Colossal Cave Adventure: Walking Through

There comes a time in the life of every gamer when he must hang his head in shame.  That time has come for me.  It's not that I'm doing badly with Colossal Cave Adventure.  On the contrary, I believe that I'm very nearly done with it.  No, the problem is that I have broken a sacred tenet of the blog, and resorted to a walkthrough for help.  I'm not sure if I ever said so in a post, but one of the rules I set for myself when starting the blog was that I wouldn't cheat to beat a game.  I've gone back on that rule, and so I hang my head in shame, and hope that my readers can forgive me.

It could be worse, though.  I only used a walkthrough to spoil one puzzle, and I had another one spoiled for me by accident.  I've figured out the rest of the game for myself, and I intend to complete it in the same fashion, unless I become hopelessly, desperately stuck.  After all, I don't want to be bogged down in one game forever.  This time I capitulated too easily though, and I don't intend to do so again.

With that confession out of the way it's time to talk about the game, and I suppose I'll begin with the two puzzles that I had help with solving.  If you recall from my last post, I had encountered a dragon that was sitting on a Persian rug.  The rug is one of the treasures I need to recover, but nothing I tried could move the dragon.  I poured water on it, I poured oil on it, I threw an axe, I threw a trident, I threw a canary.  None of it worked, and I doubt that I would have ever come across the solution on my own.  This is the puzzle I mentioned above, that I spoiled by accident when I saw the solution on the Wikipedia page.  I was reading it for research purposes, and thought I would be pretty safe from spoilers, but that was not the case.  Here's the solution below:

Yes, that's it.  It's clever, and it's certainly funny, but I don't think it plays fair.  The message that displays when you type KILL DRAGON - "With what? Your bare hands?" - is exactly the same message that appears if you try to kill a dwarf, or a troll, or any other creature in the game.  In those instances, if you try to answer the question posed the game will act as if it doesn't understand.  How does the player know that this situation will be any different?  Perhaps I'd be happier about it if the wording had been slightly different, as a way of flagging to the player that this could be the solution.  As it is I'd never have tried this option with the dragon, because it didn't work anywhere else, or even acknowledge that it could work.

The other puzzle I had trouble with, and the one for which I had to consult a walkthrough, involved the room with the emerald shaped like a plover's egg.  I mentioned in my last post that the entry to this room was narrow, and that I had to drop all of my gear to squeeze through.  This included my lamp.  The Plover Room (as it's called) is lit, but there's a dark passage leading away that I was unable to explore.  I figured that there must be some other way into the room, but after exploring every area in the game I was unable to find it.  The solution, as I discovered when I capitulated and looked it up, is one that could only be arrived at by dumb luck and sheer frustration.  It turns out that PLOVER is another magic work, like PLUGH and XYZZY.   Typing it while in the Plover Room will teleport the player to a cavern closer to the surface, and vice versa.  Armed with this knowledge I was able to teleport in with my lamp and explore the dark passage, which led to a room containing a platinum pyramid, the last of the treasures I needed to locate.  Of all the puzzles in the game so far, this is the only one I have genuinely bad feelings about.  At least the KILL DRAGON puzzle is amusing in the way that it trolls the player.  With the PLOVER puzzle there are no clues at all, and it doesn't feel clever or funny.  It just feels cheap.

And now, on to the puzzles that I figured out on my own.  One of those was the troll guarding the bridge, who demanded a treasure for every time I wanted to cross.  Getting across the first time was no problem, as I could give him a golden egg, then use the magic words FEE FIE FOE FOO to return the egg to its original location.  It was crossing the second time that was giving me grief.  I tried giving the troll a gold coin, thinking that I would perhaps only give him a single coin, and therefore not lose the treasure.  No such luck there.  In the area past the troll was a volcano, some rare spices, and a bear locked up with a gold chain.  The spices were a treasure, and giving them to the troll had no apparent effect.  The same went for the gold chain, and the volcano - despite having a pretty cool description - seemed to serve no purpose.  I was at a loss until I figured out that I could TAKE the bear, and it would follow me.  This was obviously the solution, and although it took me a few goes to figure out the correct command I was able to defeat the troll.

THROW BEAR.  Seriously.

The last treasure that I had some difficulty locating belonged to the pirate, who occasionally jumps out and steals all of your treasures, as shown below.

