I've also changed the purpose of the bonus points, saving them for games that are important, innovative, influential, or have features that are otherwise not covered by my other categories.

Also, the Final Rating is a boring name.  The CRPG Addict has his GIMLET.  The Adventure Gamers have their PISSED rating.  Data Driven Gamer has his harpoons.  So I'm ditching the generic name and calling my new system the RADNESS Index: the Righteous Admirability Designation, Numerically Estimating Seven Scores. It's a pretentious mouthful, but I'm going with it.

Combat: If everything in this game had been functional this one might have scored better, but as it is the combat boils down to the combatants taking turns to hit each other.  Rating: 1 out of 7.

Bonus Points: 1.  It's tempting to give this the full 2 points as Richard Garriott's first ever game, but despite its historical interest it would only have been played by a handful of his close acquaintances.

DND1 has a RADNESS Index of 21. That puts it second from the bottom, and makes it the lowest-rated CRPG.  In many ways, though, this game was a work in progress.

NEXT: I suppose I'll restart MUD1, and actually post about it this time, unless some other lost classic from the 70s pops out of the woodwork.

Game 24: DND1 (1977)

I know, I said that the next game I played would be MUD1, but instead I'm taking a little side-trip into 1977 to play a CRPG called DND1.  I'll be back to my regularly scheduled games soon enough, but for reasons you'll soon understand I couldn't resist checking this one out.

The title screen, such as it is.

In the annals of video game history there are many missing pieces, particularly from the days before the internet was a thing, and even more particularly from the days before commercially released games were a thing.  One of those missing pieces was DND1, the earliest work of Richard Garriott.  I gather most of you will be familiar with Garriott's Ultima series.  It's one of the primary CRPG series of the 1980s, and every bit as revolutionary as its reputation states.  Before Ultima, his first published game was Akalabeth in 1979, but before Akalabeth he wrote 27 different versions of a game he called DND.  Akalabeth was actually the 28th in that series, and for the longest time it seemed as though versions 1 through 27 were lost to the ages.

Well, that's what everyone thought, until Garriott unearthed his original code for DND1 back in 2014, and released it to the community for his current project, Shroud of the Avatar.  This was done as part of a competition, in which he asked the community to create versions of the code that would be easily playable today.  The community came through, Garriott awarded the winners with various prizes, and now the rest of us can play the game as well.  You can apparently play DND1 on a recreated teletype as part of Shroud of the Avatar, but of more use to most people is the browser version that can be found here: https://www.kirith.com/dnd1/.

Garriott was about 16 years old when he created DND1.  He'd already been coding for a while on the teletype he had access to at high school.  The teletype he used, as I understand it, was a sort of typewriter terminal that could communicate with a mainframe computer via an acoustic modem.  Garriott had been teaching himself how to write BASIC code on it as part of his school curriculum, and his father made a deal with him: if he could make a working RPG on the teletype, he would help him buy an Apple II home computer.  Obviously, Garriott succeeded.

When the game opens, it asks if you want instructions.  The instruction file isn't included as part of the code, so you need to enter "NO" or you'll be booted from the game with a somewhat rude message.  It then asks if you want to start a new game, or continue a game in progress. Again, this early save feature wasn't implemented in this version.  After that the game gives you a choice of dungeons, numbered 1 through 6.  Here's the most unfortunate part of this recreated game: the original source code references separate dungeon files, so the ones in the recreation aren't Garriott's originals.  It's a shame; I was hoping there might be some little nods to later Ultima lore within the level design.  (It's not entirely impossible.  Garriott was an early player of Dungeons & Dragons, having started in 1974, and his original games were supposedly set in Sosaria.)

After choosing a dungeon, the following is displayed: "Continues Reset (1)=Yes (2)=No".  I never figured out what this means.  I might have to poke around in the code and see if anything presents itself.  You then need to type a name, but for reasons I can't fathom the game only allows the name SHAVS.  Type in any other name, and the game ends, with the same rude message as before.

The game then generates your stats, with the same basic array as Dungeons & Dragons: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Wisdom, Intelligence.  I assume that Strength allows you to fight better, Dexterity gives you a bonus with missiles (and maybe defense), and Constitution gives you more hit points.  It's not clear what Intelligence and Wisdom are for, although perhaps they might influence spell-casting.  As for Charisma, in a game that features no interaction with other characters I have no idea.  Starting hit points tend to range from 10 to 20, in my experience.

You can choose to be a Fighter, a Cleric or a Wizard, the three character classes from the original D&D rules.  Fighters can use all weapons and armour, but cast no spells.  Wizards can only wield daggers, and wear leather armour, but they get the most spells.  Clerics are kind of halfway between, being limited in weapon choice to the mace, and having less spells than the Wizard.

You begin the game with 1,000 gold to spend.  The equipment list has a number of weapons (sword, mace, dagger, spear), some armour (leather, chain, plate (misspelt as "TLTE instead of PLTE"), and some miscellaneous gear like rope, spikes, flasks of oil, and a silver cross.  As you'll see, loading up on spikes is vital to surviving for any length of time.  You can also buy Mjolnir, if you feel like blowing almost your entire savings on one thing.

