CRPG Adventures – Page 3 – The Retro Gaming Treasury

Mystery Mansion: Capitulation.

On June 23, 2019June 23, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

Alas, I am giving up on Mystery Mansion. I’m sure I could persevere with it, and eventually get a 999 point game, but to be honest I just want to move on. It stings a little, especially coming off of MUD1 which I also gave up on, but I need to keep […]

Mystery Mansion: Getting Some Booty

On June 16, 2019June 16, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

Before I get started, I should note that I’ve given up on Terry Newton’s “practically exact” port of Mystery Mansion. The lack of a save feature became much too frustrating, so I switched over to a C port made by Bob Sorem (which can be found here). It’s not exactly […]

Mystery Mansion: A Quick Bit of Gardening

On June 2, 2019June 3, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

I haven’t played much Mystery Mansion in the last fortnight, but in the interests of keeping a regular schedule I just did a quick bit of exploring so that I can at least post something. It’s not going to be all that substantial, but it’s all I got. The area that […]

Game 27: Mystery Mansion (1978)

On May 25, 2019May 25, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

The next game on my list is Mystery Mansion, which was programmed by Bill Wolpert for the HP-1000 minicomputer. I’m not exactly sure if this system is comparable to PLATO or the PDP-10 (I’m really not a hardware guy), but the prospect of venturing back into the world of non-commercial […]

Treasure Hunt: Victory!

On May 11, 2019May 11, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

I covered most of what Treasure Hunt has to offer in my last post, and I’d hoped that it would be a one-post game. Lord knows I need a lot of those if I’m ever going to make any progress on my list. I just couldn’t beat the game in time. […]

Game 26: Treasure Hunt (1978)

On May 6, 2019May 7, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

In choosing to write about CRPGs and adventure games for this blog, I’ve cast a wide net. Both of those genres are vast, and both of them have boundaries that can best be classed as “fuzzy”. In making up a list that covers everything in both genres, there are going […]

MUD1: Postponed Victory.

On April 28, 2019April 29, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

And so, as promised, I come to the end of this blog’s overlong involvement with MUD1. I never intended to spend so long playing it, and I certainly never intended to take a ten-month break between posts. Still, real life can be hard sometimes, and virtual life can sometimes be […]

MUD1: Little Specks

On April 23, 2019April 24, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

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 […]

MUD1: Drying Up

On April 14, 2019April 14, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

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 […]

MUD1: More Beneath the Surface

On March 30, 2019March 30, 2019 By IndieRetroNews

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 […]

MUD1: Wading In Once More

On March 17, 2019March 17, 2019 By Nathan P. Mahney

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 […]

Game 25: MUD1 (1978)

On May 27, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

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 […]

DND1: Played

On May 13, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

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 […]

Game 24: DND1 (1977)

On April 8, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

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 […]

Library: Anti-Climax!

On March 10, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

Upon further investigation of Library, it appears that the game was never finished. I’ve explored it as extensively as possible and scoured the source code, and I don’t believe that there’s a way to beat it. Maybe I’m wrong, but at this point I’m going to write about the rest […]

Game 23: Library [designed using Wander] (1978)

On March 4, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

Wander, as my regular readers may remember, is a programming language designed for creating text adventures that predates even Colossal Cave Adventure. I’ve played two adventures created using this language so far: Castle and Aldebaran III. Both were interesting, and somewhat unusual for their vintage, but ultimately flawed. I had […]

The Cottage: Victory

On February 27, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

As of my last post, I had obtained seven of the treasures required to complete the game: the diamond, the cucumber, the coins, the shoe, the trilogy, the laurel wreath and the contract. That left me with six to obtain: the silver ingot (not “silver stick” as Google had translated […]

The Cottage: Laying It Out

On February 17, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

My progress in The Cottage has been slow and painstaking. A part of that is because it’s not exactly setting my world on fire. There are many, many things I could be doing that I’d enjoy more than playing this game. Mostly, though, it’s that the puzzles are somewhat obtuse, […]

The Cottage: Nine Floors, Zero Clues

On January 28, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

After mostly exploring the wilderness in my last post, I’ve moved onto the interior of the titular cottage. This gave me a taste of this game’s idiosyncratic method of navigation: it uses compass directions when you’re outside, and the commands LEFT, RIGHT, FORWARD and BACK to move around inside. To […]

Game 22: Stuga aka The Cottage (1978)

On January 14, 2018September 4, 2018 By Nathan P. Mahney

A while ago, it was Ultima VII that kept me from blogging. More recently, it’s been The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is an incredible game, and probably the best in the series since at least 1998. It’s very hard to dig into text adventures from the […]