The pirate hides your treasures in the maze, as he says.  This game has two mazes, one with twisty passages all different, and one with twisty passages all the same.  The pirate hides his treasures in the latter.  Mapping that maze was time-consuming, and involved dropping items in each location so that I would always know where I was.  Unfortunately I never had quite enough items to cover every location, but I was able with difficulty to map the whole place out, and I found my stolen treasure in a dead end very deep in the maze.  I also found the pirate's treasure chest, which is another of the items that are needed to complete the game.  I would have liked the chance to put an axe between the pirate's eyes, but I suppose I'll have to settle for stealing his stuff instead.

With the treasures all located and safely deposited in the building on the surface, I started getting a cryptic message.  I can't remember the exact wording, but a voice kept announcing that the cave was now closed, and that I should leave via the main office.  I tried to get out using the magic words, but those no longer worked, and I was starting to panic because my lamp was running out of power.  Eventually, the following occurred, and I was transported to a new area.

This new area seems to be a repository of all the objects used in the game.  It's all a bit meta, and I'm surprised to see such blatant breaking of the fourth wall in a game as old as this one.  I explored around a bit, grabbing various items in case I would need them again.  I should have paid more heed to that warning about not waking the dwarves, though.  In the next area I went to there were loads of snakes, and loads of birdcages.  I released one of the birds, just to see what would happen, and sure enough it chased a snake away as I expected.  Unfortunately, it also woke the dwarves, and they all got up and riddled me with knives.

ADDENDUM: Though I had thought I was nearly finished with the game, I've run into a problem.  I can recover all of the treasures with little difficulty, but for whatever reason I'm not being sent to the final part.  I don't know what I did to trigger the endgame, and none of my wanderings after recovering the treasures have helped.  All of my games are ending with me fruitlessly roaming the caves until my lamp runs out, and I'm not sure what to do.  I guess I'll just keep plugging away at it, and hope I stumble into the solution, because I'm determined not to look up the answer.

Colossal Cave Adventure: The Joys of Cave Exploration

I can't express how refreshing Colossal Cave Adventure has been after months of primitive RPGs, and especially Moria.  I love RPGs, but sometimes they can devolve into repetition, following patterns in order to increase the numbers that drive your success.  I don't mind this style of gameplay, as long as I'm able to continuouly explore new areas and find interesting things.  Colossal Cave Adventure is nothing but exploration and finding cool things, and I'm really digging it.

At this point I think I've mapped most of the game.  It's always hard to be certain of this in text adventures, though.  There are often directions you can go that aren't mentioned in the area descriptions, and I'm paranoid that I've overlooked some.  I try to test all of the directions in every location, but they can be easy to miss.  On top of that, the directions of the exits don't always match up between locations; just because you got somewhere by going north, doesn't mean that going south will take you back to where you came from.  So yeah, I have more trouble mapping text adventures than I do RPGs.  I doubt that's going to change.

Mapping problems aside, though, I've been finding lots of cool areas, locating some of the treasures I need to complete the game, and running into some puzzles that I haven't solved yet.  Here are a few of the more interesting things that have happened.

