Back-Tracking: Beneath Apple Manor (1978)

Some years ago I played through Beneath Apple Manor, one of the earliest commercially available CRPGs (and possibly the first ever).  It's something of a proto-Roguelike, and as I recall it was a tight, replayable game that I enjoyed quite a bit.  It scored a 41 on the RADNESS Index, and it's still the third-highest ranked CRPG on the blog so far, so it must have been doing something right.

At the time, in my hurry to move on, I didn't bother trying very hard to complete it on the highest difficulty level.  At the time I was just allowing myself some respite from the endless labour of the PLATO CRPGs, and the prospect of moving forward with my list was too enticing. I had no time to waste on perfecting the games I played, I had to move on to, uhhhh, Space.  Well, they weren't all winners.

Leaving that difficulty level unbeaten has been just one of the things bothering me about the blog, so I decided to go back and have a proper crack at it.  After all, I have the time right now.  My first thought upon firing up Beneath Apple Manor was that I had vastly overrated it.  It's the sort of thing that tends to happen in the early days of a project, before things are nailed down. But gradually I figured out the systems again, and I'm pleased to say that I think I got it right the first time. It's still fun, and it only took me a few tries to beat difficulty level 5 as a practice run.

I'm lazy, so I recycled this screen shot from five years ago.

Difficulty level 10 is another story altogether.  The goal of Beneath Apple Manor is to delve into the dungeons beneath Apple Manor and find the fabled golden apple.  You fight monsters along the way and build your stats, as in most CRPGs.  The apple doesn't appear until your stats are high enough, and balancing the activities that drain your stats (like fighting monsters) with raising them through spending XP is a big part of the game.  Level 10 makes that really hard by making the monsters very, very difficult to defeat.

The original version of the game has five monsters.  It starts with slimes,  that are pretty weak but can damage your armour, and ghosts, which drain your strength score and can only be hurt with magic.  From there it moves up to Trolls (with the ability to regenerate their hit points), Purple Worms (high hit points and high damage) and Dragons (really high damage, but lower in hit points).  On most difficulty levels it's not that hard to beat the starting monsters, but on level 10 even a fight with one lowly slime is no guaranteed thing.

On easier difficulty levels it had been my standard practice to clear out every level, find every treasure chest, and kill every monster.  I had to change that for level 10, and instead of clearing everything I started using hit and run tactics.  If I found a chest, I'd hightail it back to the stairs.  If I encountered a monster, I'd also run back to the stairs and descend to the next level; the levels descend infinitely so it doesn't matter if you skip one entirely.  They generate based on your stats as well, so they don't get any harder until you've grown stronger.  There are ways to avoid combat, by listening at doors, using the X-Ray spell to reveal your surroundings, and using the teleport spell in real emergencies.  It was slow going.

Much like tabletop D&D, you gain experience points from finding gold as well as winning fights, so I was still able to use these hit and run tactics to build my character's stats.  And eventually, after nearly two hours of painstaking advancement, I reached my goal.

You'll have to take my word for it that I didn't just recycle this
screenshot from five years ago.

While I was still in the zone with this game, I decided that I'd quickly cover the special edition, because checking out ports and alternate versions of games is something I do now.  So here's another "Port of Call", which I guess has become a regular feature.

PORT OF CALL - BENEATH APPLE MANOR SPECIAL EDITION (1982)

The Apple II version of the special edition was released in 1982, but for some reason the version that I found didn't work properly.  I can't remember why, and now that I'm testing it, it seems to work fine.  But anyway, it's a cracked version, so it's probably inauthentic in some way.  I went with the DOS port from 1983.  (Actually, according to mobygames this loaded as a boot disk, and didn't run through DOS at all. How that works with current-day DOSBox, I haven't the faintest idea.)

Are IBM-PC games allowed to look this good in 1983?

This one has a proper title screen, and even a nice rendition of Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King".  (I'm the sort of philistine that has more appreciation for a PC speaker version of this than a fully orchestral one; in many ways I'm like the anti-Chester.)  The graphics are greatly improved: instead of ASCII characters or coloured blocks, the characters are represented with icons, and the whole thing is much more pleasant to look at.

The game plays pretty much exactly as it did before, except for the inclusion of two new monsters: Invisible Stalkers and Vampires.  Invisible Stalkers have no icons, and their only special ability is that you can't see them; you have to figure out which direction they're attacking you from through trial-and-error.  Vampires have an icon with a cool Dracula cape-and-collar, and when they attack they drain your Intelligence.  Neither of these additions do much to make the game more difficult: they don't appear until around the same time as Purple Worms and Dragons, and they dish out far less damage than those two monsters.  The added variety is welcome though.

