Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 7: Hillsfar (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Westwood Associates

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Release Date:

1989

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Systems:

DOS, Amiga, C64, Atari ST, PC-88, PC-98, NES

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This week on Super Adventures, my Dungeons & Dragons quest has reached the year 1989 and I'm playing... whatever this is. It's not a Gold Box game, I know that much, but it is an official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons licenced product and it is linked to Pool of Radiance, so we're back in the Forgotten Realms again for this one.

The game's called Hillsfar and it's by Westwood Associates, the guys who would later go on to make real-time strategy legends like Dune II and Command & Conquer, along with adventure games like Legend of Kyrandia and Blade Runner. I'm considering this to be a good sign. Though at this point Westwood were mostly in the business of porting games to other systems, typically 8-bit titles to 16-bit machines like the Amiga and Atari ST, and they were apparently quite good at it.

Hillsfar itself was ported across to a fair number of computers, though it was released on fewer systems than Pool of Radiance (9) and Heroes of the Lance (13). This means that we've already said goodbye to the Master System, MSX and Sharp X1, which never got another D&D game, and the PC-88 is dropping out here as well. The Apple II and Mac aren't out yet but they both skipped Hillsfar, so their owners missed out on its big selling point: it can import characters from Pool of Radiance and export them into the next game in the saga, Curse of the Azure Bonds. 

All the major Western computer RPG franchises of the time let you import saves, it was nothing exclusive to the Gold Box games. In fact The Bard's Tale lets you import from Wizardry and Ultima III, and then you can import from that game into Deathlord or Centauri Alliance. But what makes Hillsfar different is... actually I have no idea, I haven't played it yet.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 6: Silver Box - Heroes of the Lance (MS-DOS)

Developer:

U.S. Gold

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Release Date:

1988

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Systems:

Atari ST, Amiga, DOS, C64, ZX Spectrum, CPC, MSX, PC-88, PC-98, Sharp X1, FM Towns, Master System, NES

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm still in 1988 playing Dungeons & Dragons video games. In fact I've barely moved, as this apparently came out almost simultaneously with the first Gold Box game, Pool of Radiance. This time though I'm playing the first of the Silver Box line... it's Heroes of the Lance, by British developer U.S. Gold!

I didn't even know that U.S. Gold had made any games themselves, I only know them as a publisher. It turns out that they released hundreds of titles (not all of them gold from the US), but only ever developed eight of them themselves, including this and its two Silver Box sequels. Hang on, I need to turn the volume down, as its beepy PC Speaker music just scared the crap out of me. It sounds better on the Atari ST, which was apparently the lead system this time. In fact it sounds better on a lot of computers, as I believe this had the most ports of any of the D&D games.

Heroes of the Lance was released on 13 systems over 4 years, beating Pool of Radiance and Dragons of Flame, which each only made it onto 9 of them. It didn't matter if you were a European with a Speccy or Amiga, a Japanese gamer with a PC-88, or if you preferred Sega or Nintendo consoles instead, there was a version of Heroes of the Lance for you. Except for Americans with Apple IIs who were somehow left out! The system was getting on in years, but it had been the lead RPG platform throughout the '80s, so I don't know what publisher SSI were thinking there.

A lot of big name publishers had competed to win the Dungeons & Dragons licence, but it was Strategic Simulations, Inc. that had been victorious, thanks in part to their ambitious plans. They had three product lines in mind: role-playing games based on AD&D rules (Gold Box), action-adventure titles (Silver Box), and software to help a Dungeon Master run a tabletop D&D game. That last idea didn't catch on, but there are 10 Gold Box RPGs and this Silver Box Classics bundle I just picked up on Steam has a decent number of games in it too, so two out of three isn't bad.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 5: Gold Box - Pool of Radiance (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I was supposed to be writing about Hillsfar or Heroes of the Lance or something, but I'm not ready to move on from Pool of Radiance yet. It seems that I'm going to be stuck playing these Dungeons & Dragons games for longer than I anticipated, but that's fine... I think.

I just realised that I haven't talked about this title screen yet. 1988 wasn't a great year for video game title screens in general, but I was still surprised by how artless it looks. The pool isn't even radiant! The good news is that there are eight other versions with their own title screens, the bad news is that none of the others I've seen are particularly great either. 

Though I suppose the original Commodore 64 screen did alright by keeping it simple. Plus it sparkles! When it comes to theme music however, I think the Amiga port wins this round (YouTube Link). Especially as the DOS version eventually had its theme patched out.

Alright, if you want to go back to part one, CLICK HERE,
If you want to see the list of Dungeons & Dragons games I've covered so far CLICK HERE.

Otherwise, keep reading, but beware of SPOILERS.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 4: Gold Box - Pool of Radiance (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

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Release Date:

1988

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Systems:

DOS, C64, Apple II, Mac, PC-88, PC-98, Amiga, Sharp X1, NES

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm back with another Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. In fact I've finally reached the first of Strategic Simulations, Inc.'s legendary Gold Box RPGs: Pool of Radiance!
 