• There are a number of treasures that are lying around unguarded, not far from the entrance.  Near the Hall of the Mountain King I found some jewellery, some gold coins, and some silver bars.  A little farther away from that I found some diamonds.  These items are all easy to get, and easy to return to the building so that I can claim points for finding them.  I don't think I'll need these to solve any puzzles, except for the coins.  I might need those to buy batteries, but I'll discuss that later.
• North of the Hall of the Mountain King is a room with a rock inscribed with Y2.  Sometimes when I enter this room, a hollow voice says "PLUGH".  I tried typing the word myself, and it works the same as XYZZY: it teleports me from Y2 to the outside building, and vice versa.  It's really useful, far moreso than XYZZY has been.  I don't know why this word didn't become the iconic one.
• In my last post I mentioned a gold nugget that was too heavy to get up the stairs.  The solution to this problem was simple, as I was able to carry it to Y2 and use PLUGH to take the nugget to the surface.
• Deeper in the caves, in the "Oriental Room", I found a vase.  This was one of the treasures (you can tell which items are treasures, because they're marked with an exclamation point), but every time I tried to drop it, it smashed on the floor.  The solution was to take a pillow from a room nearby and drop that before dropping the vase.  I like the puzzles in this game so far; they make sense, and lack the obtuseness that adventure games often suffer from.
• At the bottom of a pit there's a small beanstalk that cries out for water.  The game gives you a bottle of water at the beginning, so this is an easy puzzle to solve, although you do have to water the beanstalk twice before it's large enough to climb.  At the top of the beanstalk is a Giant's Room.  There's no giant to be seen (thankfully), but there is a nest full of golden eggs.  There is also a sign that says FEE FIE FOE FOO, and after a bit of experimentation I discovered that typing all four words (one at a time) returns the egg to the nest in this room.  I think I know which puzzle this will help me solve.
• Near the Giant Room is a huge door with rusted hinges; I needed to fill my empty water bottle with oil so that I could get this door open and find the trident inside.  The trident is a treasure, but it's also needed to open a giant clam elsewhere in the caves.  The clam has a pearl in it, which rolls several areas away when the clam is opened.  You wouldn't believe how long it took me to find that pearl, when all I had to do was go Down twice.
• Quite deep in the caves there is a tight tunnel that I can only squeeze through by dropping all of my stuff.  There's an emerald in there, and I'm able to retrieve that with no trouble.  There's also a dark tunnel, and I'm afraid to explore it without my lamp.  I suppose that I need an alternate light source, or perhaps an alternate path into the room, but I'm yet to find either.
• There's an area in the maze that is called Witt's End.  I stumbled into it during my first few hours playing the game, and I was completely unable to escape.  Every direction I took just led me back to Witt's End, and none of my items were able to help me.  I've avoided it ever since, but I get the feeling I'll have to return there eventually.
• Near Y2 is an area with a window overlooking a chasm.  Across the chasm I can see a figure waving at me from another window.  I haven't been able to figure out what purpose he serves yet.  I've been able to get to the opposite window, but when I looked out the figure was on the other side, near Y2.  I've got no idea how I'm going to corner this bugger.
• I've also found a dragon sitting on a persian rug.  The rug is a treasure, but of course I need to remove the dragon before I can take it, and so far none of my items have worked.  Thankfully the dragon doesn't try to kill me, but I'm also unable to kill it.  I have no clue about this one.
• There's bridge guarded by a troll, who demands a treasure every time you try to cross.  I've worked out how to get across the first time, by giving him the golden egg and then using FEE FIE FOE FOO to make the egg return to its nest.  I haven't been able to work out how to get back across without losing another treasure, though.
• There are two treasures to be found across the bridge: some exotic spices, and a golden chain.  The spices are unguarded, but the chain is around the neck of an angry bear.  I was able to calm the bear by giving it food, but the chain was locked.  Suprisingly, the keys found at the very beginning of the game are able to unlock it.  I had thought they wouldn't be useful aside from unlocking the grate, but they work here as well.  Still, even though I know where these two treasures are, I'll need to solve the troll situation before I can claim them.
• The lamp is invaluable, as without it you will be exploring in the dark, which inevitable leads you to fall into a pit and break every bone in your body.  Of course, the lamp eventually runs out of batteries, and once that happens it's effectively game over.  There's a battery vending machine in one of the mazes, and I guess that I'll need to use a coin to buy a replacement.  I've tested it, and the coins disappear when I do this, so I'd like to avoid it.  I'm pretty sure that I can complete the game before my lamp runs out, once I know all the puzzle solutions.
• The game provides you with food and water at the beginning, but at no point do you need to eat or drink.  I was half expecting to deal with this, but it turns out they are just puzzle items.
• I spent a good deal of time visiting areas and waving the rusty rod around, just to see what it might do.  I was pleased to discover that it creates a crystal bridge across one of the chasms, but in reality it's a pointless shortcut that saves very little time.
• The knife-throwing dwarves that I mentioned in the last post can kill you, but you get the option to be reincarnated.  I tried it out, and it sent me back to the beginning and subtracted some points from my score, as well as emptying my inventory.  I'm trying to get the full score of 350, so I won't be bothering with this again.
• There's a pirate who occasionally appears, steals my treasure, then boasts about how he's going to hide it in a chest in one of the mazes.  I haven't fully explored the mazes yet, so I have no idea where the chest is hidden.

I feel like I'm about halfway through the game. I've successfully returned ten of the treasures to the building, and I've found two more.  I also know where the rug is, even if I don't know how to get it.  My score is around 180, which reinforces the feeling that I'm about halfway done.  My next move will probably be to explore the mazes, which remain the areas of the game that I've steered clear of thus far.  One of them is a maze of "twisty passages all different", and the other is a maze of "twisty passages all alike".  I don't look forward to exploring either, though I have developed some tactics in this regard from playing Zork.  I'm enjoying the hell out of this game, and can't wait to finish this post and get back to playing it, so forgive me if I end things here.  I got caves to explore.