This level has a dragon, a vampire, and one chest. It's probably not
worth taking on that dragon, though.

It also has two new magic items.  The original game had magic swords and armour, a wand that cast the Zap spell at no cost to your intelligence, a wand that opened doors at no cost to your strength, potions that affected your stats, and a potion that wiped your memory (and your map).  The special edition adds magic boots that make it easier to sneak past monsters, and a potion of clairvoyance that makes it so you can see the entire dungeon level.  That potion's a good one, because it's permanent; once you get it, you can see every dungeon level from the start and plan your path out accordingly.  I had that potion for the screenshot above.

Using the same hit and run tactics, I was able to beat this version on difficulty level 10 as well.  The new additions didn't require me to change my tactics, and to be honest the potion of clairvoyance actually made it a little easier.

Accurate for the time.

The ending of this one uses the same pun as the original, by making the "fabled golden apple" an Apple computer.  Then it pulls a swerve, and tells you it's something even better: a golden IBM PC!  A little bit of my tribalistic, Apple-hating heart was warmed by this.  (Don't worry, I'm being cured of my irrational anti-Apple bias by this blog; the Apple II is obviously the best games machine of its era.)

Hold your horses mate, you've got a decade or so before you can brag
about anything.

As far as the RADNESS Index goes, I'd give this an extra point in Aesthetics, and also give it an extra point for the new monsters.  (I think I rated it too low in that category originally anyway.)  Taking away the bonus point, because this version lacks the historical significance of the original, it ends up with a RADNESS Index of 44.  It's the version to play, for sure.

NEXT: I'll play Greg Hassett's Enchanted Island over the weekend (a probable one-post game) and on Monday I may have a quick back-tracking post up on the graphic adventure versions of Scott Adams' first three games: Adventureland, Pirate Adventure and Mission Impossible.

Game 8: Beneath Apple Manor (1978)

Before I begin the post proper, I need to give special thanks to Chester over at The CRPG Addict.  Without his help I'd never have been able to find and play the original version of Beneath Apple Manor.  So kudos to you good sir, your help is much appreciated.  Now let's get on with it, shall we?

The front cover art.  Someone got the set square 
out for this one.

Beneath Apple Manor is probably the first commercial CRPG, so I've decided to play it early on in my list of games from 1978.  (Besides. I really wanted to play the first commercial adventure game and CRPG back-to-back).  It was programmed by Don Worth, and published by The Software Factory.  Worth is a significant figure in the history of Apple computers: he wrote the book Beneath Apple DOS, which exposed the inner workings of Apple's operating system, and became an essential tool for programmers and hackers.  The Software Factory is less significant, it seems.  I can't find any information about them, possibly because they have a name that is almost impossible to google effectively.

The manual gives a short backstory to set up the game.  For three centuries the Apple family had ruled in Apple Manor, sending monsters out to terrorise the people and steal their wealth.  Now the family is dead, and the manor lies abandoned and gutted by fire.  Rumours abound that the source of the family's power was a golden apple.  Many have sought it in the tunnels below the manor, but few have survived the attempt, and none have succeeded.  (I'm not actually certain that this backstory was present in the original documentation.  The only manual I've been able to find is for the Special Edition rerelease.)

The first impression given by this game is impossible to avoid (at least in retrospect): it's very similar to Rogue, a massively influential game that it predates by two years.  It has the same randomly generated dungeon levels, the same macguffin-at-the-bottom-of-the-dungeon plot, and similarly - shall we say - "functional" graphics.  I'd hesitate to call it a true Rogue-like, though, as it doesn't have perma-death.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Rogue doesn't come out until 1980, and there'll be plenty of time for me to discuss that game when the time comes (probably because it's going to take me a hell of a long time to beat it).

Your character in Beneath Apple Manor has four stats: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity and Body.  There is no character generation, as every character begins with a score of 20 in each stat.  Your Strength determines how much damage you deal in combat, and how much gold you can carry.  Intelligence determines the effectiveness of your spells.  Dexterity is used to determine how accurate you are when attacking.  Body is simply your hit points, and when these reach zero you're dead.

There are various activities in the game that deplete these scores.  Strength is depleted by attacking monsters in melee, and if your Strength drops to zero you can't attack at all.  Your Intelligence drops whenever you use the Zap spell in combat.  I'm not certain, but I believe the amount of damage you deal affects the amount of Intelligence lost, and much like Strength if your Intelligence gets too low you can't cast spells until you rest.  Dexterity is depleted simply by moving around.  These scores can be restored by resting, which has a novel mechanic.  You use the number keys to rest, and the number chosen determines how many rounds you want to rest for.  The longer the rest the more your scores are restored, but the greater the chance you'll be attacked by a monster.  You can also press 0, which restores all of your scores to their maximum (except for Body), but runs a similar risk of monster attack.