Or to give it it's full name, POOL OF RADIANCE: A FORGOTTEN REALMS Fantasy Role-Playing Epic, Vol. I.

I'm still learning about Dungeons & Dragons, but one thing I already know is that it features a multiverse of campaign settings made by different creators, like the Forgotten Realms and Planescape, and... other ones. For AD&D's first decade the default setting had kind of been Gary Gygax's Greyhawk, seeing as he co-developed D&D and co-founded its publisher TSR, but he'd just been forced out of his own company so using that would've been awkward for all kinds of reasons. So Pool of Radiance takes place in the newly introduced Tolkienesque medieval fantasy world of Forgotten Realms, a place I actually know pretty well from games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. That's about as far as my nostalgia goes though I'm afraid. I never played the D&D Gold Box games, I've got no fond childhood memories of them, and I haven't acquired a tolerance for their ancient interface.

I did play a bunch of classic '80s CRPGs recently though, which you can read about in my previous article. Basically what usually happened was that I spent a bunch of time doing the research and putting together a decent six-character party, and then they all got wiped out on the first floor of the dungeon. Or they died on their way to the weapon shop. One time they were killed on the front step of the adventurers' guild you start off in. One time they were attacked inside the building. '80s CRPGs really hated their players.

But I'm sure Pool of Radiance will be different. This will be the one I actually make some progress in!

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 3: 1984-1987 - Britannia Gnomes and the Tower of Doom - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I've been going through the first ten years of Dungeons & Dragons games, and so far 1984 and 1985 have been real disappointments as I couldn't find any.

I found plenty of legendary RPGs inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, like Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar and The Bard's Tale, but not one of them proudly displayed the official logo of the 'Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' tabletop game:

Not one of them proudly displayed the official logo of the 'Dungeons & Dragons' tabletop game either, which was apparently a different game with different rules and campaign settings:

Personally, I don't mind which one a video game is based on, I just want to play some D&D already.

If you missed the first part covering 1984 and 1985 you can click here: VOL. 2. Or you can go back even further to the two AD&D Intellivision carts from 1982 and 1983: VOL. 1. Otherwise keep reading to see if I do any better with 1986 and 1987. There's got to be a D&D game in this pile of RPGs somewhere.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 2: 1984-1987 - Britannia Gnomes and the Tower of Doom - Part 1

This week on Super Adventures, my tour of the first ten years of Dungeons & Dragons games has reached its third year: 1984. But I'd like to keep this moving at a decent pace, so I'm also going to write about every D&D game released in 1985, 1986 and 1987.

Though it occurs to me that I don't really have the context for these Golden Age CRPGs. I'm not old enough or American enough to have ever loaded one of them up on an Apple II, so I have no nostalgia and zero fond memories. I did play a few Amiga and DOS RPGs, but it usually only took me 10 minutes to realise that they were not meant for me. The 2000s are when I got into the genre, with games like Final Fantasy IX, Deus Ex, Dungeon Siege and Knights of the Old Republic. That's the era I'm nostalgic for.

So okay, what I'm going to do is research some of the other influential RPGs of the mid-'80s and I'm going to play them as well. I don't promise that I'm going to stick with them very long, I'm not the CRPG Addict, I'm just some millennial writing a retro blog, but I'm smart enough to know that I need a history lesson.

I'm going to play... 16 games I think. About 4 per year. That seems like a normal reasonable amount. I'll even put a number next to each title so it's like one of those 'top 20' internet lists.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 1: Cloudy Mountain, Treasure of Tarmin (Intellivision)

Not actually a real cover, though the illustrations are real

The week on Super Adventures, I had the idea of playing every Dungeons & Dragons game ever released! Or at least the first decade or so. I don't own Baldur's Gate III, so that's not where this is going.

It's not that crazy an idea, I already wrote about the first 10 years of Castlevania and Need for Speed, and I covered 20 years of James Bond games, so a couple of decades of D&D shouldn't be so bad. Unless they're all really long and complicated RPGs with a ton of stuff to study and memorise. That would really slow me down.

I have to admit, all my knowledge of D&D comes from Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and the Chris Pine movie. I've never played the tabletop RPG or watched a stream of other people playing it. I haven't even seen Stranger Things to be honest, or that Community episode. I'm sure that the game involves dice and possibly graph paper though, so I can kind of visualise it being played.

What I do know about is video games, as I've been writing about them for long enough that I'm a bit of an expert. Well, except for classic '80s-'90s CRPGs, I know bugger all about them as I've never had the patience to get anywhere in them. The '80s in general is a bit of a blind spot for me when it comes to games (outside of what I've seen in AVGN or Chrontendo videos), so I've only the vaguest idea of what the RPGs of the era were typically like.
 
Anyway, my plan is to play the Dungeons & Dragons titles in mostly chronological order, beginning with Cloudy Mountain and Treasure of Tarmin on the Intellivision. I'm skipping the Dungeons & Dragons Computer Fantasy Game LCD game, along with all the unlicenced PLATO games that were inspired by D&D. If I start adding games inspired by D&D to my list, I'll end up playing every RPG that's ever existed, and that'll make this take even longer.