Game 5: Colossal Cave Adventure (1977)

Though I'm net yet out of the PLATO RPG wilderness, it's time to move ahead to something entirely different.  I haven't finished with Moria, and probably won't for a long time, but a blog needs to be fed.  And so I come to Adventure, also known as Colossal Cave Adventure, the first ever text adventure game.

The original version of Adventure was developed by programmer Will Crowther.  Crowther was also a caving enthusiast, and much of the game was modelled after his experiences exploring the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky.  Crowther's game is not the version that most people played, though.  In 1976, a student at Stanford University named Don Woods discovered Adventure, and set about expanding it.  He did so with Crowther's blessing, and greatly added to the fantasy elements of the game.

The influence of Adventure cannot be understated.  It directly influenced Ken and Roberta Williams to found Sierra On-Line, and was the progenitor of an entire genre of games.  Not only that, but it was later released commercially for systems such as MS-DOS and Commodore 64, and has been rewritten and expanded even further by a multitude of programmers over the years.

The question that faces me at this point is: which version should I play?  Crowther's original is out there, and I've messed around with it and mapped it, but it's incomplete.  There's no real goal as such, and no point-scoring system, and many of the areas are unfinished.  It's a fascinating historical curiosity, but not a complete game.  The commercially released versions, as well as the expanded versions made after Don Woods' involvement, would be playable, but they fall well out of the time-frame that I'm currently exploring.  I may revisit them at a later date, but for the moment I'm sticking with the 1970s.

I'll be playing the Don Woods version, also known as Adventure 350 due to the number of points scored in the game for solving all of the puzzles.  It's the earliest version, it's the most well-known, and to be perfectly honest it's the one I'm most interested in.  Finding a copy of this isn't difficult, but finding one that runs on Windows 7 is a bit harder.  I'm running it using Dosbox, and that seems to work fine, though I'm not certain whether the version of Adventure that I got has any added features that were not in the original.

When the game first loads, it asks if you want to read the instructions.  Typing 'YES' brings up the screen above, which tells you that the goal of the game is to enter Colossal Cave and look for treasure.  The rest of the instructions confirm what I already expected: this is going to be a traditional text adventure, with loads of typing and a command parser and all the frustration that entails.  I'm actually a little bit surprised that the game accepts abbreviations like N, in lieu of typing GO NORTH.  I'd expected that was something that would be introduced later in the genre, but here it is right at the beginning.  It's a pleasant surprise.

Typing 'INFO' as instructed brings up another screen that gives more information about scoring in the game.  You get points for finding the various treasures, and more points for bringing them back to the building at the start of the game.  Points are also awarded for finding certain areas, and it also mentions a "master's section", which I don't like the sound of.

The adventure begins, as you can see above, with you standing in a forest next to a building, with a gleaming tower in the distance.  Obviously the house is the first thing I should explore, and after a bit of trial and error I found that I could enter by going west (by typing W), and also by typing IN, and even HOUSE.  In fact, typing HOUSE anywhere on the surface brings you back here, which has been quite handy in the instances that I've become disoriented.

Inside the house I found a set of keys, some food, a bottle of water, and a lamp.  The influence of this game on Zork is very strong.  No doubt this is the building that I have to return all of the treasures to, and I'll be coming back here quite a lot during my quest.

Next I went to the tower, but there wasn't a lot that I could do there.  The door was firmly closed, and I couldn't unlock it with the keys (unless I haven't used the right command, which is always a caveat when playing these kinds of games).  A curious sign on the tower read "NO ENTRY DANGER PARTICLES AT WORK".  This made no sense to me, so I made a note of it and left to explore further.

Aside from the house and the tower, there's not much to see on the surface.  The forest feels larger than it really is, because it often randomises your destination when you leave, and it can feel like you are lost at times.  The only thing to do is to follow the stream down through a valley to a locked grate.  The keys unlock the grate, and it's a simple matter then to go down into Colossal Cave.

At first the cave is quite linear.  It begins in a small chamber.  Away from this chamber the caves are dark, and I needed to light my lamp to explore further.  West from there is a tunnel, where I found an empty wicker cage.  West of that is a room full of debris.  On the floor I found a three foot black rod, topped with a rusty star, but of more interest was a note on the wall.

XYZZY!  I've seen this work referenced before, and I knew it was from Adventure, but I never really knew the context of it before.  I did a bit of experimentation, and worked out that if I type XYZZY while in this room I am teleported to the building on the surface.  Likewise, if I type it while in the building, I'm teleported back to this room.  It doesn't work anywhere else, alas.  I suppose it's handy, but it doesn't really save much time.  I expect it will be used to solve a puzzle later on.

