CRPG Adventures – The Retro Gaming Treasury

Haunt: Underground and Underwater

On June 21, 2020June 22, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

I’ve opened a bunch of my posts lately with an apology, and that’s how I’m going to start again today: sorry for the lack of updates around here lately. Unfortunately, I haven’t made much progress in Haunt or Rogue (not for lack of trying in regard to the latter). I figure today […]

Haunt: Bathroom Ideas

On June 7, 2020June 7, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

This will be a pretty quick post, because A) it’s late, and I’m tired; B) my internet has been playing funny buggers, which caused me to lose a lengthy post over on my D&D blog yesterday; and C) I have made very little progress in Haunt. A lot of that […]

Game 46: Haunt (1979)

On May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Haunt doesn’t have a title screen Well, I had a week off. I’ve been pretty good about keeping to a schedule of late, but ever since I started playing Rogue my desire to blog has somewhat dimmed. The problem is, I don’t want to play anything else, but the blog cannot […]

Rogue: An Obligatory Mid-Week Post

On May 14, 2020May 15, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

It took me a bit longer to get Haunt up and running than I thought it would – I had to figure out how to use Telnet – and to be honest my blogging fervour has somewhat subsided from the insane level it was at back in April. So I […]

Rogue: Death, Genocide, and Data Compilation

On May 10, 2020May 10, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

I’ve just recently started up a new D&D campaign using video chat, so that’s eaten up a decent amount of my time in the last few days. As such, I haven’t done much gaming aside from the odd bit of Rogue. I’d like to be able to say that I’ve […]

Game 45: Space II (1979)

On May 7, 2020May 8, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Space II: The Even More Final Frontier It’s another first for the blog today, as I reach what I believe is the first commercial sequel to a game that I’ve played before. I played the original Space back in 2015, and didn’t much care for it. I even somewhat question its […]

Back-Tracking: Dunjonquest: The Temple of Aphai (1979)

On May 3, 2020May 3, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Temple of Apshai’s TRS-80 title screen. I don’t have much of interest to write about Rogue right now (unless you’d like to read yet another list of my failures), and I haven’t gotten around to starting Space II yet, so for today’s post I’ll be back-tracking, I’m afraid. The game I’m returning […]

Rogue: Email Addresses Make Me Nervous Now

On April 29, 2020April 29, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Hey, guess what? You’re not going to believe this, but I haven’t beaten Rogue yet. Okay, so that’s pretty much to be expected. To be honest, I haven’t even gotten close. My best efforts saw me getting down to level 19; in one of those I took one step right […]

Priority CRPG 2: Rogue: Exploring the Dungeons of Doom (1980)

On April 26, 2020April 26, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

In the history of gaming, there are plenty of games that are important milestones. Games that changed the direction of the medium, or set a benchmark for their genre going forward. There are only a handful of games, however, that are so significant and set such a precedent that an […]

Back-Tracking: Colossal Cave Adventure II & Mystery Mansion

On April 24, 2020April 24, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Today I’m looking at two text adventures that I played through but didn’t comprehensively beat. (Not that I really beat either of them, because I relied on a walk-through for both.) This back-tracking project is probably getting a little self-indulgent at this point. Do I really need to be blogging […]

Game 44: Colossal Cave Adventure (430 point version) (1978)

On April 22, 2020April 23, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

When I played Colossal Cave Adventure II, the 440 point expansion of the original Colossal Cave Adventure, I wrote a whole paragraph about how the game had a lot of expansions and variants but nothing that could be classed as a sequel. In my supreme ignorance, I even went so […]

Back-Tracking: The Scott Adams Graphical Adventures – Adventureland, Pirate Adventure, and Mission Impossible

On April 20, 2020April 21, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

A while ago, when I was playing Dog Star Adventure, I had the bright idea to explore the different ports for the games that I played. I still think it’s a good idea, and one that helps my blog stand out a little by exploring some versions of games that […]

Game 43: Enchanted Island (1979)

On April 19, 2020April 20, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Sorry Greg, it only required a fraction of my cunning. Okay, so I screwed up. Remember a few posts ago, when I said that I had the order of the Greg Hassett games screwed up? And that my next game would not be Enchanted Island but would instead be Sorcerer’s Castle […]

Back-Tracking: Beneath Apple Manor (1978)

On April 17, 2020April 18, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

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, […]

Priority Adventure Game 1: Mystery House (1980)

On April 16, 2020April 17, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

The cover to the original packaging of Mystery House I was supposed to post this on the weekend, but with quarantine happening and nothing to do but sit at home, my sleep cycles got so messed up that I basically lost a day or two. I’ve been playing a lot […]

Futurewar: Stuck in the Future

On April 8, 2020April 9, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Remember in my last post, when I was worried that I might be playing Futurewar for months on end? That this game would consume all of my free time and monopolise the blog, just like several other PLATO games have done before? That the orange glow of PLATO would once more become […]

Back-Tracking: Journey to the Center of the Earth & Voyage to Atlantis

On April 4, 2020April 4, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

I know I said that I’d start on Mystery House, but I’ve been so caught up playing Futurewar that I haven’t gotten around to it yet. So instead, I thought I’d use this post to clear up some minor issues that have been nagging at me. Some years ago I played […]

Game 42: Futurewar (1977)

On April 1, 2020April 2, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

The square in the centre shows one of a few different images each time you start. Ah, the warm orange glow of PLATO. On the one hand, I spent so much of my gaming time a few years ago playing PLATO games that it has a certain nostalgic factor. On the […]

Game 41: Eamon: The Beginner’s Cave (1979)

On March 29, 2020March 29, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

This is pretty dope for the time, to be honest. I’m tackling Eamon today, which presents something slightly different from my usual fare. On the surface it looks like a text adventure, but when you dig into it a little bit it’s very obviously a CRPG. More than that, though, it’s […]

Game 40: Voodoo Castle (1979)

On March 25, 2020March 26, 2020 By IndieRetroNews

Scott Adams’ covers are always a good representation of what you’ll find in the game. With Voodoo Castle, it’s time for another game in the “Scott Adams Adventure” series. I’ve enjoyed them all so far, to varying extents: Adventureland was a well-executed attempt to get a game like Colossal Cave Adventure onto […]