Advancement comes via the accumulation of gold and experience points.  You gain a small amount of experience from defeating monsters, but most of it is awarded by finding gold.  Whenever you leave the dungeon you can choose to spend experience points to increase your four stats, at a rate of 10-to-1 (i.e. if you spend 1000 experience you can raise a stat by 100).  You'll need to increase your stats significantly to win the game, as the dungeon levels are generated based on how strong your character is, and the Golden Apple doesn't appear until you reach a certain power level.

The dungeon levels, as mentioned above, are randomly generated.  At the beginning of the game you can set the number of rooms per level, and also assign a difficulty rating of 1 to 10.  The levels contain monsters, of course, and chests that contain traps and treasure.  Once a level has been generated, though, it remains static, so you can continue to leave and return, making yourself stronger in the process, and the level doesn't scale up with you.  It just means that the next level will be that much tougher when it gets generated...  The square you start on contains the stairs back to town, where you can buy equipment, increase your stats, save your game, or head to a deeper dungeon level.

The levels are navigated by using the NESW keys, for North, South, East and West (you get used to it).  Doors can be bashed open by pressing B (another activity that drains Strength), and you can even (L)isten at a door to hear if there are monsters lurking behind.  There are also secret doors, which are discovered by pressing I for Inspect.

The game in Colour mode.  I'm the blue square.  Right next to me is a light 
purple Worm.  On the other side is a brown door, and the dark purple 
block beyond that is a Dragon.  This is not a good place to be.

There are five monsters in the game.  Originally I had some trouble identifying them, because when you play in Colour mode the monsters are represented by coloured blocks.  It was easy enough to figure that the green block was a slime, and the white block was a Ghost.  The red block was probably a Troll.  But what about the light purple block, and the dark purple one?  Matters were further complicated because I only had the manual for the Special Edition, which adds a few new monsters.  Eventually I figured out that if I play the game in black & white the monsters are represented by letters instead of colours, and the two mystery monsters were revealed: W for Purple Worm, and D for Dragon.  The Special Edition (which I'll do a post on eventually) adds Vampires and Invisible Stalkers, but thankfully I didn't have to deal with those in the original game.

The game in B&W mode.  The Y is me, the T is a Troll and the 
W is a Purple Worm.

The slimes are weak, with few hit points and a low damage range.  Ghosts can only be affected by a magic sword or the Zap spell, and their attacks permanently drain your Strength score.  They only drain 1 or 2 points at a time, and you can easily replenish your Strength by spending experience, but it is a nuisance.  Trolls, Worms and Dragons are all just big piles of hit points, each progressively stronger.  There's not a lot of variety to be had in fighting them, and combat is largely a matter of deciding between (A)ttacking with a melee weapon, or using your (Z)ap spell.  You can also (R)un away, but that causes you to drop your gold.  (Dropped gold instantly returns to the chest you found it in, so it can always be reclaimed.)

Having my Strength drained by a Ghost.

In addition to Zap the game has a small selection of spells, each of which costs Intelligence points to cast.  Heal restores your Body points (which aren't replenished by resting).  XRay reveals everything in a three-square radius, which is good for scouting.  Teleport moves you to a random spot in the dungeon.  It's good for escaping a tight spot, but like running it makes you lose all of the gold you're carrying.

You can upgrade your equipment, and there are magic items to be found in the dungeon chests.  You begin the game armed with a dagger, but you can spend gold to upgrade to an Axe or a Sword.  The best weapon is the Magic Sword, which you'll find in a chest eventually.  You can also buy armor, with Leather, Chain Mail and Plate available.  Again, there's Magic Armour to be found in the dungeon, which is the best defense available.  The chests also contain wands and potions.  Some of them will double one of your stats, but there are also cursed items that reduce a stat by half.

This is always welcome.

One of the best items is the Zap Wand, which allows you to cast Zap without losing any Intelligence.  There's also a wand that lets you open doors without losing Strength, and a potion that causes you to lose your memory.  The memory loss is represented by the disappearance of your dungeon map, which I thought was very clever.  There could be more items, but those are all the ones I discovered.

I had a lot more of the screen filled in before I drank this potion.  
I think there might have been whiskey in it?