Heading west led through a canyon and into a cave where a bird was singing.  I tried to get the bird, but no matter what I tried (GET BIRD, USE CAGE, WAVE ROD) it always flew away from me.  I tried dropping the cage and leaving the room, and I tried putting food in the cage (you can't).  In the end I resorted to typing HELP, as the game had instructed earlier.  That brings up a screen that mostly tells you ways to navigate the game, and also that you can look at what you are carrying by typing INVENTORY (or I).  Of most interest to me, though, is a note that there is a black rod in the caves that scares the bird.  I was a little miffed that the solution to the first puzzle was given away like that, but then again I did go to that screen seeking hints.  I dropped the rod, and was easily able to get the bird in the cage.  I'd "solved" the first puzzle, but that was all the help the game was going to give me.  The rest I'd have to do on my own.

Further west was a pit, with stairs leading down to a room full of mist.  To the west was an impassable fissure.  I went south and found a room containing a huge nugget of gold.  A note on the wall read "You won't get it up the stairs", and sure enough, after I picked up the nugget I found that I was unable to climb back up.  I left the nugget behind (as it was heavy, and I'd had to discard some items to pick it up), and decided to explore for an alternate route to the surface.

At this point a dwarf appeared, threw an axe at my head, and ran away.  I'm not sure if I could have died here.  Normally I would think not in this kind of game, but it's always hard to say when you're exploring the earliest days of a genre, before the conventions were set.  Regardless, I was able to retrieve the axe, and felt a little bit safer for it.

Heading north I came to the Hall of the Mountain King, which sounded suitably epic.  The first hint of danger was introduced, as a huge green snake was blocking my way onwards.  I didn't have much trouble with this, to be honest.  The first thing I tried was to release the bird from its cage, and sure enough it chased the snake away.  I'm not sure if I've encountered a similar puzzle in a later game, or if there's a mythological story that it's drawing from, but the answer popped into my head right away.  I'm good at this!

At that point a hostile dwarf wandered into the room, and hurled a knife at me.  It missed, but I started to panic.  Nothing I seemed to type was working.  I tried KILL DWARF and HIT DWARF, but the game seemed incredulous that I would try to do so with my bare hands.  I tried KILL DWARF WITH AXE before remembering that the parser only accepts two word commands.  Eventually I settled on THROW AXE, and that worked.  My axe hit home, and the dwarf vanished in a "puff of smoke" (or as I prefer to imagine it, a "gout of blood").  (You may notice that the "puff of smoke" isn't shown in the screen-grab below.  Confession time: most of these images were created after the fact, with me trying to recreate the original occurrence.  I couldn't get the puff of smoke this time.)

After this I did a bit more exploring, and hit the mother lode.  South of the Hall of the Mountain King, I found some jewellery.  To the west, I found some gold coins.  To the north, I found some bars of silver.  No doubt these were some of the treasures I was looking for, and if I added that gold nugget from earlier I had already discovered four of them.  I tried to load up, only to discover that I couldn't carry anything else.  It looked like an inventory limit was something I would have to contend with, and it wasn't just restricted to the heavy gold nugget as I'd hoped.

At this point I got a bit lost while wandering around, and couldn't find my way back to familiar territory.  Then, horror of horrors, I encountered this nightmare.

I mentioned this game's influence on Zork earlier, but I hadn't realised exactly how strong it was.  I had stumbled into a maze of twisty passages, all different.  You'll notice that each one has a different description, and I could probably use this to map them.  Not right now, though.  Right now I'm too dismayed, and I'm having horrible Zork flashbacks, and I need to have a little lie down.  It's time to quit and start again.

Despite this setback, though, I'm having a lot of fun with Adventure.  It's surprisingly sophisticated, and the emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving is a welcome relief from Moria and the other RPGs I've been playing.  I'm pretty excited to load it up and try again.

Upcoming Schedule: The 1970s

I haven't made much progress in Moria, and even if I had there would probably be very little worth mentioning.  Instead I'm going to post my schedule for games I'm going to play from the 1970s.  The list isn't set in stone.  It might be incomplete.  There might be games I can't find, or can't get to run.  But for anyone looking to play along, here it is.

1975

The Dungeon (aka pedit5)

The Game of Dungeons (aka dnd)

Orthanc

Moria

1976

Adventure (aka Colossal Cave Adventure)

1977

DND (an RPG developed on the PDP-10 system; I doubt I'll be able to find it)

Oubliette

1978

Adventureland

Beneath Apple Manor

Dungeon Campaign

Journey to the Center of the Earth Adventure

Pirate Adventure

Space

Voyage to Atlantis

Arcade Interlude: Space Invaders (I'm going to do some single-post diversions into classic arcade games from time to time.)