Buying equipment.

 The game then begins, with the surrounding dungeon displayed by ASCII characters.  The player is represented by the number 9, while monsters are number 5.  Walls are marked with an asterisk, while doors use the number 4.  It took me a little while to figure out what was what through trial and error, but soon enough I was tooling around the dungeon killing monsters and collecting treasure.

The game has 11 commands, each activated by entering the relevant number.  For instance, to move you need to enter 1, and then the direction: (L)eft, (R)ight, (U)p or (D)own.  Doors are pushed open with their own command, though you can bash straight through them with regular movement as well.  Moving into walls and doors isn't recommended though, because occasionally it results in a lost hit point.  Having to press two keys for every movement can be a little annoying, but it's a thing you get used to pretty quickly.

I'm the '9'.  You can see a monster just above me ('5') and a number of doors ('4s').  The Os are treasure chests.

The Search command looks for traps and secret doors in the areas surrounding the character, but it's not always successful.  The Look command displays the dungeon surroundings, in a similar way to the window that's under the input bar in the version I played.  I suspect that on the original teletype machine this was the only way of knowing your surroundings.  For an idea of what it might have been like, there's a possibly more authentic version here: http://slashie.net/dnd1/dnd1.html.  I didn't discover it until just an hour or so ago, so I'll need to have a go to see how different it feels.

The later options are for spells, which you need to buy during the game.  Each spell you buy can be cast once before it disappears, but you can buy multiples of each.  They cost from 75gp for Push (which opens doors, I assume), up to 1,000gp for Cure Light #2 (a healing spell, I guess).  I'm a little vague on the spells, because I haven't used them much.  The main one I've been casting is Detect Secret Doors, which gives you the coordinates of any secret door in your immediate vicinity (i.e. within range of the Look command).  I haven't even been able to get any of the Wizard spells to work; every time I cast one nothing happens.  I'll have to investigate further.

The final option on the list is to Buy Hit Points, which you can do at a cost of 200gp for each point.  This is the only part of DND1 that has an obvious link to Ultima, where you gain hit points by paying tribute to Lord British (at least in the first few games).  In D&D you gain experience points for finding treasure, and those experience points allow you to grow more powerful.  Here, Garriott just cuts out the middleman.  It's similar to how The Game of Dungeons did it, but I gather that Garriott hadn't played any other CRPGs before creating this one.

Treasure can be found in chests, which might be trapped with poison.  The poison only knocks off a few hit points, so it's no big deal.  Monsters also drop gold when you kill them.  In addition to standard treasure, you can find "strange vapours", which will increase one of your stats by 1 point.  The treasure chests are always in the same place on the maps, but the vapours are placed at random.

Combat with monsters is pretty simple.  You just press 5 when you're standing next to one to attack, with the monster attacking when you're done.  Or better yet, you can equip a bow, and shoot from a distance.  It even allows you to shoot through walls, and hit any monster that's visible on the screen.  You can do the same thing with Mjolnir, which usually results in an instant kill.  Obviously, there were still some bugs to be sorted out.  I've encountered a decent variety of monsters: men, goblins, trolls, skeletons, balrogs, gnomes, kobolds and mummies.  I haven't noticed any significant differences between them, though I'd say that trolls take the most damage to kill.  One thing I've noticed is that there's never more than one monster at a time on the map.  There's a message when a monster spawns, and if you don't find it in time it will slink off into the shadows, to be replaced by another shortly thereafter.

There are also traps, in the form of pits.  Before you figure things out, these are by far the deadliest part of the game.  If you land on one (and they're not indicated on the map) you might take a small amount of damage, but that's not a problem.  If you don't have any spikes though, it's an instant death, as you have no way to climb back out.  And even then, climbing out is only automatic if you have a rope as well.  Basically, I load up with about twenty spikes before every adventure, because without them you're toast.

The pits aren't all bad though.  You can kill monsters by luring them into traps, which has to be a first, and a legitimate surprise to me the first time it happened.  Little touches like that are the things I love in early CRPGs.

Luring a goblin into a pit trap.

Aside from the pits, though, the game isn't super deadly.  There's only ever one monster on the map, so you can't be overwhelmed by numbers.  Admittedly I rarely last long as a Wizard, but when playing a Fighter I hardly ever die.  Eventually, though, the game gets to a point where you can't lose.  I'm not sure if it's a bug, but after a while the monsters just start dying instantly, and when they do you get their treasure.  My gold was increasing by a few hundred with every move, which allowed me to keep increasing my hit points at a pretty quick rate.  Not that I needed to, there was nothing to attack me.

So far, I'd say that DND1 is more of a historical curiosity than an enjoyable game.  There's no point to it beyond the accruement of gold, and it's always a negative for me when a game doesn't have any sort of goal.  I'm going to play it a few more times to test out the spells, and some of the items on the equipment list, but I should be back pretty shortly to wrap this one up.