Death in the game is not permanent: whenever your character dies you are reincarnated at the entry stairs of the current level, and you can keep retrying as often as you want.  Your stats will be reset to the last time you had a Brain Scan, which is the equivalent of a saved game.  When you're in town you can pay gold to have a Brain Scan, which saves your current stats.  The higher your stats, the more expensive it is to have a scan done.  If you haven't had a Brain Scan done your stats reset to the beginning (all 20) which is pretty much a death sentence on the deeper levels.  After so long playing PLATO CRPGs, which all delete your characters permanently when you die, using the Brain Scan almost felt like cheating.  I got over it quickly though.  It's a feature of the game, and I feel no shame in using it.

Getting drained to death by a Ghost.

With a decent amount of saving it's not difficult at all to win this game.  The toughest monsters (Worms and Dragons) start appearing when your stats get to approximately 100.  I had a habit of keeping my stats on an even footing, but there's nothing stopping you from pushing one stat sky-high and ignoring the rest; in that case I don't know when the endgame would begin.  But for me, the Golden Apple started to appear when my stats got to about 120.  I've encountered a fake Golden Apple, which blew up and killed me instantly.  Luckily, I had saved just minutes before.  Finding the real Golden Apple is something of an underwhelming experience.

Hitting enter takes you to the command prompt.  How I laughed!

Basically, it's a big old terrible pun.  The Golden Apple... is a computer!  Geddit?  An Apple computer!  I don't know what it is about vintage games, but they love getting self-referential.  The Game of Dungeons had monsters that were programmers.  Colossal Cave Adventure had a final area that was a storeroom for the various elements of the game.  In Adventureland you could wander inside a computer chip.  It's weird, but I suppose it's an accurate reflection of what the creators of these games were obsessed with..

I completed the game on difficulty level 1, and on level 5.  I had a crack at level 10, but I wasn't able to get too far.  Maybe one day, but for the moment I have too many other games to tackle.

So that's that: a one-post game!  A few more of these wouldn't go astray.  Time for the final rating.

FINAL RATING:

Story & Setting: The backstory described above is evocative enough, but like other CRPGs of this vintage it doesn't factor into the gameplay in any way.  The dungeon is just a collection of featureless rooms and corridors, and randomly generated at that.  It's functional, but it's not all that interesting.  Rating: 1.

Characters & Monsters: With just five monsters in the game, and nothing else to interact with, I can't rate this category highly.  The monsters aren't even particularly varied.  Rating: 1.

Aesthetics: The graphics are primitive, and not all that appealing.  It's either coloured blocks, or black & white ASCII characters, and neither looks very good.  I forgot to mention that the game has sound, and that's probably because I spent most of my time playing it with the sound turned off while listening to Turbonegro.  It's just beeps from the PC speaker every time you move or attack, and they got irritating after a minute or so.  Rating: 1.

Mechanics: It's a tight, simple game where everything serves a purpose, and every feature does what it's supposed to do.  Combat is a little simplistic, but the way that stat depletion ties into the gameplay is excellent, and I liked being able to choose which stats to advance when spending experience.  Rating: 5.

Challenge: I have to rate this game highly for its varying levels of difficulty.  It's dead simple on level 1, mildly challenging on level 5, and balls-hard on level 10, which feels exactly right.  Rating: 6.

Innovation & Influence: It's the first commercial CRPG, the first CRPG with a save game feature, and the stat depletion system is novel as well.  There's no doubt that this is going to score high.  Rating: 6.

Fun: Beneath Apple Manor is an enjoyable way to pass an hour or so if you happen to have a taste for prehistoric CRPGs.  It never wore out it's welcome for me, and to be honest I'd quite happily fire it up now and have a game right now.  Rating: 4.

I'm awarding this game the special bonus point, because I still want to play it; I never did beat it on difficulty level 10, after all.  With the scores above added up, and the bonus point as well, that gives a total of 25 out of 50.  Doubling that (because I'm anal and want my rating system to give a score out of 100) gives me a final rating of 50 out of 100.

Final Rating: 50 out of 100.

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: The combat in this game is extremely simplistic when considered on its own. The only actions available are Attack, Zap or Run.  The way your stats are depleted by combat is the most challenging aspect, and I'll bump it up for that, but there just aren't enough options here to make the combat otherwise interesting.  Rating: 2 out of 7.

Bonus Points: 1. It's one of the earliest commercial CRPGs, and deserves a bonus point despite not being hugely influential.

Beneath Apple Manor's RADNESS Index is 41.  This puts it second on the list so far, just ahead of Orthanc and below The Game of Dungeons v5.  It's a simple game but I remember really enjoying it, and thinking that it had a lot of replay value.

NEXT: The next game on my list is Space, a sci-fi game for the Apple II that is heavily based on the tabletop RPG Traveller.  I've already been tinkering with it, and I'm pretty sure that this will be another single post job.  Progress!