1979

Adventure (the Atari 2600 game)

Akalabeth: World of Doom

Avatar

Dog Star Adventure

DUNGEON

Dungeon of Death

Dunjonquest: Morloc's Tower

Dunjonquest: The Datestones of Ryn

Dunjonquest: The Temple of Apshai

Space II

The Wizard's Castle

Wilderness Campaign

King Tut's Tomb Adventure

Microsoft Adventure

Pyramid of Doom

Secret Mission

Sorcerer's Castle Adventure

Arcade Interlude: Galaxian

Arcade Interlude: Asteroids

Arcade Interlude: Lunar Lander

That's 35 games, which could take a while considering that I'm only on my fourth game after a year of the blog.  But some of these will no doubt drop off the list, some will be one-post 'Arcade Interludes', and I expect that the pace will pick up once I move away from games developed on powerful mainframes and towards those made for home computers.

Next week I plan to start posting about Adventure, the original text adventure game.  I'm not abandoning Moria; I intend to keep playing that in the background, and will post when I have more to say about it besides "it's empty and boring".  But I don't want the blog to lie fallow while I play it, so it's time to move on.  Adventure awaits!

Moria: Odds and Ends

I haven't had the time to play Moria at all over the last week, but there are a few things that I haven't talked about yet, so I thought I'd knock them out here.

• Time progresses in the game regardless of whether you're making moves or not.  If you just stand in place your Vitality will replenish, and you're character will consume food and water.  He'll also age, and age fast.  My character has aged from 13 to 21 in the time it's taken to map the city, the wilderness and three levels of the Forest.
• This real-time extends to combat as well.  If you don't press any keys, the monsters will just keep on hitting you.  They don't do much damage, but they'll get you eventually.
• The monsters don't seem to get any stronger as you explore deeper levels.  I've mentioned before that all of the monsters appear in the game from the beginning, and there's not much difference between any of them.  I had thought they would get stronger the deeper I delved, but instead they appear in larger groups.  I'm fighting groups of two right now in the 4th level of the Forest, but it doesn't seem to have made combat any more difficult.
• There are Magic Apples scattered around the dungeons.  Eating them can raise your scores or grant a magical effect, but they can also reduce your stats.  I've stopped eating them for the moment.
• Alas, although the dungeon levels vary in size, they don't get progressively smaller the deeper you go.  I had hoped this might be the case, as Forest levels 1 to 3 followed this pattern, but level 4 is a little bigger than 3 was.  I was counting on this to cut the time I have to spend playing this game, but now it looks like I'm in this for a long time.
• The biggest achievement I've made since my last post is that I joined a guild.  I'm now a member of the Brotherhood of Knights, which I was able to do once my Valor reached a score of 20.  I now have a Valor score over 30, which is enough to get me to the next rank, but I also need a million gold pieces.  I have around 250,000, and the treasures get more valuable the deeper you go in the dungeons, so I expect to get there soonish, assuming that I ever find the time to play.

So that's where I currently am in Moria.  I'm not particularly enjoying it, but at this point it's more of a mapping exercise than a game.   Normally I enjoy mapping grid-based mazes, but this one is too big, and the constant pattern of 6x6 blocks is a bit boring.  There's also no tension, as the combats are far too easy.  I'll definitely stick with this one until I find the Reaper's Ring, but it might take a while, so don't be surprised if I tackle some other games in the meantime.

Moria: Vast and Empty

I started playing this game about a month ago, and I feel as though I've barely progressed at all.  It's not that I haven't been playing it; I've put a decent number of hours in already, but it's becoming clear to me that this game is going to be a serious undertaking.  A serious one, and possibly not an altogether interesting one.

When I last posted, I had just finished mapping the City and was heading out into the Wilderness.  Graphically the Wilderness looks no different, it's just another maze of walls, corridors and doors.  The same can be said for the Forest, which is the "dungeon" area that I'm currently exploring: the graphics have a green background, and that's as different as it gets.  As I mentioned in the last post, it seems as though the whole land of Moria is actually one huge subterranean labyrinth.

Unlike the City, the Wilderness is full of random encounters with monsters.  Combat is quick, but there are a lot of options available.  The basic option is to Fight, which simply involves hitting the F key until the monster is dead, and is highly dependent on the quality of your weapon.  You can also Trick your opponent, which uses your Cunning score; a successful Trick results in an instant kill.  You can Pray for help from the gods, who provide aid in a variety of ways, with success dependent on your Piety score.  You can Bribe opponents with gold or items to let you go (I haven't tried this yet).  There is an option to Run, but apparently you lose treasure with this option, so I haven't used it much.  You can Evade, making yourself more difficult to hit, but it doesn't seem to be all that useful in a single player game.  And finally you can cast spells, which are quite handy, but also drain your Vitality.

Praying grants you the choice of a number of boons.  You can pray to escape from your foes, or for healing.  Holy Word, if successful, will kill a monster instantly.  You can also pray for direct intervention from your god, which kills all of your foes at once.  I haven't had any success with this option yet, and I'm loathe to attempt it too often; the help file says that the gods tire of giving aid if asked too often, and I'm kind of worried about the consequences.  I'd probably be better trying it out now, rather than later when I have a more established character, but I'm already at the point where I don't want to lose my progress (scant as it is).

There aren't very many combat spells, and all of them have basically the same effect.  Paralyze causes the victim to stop moving, allowing for an instant kill.  Charm makes the victim believe you're its friend, allowing an instant kill.  Sleep puts the monster to sleep, allowing for an instant kill.  Dispell Magic turns the monster's magic against it, causing an instant kill.  Sensing a pattern?  Magic Missile is a simple damage spell, but at least it breaks the monotony.  I haven't used much magic in combat, to be honest, as it tends to drain more Vitality from my character than the monsters do.

The game has more options than any other in the blog so far, and yet combat is ridiculously safe.  None of the monsters have special abilities, as far as I'm aware.  The different types don't seem to vary much in strength; it seems to me that the level you encounter them on has more to do with how tough they are than what type of monster you're fighting.  They don't do much damage, and most of them die with a single blow.  Your Vitality slowly regenerates even when you're standing still, so it's a simple matter to wait a few minutes when your Vitality is running low, and you'll soon be at full strength.  So far it's been a bit too easy.

Most monsters have treasure, which is sometimes trapped but usually safe  The traps simply cause damage, and your Cunning score determines whether they hit or not.  Most treasure comes in gems and gold coins, but occasionally I've found a weapon or a piece of armour.  It's worth hanging on to these, because you can sell them at the store for a decent amount of cash.

Combat is frequent, but it's not the biggest threat in the game.  The biggest threat is the game's size.  The wilderness is enormous, and took a long time to map.  Level 1 of the Forest is about the same size as the city, which was big enough that I starved two character to death mapping the thing.  I wouldn't mind the size of these maps if there was anything interesting in them, but they're mostly empty.  My only consolation so far has been that level 2 of the Forest is slightly smaller than level 1, and level 3 slightly smaller still.  If that pattern holds this game will be a lot more bearable.  As it is, it feels like it's going to be a long, hard slog to find the Reaper's Ring.

Game 4: Moria (1975)

With Orthanc done and dusted, it's time for me to move on to yet another game from 1975, and yet another game from the PLATO system: Moria.  Moria was created at the University of Illinois by Kevet Duncombe and Jim Batton, both of whom claim that they had never heard of Dungeons & Dragons or read Tolkien at the time of the game's creation.  The game was supposedly developed after they heard stories about the creation of The Game of Dungeons.  I suppose I have to take their word for it, but I do find it a stretch that someone who has never read Tolkien would just pick the name Moria out of thin air.  That they never played Dungeons & Dragons is more believable, because it doesn't play much like D&D at all.

 The game begins with a pretty nifty title screen.  Astute readers will notice that it's in colour, rather than the good old orange and black of the other PLATO games.  My PLATO emulator has a colour option, and for this game I decided to try it out.  I'm glad I did, because it makes the various elements of the game screen stand out from each other.  I don't know if it's authentic, but it's certainly easier on the eyes (if a little garish).

The previous three games I've played (The Dungeon, Orthanc and The Game of Dungeons) were all top-down and icon-based, but Moria  uses a first-person perspective.  The land of Moria is depicted as a vast wire-frame maze, viewed through a teeny-tiny window.  Seriously, look at the thing.  It's so small.

The game, like most others of its type, involves wandering the maze, fighting monsters and gathering treasure.  I'm not certain that it has an end-point, but there are a number of goals to strive for.  The simplest is to get your name in the Hall of Fame, which is simply done by scoring a lot of points for killing monsters.  My character, shown above, has 125 points, and will need over 19,133 to get in the Hall of Fame.  If I want to get to the top, I'll need 8,590,248, which doesn't seem a likely scenario.  The second goal is to become master of a guild, which is done by raising your stats and donating shedloads of gold; there are four guilds that you can join, and I'll discuss them further below.  The last goal, and probably the most difficult, is to find the Reaper's Ring.  When the game first started the ring was apparently found on the first level of one of the four "terrains" (dungeons, in other words).  Every time the ring is found it drops down a level.  It was last found on level 38, which means that I have a hefty task ahead of me.

Character creation is very simple.  Every character has four stats: Cunning, Piety, Valor and Wizardry.  All four range between 1 and 100, but the highest a stat can be when you start is 10. Cunning aids with tricking monsters and opening chests.  Piety comes into play when you pray for aid.  Valor helps you in combat, and determines what weapons you can use.  Wizardry is used for casting spells.  They aren't randomly determined at character creation.  Instead you choose which stat will be your highest (with a value of 10), which also determines your medium stats (7) and your lowest stat (5).  For my current character I chose a high score in Valor, which meant that I started with medium Cunning and Piety, and low Wizardry.  It's the closest you get in the game to choosing a class, at least during character creation.  Joining a guild gives you further, more specialised abilities, but more on that later.  Your stats increase as you use them, but not very quickly.  The character shown above is the result of a few hours of play, and he's only increased a few points in each score.

In addition to the four stats, you have Vitality, which starts at 100.  When your Vitality drops to 0 you're dead, and it gets knocked down by the usual things: monsters and traps, mostly.  Another thing that lowers your Vitality is starvation, as well as thirst, because this is a game where you have to make sure you have food and water.  Without them you slowly die.  The final thing that drains your Vitality, and the one that has affected me the most, is spellcasting.  There's no limit to the number of spells you can cast, but each casting lowers your Vitality, so it's not wise to go around blasting spells everywhere.

The game takes place in the land of Moria, which is explicitly said to be an underground maze of rooms and corridors.  This makes a certain sense, because the game is entirely composed of wireframe walls; drawing a tree was well beyond its capabilities.  The game is structured as follows:

You begin the game in the city, which is a safe haven from monsters.  It's also friggin' huge.  All of the maps are divided into 6x6 blocks, and the city is eight blocks by seven blocks.  That makes it 48x42 squares.  The size of it wouldn't be a major problem, except that there's nothing to find.  Sure there are weapon shops, and magic shops where you can sell stuff, and food shops, and water houses.  But no matter how many weapon stores you find, they're all the same.  The map is massive.  I lost two characters to starvation just mapping the damn thing.

The size of the city is absurd given what's in it, and the only purpose it serves is to make it more difficult to find the four guilds.

I suppose I should talk about the guilds now.  They are the Thieves Guild, the Brotherhood, the Union of Knights and the Circle of Wizards.  Each corresponds to one of your stats, and you can only join the guild when that stat reaches 20.  I haven't gotten that far yet, so I don't have any first hand knowledge of what they provide.  According to the documentation each guild confers a special ability: members of the Brotherhood can heal; members of the Circle of Wizards can teleport back to the city; members of the Union of Knights take less damage and have a chance to behead monsters with a single blow; and members of the Thieves Guild have a better chance of finding magic items.  In addition to this your character can have a guild locker, and if you die and create another character instantly, the contents of that locker will be passed to him as an heir.  Your character starts at the age of 13, which makes the idea of having an heir a dubious one, but you know, medieval times.

I'm not sure what the Magic Shops are good for.  You can't buy anything there, and although you can sell items, you can also do so at the Weaponry Shop.  Perhaps you get better prices, but I haven't tested that out yet.  The Supply Store is where you buy food, at the rate of 100 gold pieces for a month's worth.  Water can be bought at the Water House, at the rate of 20 gold a month.

The most interesting shop, though, is the Weaponry Shop.  The range of items available here is staggering.  They're split into five categories: one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, armor for the body, armor for the arms, and armor for the head.  Each item has an Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating, and you can easily find these out by asking the shopkeeper.  That's not all you can ask the shopkeeper, either.  You can tell him what category you're looking for, and how much you want to spend, and he'll recommend something.  You can also haggle.  No matter what the starting price of the item, you can usually talk him down to about 2/3 of that total.

That's it for this week.  I haven't progressed very far into the game as yet; I've mapped the city and the wilderness, and I'm just starting on the "Forest" (actually made of green tunnels and rooms).  I'll be back next time to talk about the wilderness, and combat.