Trying to remember the title of an old computer game...

Hi folks,

Was nosing around in another thread, one of the many we have discussing the values of really old computer games (and us older gamers.. ) and I thought maybe the combined minds here on the forum might help me remember the name of a game I used to play long, long ago that I haven't been able to find. I don't remember anything solid enough to get a good search out of, but here's hoping!

here is the scant bits I can remember:

- The game played on an Apple II type system, and was probably around the early to mid 80's timeframe. Come to think of it, probably early 80's - it was a pretty basic game, and I think I remember moving to more advanced graphics based games later.

- The game was a dungeon crawl. You had one character (just you) and moved from room to room fighting monsters, mostly with either normal arrows or magic arrows. (I think I remember being able to use health potions to restore your health, also, but not certain...)

- Here's the big one I remember, but it doesn't seem to do me any good: The game was not graphics based, or (by strict definition) a text-based game. Instead, the dungeon walls, the little blip that was you, the monsters, everything was drawn using text characters in plac of graphics. Each 'section' of the dungeon was a square tile - i.e. you moved off the top of the screen in one direction, you reappeared on a new screen (in a new room) at the bottom.

- You had very basic controls: movement up-down-right-left; fire magic arrow, fire normal arrow (which I think were < and > keys) and that was about it.

- monsters varied in the game - some were very fast, and closed on you quickly, not giving you much time to fire arrows before they could hit you. Some (I'm remembering the dragon!) had ranged attacks of their own. The point is, there were varieties of monsters for you to fight.

This has been bugging me for about 3 years now, off and on. Every once in a while I'll try some random searches - recently i ran through Wikki's list of Apple II games to see if any of the titles there were it and, while I ran across some old favorites, I just can't find anything that matches my memory for this one.

I know this isn't much to go on, but does anyone out there remember an early 80's non-graphics dungeon game that may be something like this? I'd really like to know what this was - I spent a lot of time playing it then!

 

Angband?


A.D.O.M?


Getting close?

 

My gosh people use to play these. My head hurts just looking at the pic.

 

The first pic didn't post for me, but I'll google and look. The second isn't the game I remember - but it IS what I mean by using text in place of graphics (except the backround on this game was black, just blank screen. The dungeon walls were solid, made of white squares, and you and the monsters were asci characters. Your arrows were depicted as *'s if I remember right.

EDIT: based on this picture I found for Angband, this looks closer in style.



The game I remember had one 'room' at a time on the screen, and you left (if there were exits) by moving off screen either up, down, or off the sides. Most of the screen was taken up with the display for the room, but there was a section that displayed your current arrows, hit points, gold, etc.

I know, not much to go on... I'll have to see if I can remember more.

 

It was all we had man! Hindsight is 20x20.. or in this case, 80x25.

Jeff.. try google imaging "rougelike games".. maybe it'll pop up, that whole genre is basically ascii re-purposed for "graphics"

 

betcha it is T.O.M.E

Tales of middle earth

http://t-o-m-e.net

 

Lol wow Tome is pretty hardcore man thats crazy. We have come along way.

 

yep, ASCII text based games like that were bleeding edge when I started gaming. welcome to the OLD games, not so pretty on the outside but ya could play them for over a thousand hours if you wanted

 

I still have a few Rogue-like games for my Palm. It was a huge step up from text-based games.

 

ya straight text based games always required a notepad and a FEW pens to keep track of things and draw maps

 

Sounds kind of like the original versions of Castle Wolfenstein.

http://www.videogamewisdom.com/pictures/bcw.jpg

 

CW had ascii graphics, things like Zork had NONE nada, nothing but TEXT

http://www.malinche.net/demos/zork.html
give it a try .... 30 years later!!!!

 

Nope, Tales of Middle Earth wasn't it... again, though, the level depiction was very similar.

I did remember something I forgot to mention - the game was black and white, with no color. Just white dungeon walls, a symbol for your character, and a symbol for your monster. Oh, and each room only had one monster in it - there was never more than 1 creature in a room.

This picture reminds me very much of what the walls looked like - except the backround (floor) was just black, with no dots, and there was only one room (or hallway) on the screen at a time.

 

darn you got me stumped on that one

 

lol... yeah, it's been bugging me on and off for years that I can't remember. If only I could recall a fragment of a name, or anything that I could accurately search from, but generic "apple games" searches haven't helped yet.

I'll keep trying - and if I find it, I'll post here to let you know what it was!

 

You better cause Im sure I know the one you speak of but I no longer have my IIe and disks anymore !!!!

 

Do you remember the year that you played the game?

 

Now it's bugging me! I used to love my Apple IIe.
Just looked at some screen shots on google and can't believe the games I forgot about......"Lemonade Stand"!! haha

 

Sadly, not precisely. My best guess of ranges would have been 1986 or 87, but the more I think about it the more I think it was probably earlier (like in the 1983-1985 range) as i was on to far more advanced graphical games by 87 - ya know, like Bolo, rescue raiders, Choplifter...

Oh, just tried Wikki and maybe I'm way off on the date - I seem to remember leaving this game for the "more advanced" stuff like Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and Wikki says that was released in 81.

Going to go see if I can find a way to narrow my searches to VERY early games and see what pops up...

 

OK, this is it - found a screen shot!!

Now just need to backtrack it to the name! But this is the one - I remember iron quarrels (IQ), magic quarrels (MQ)... A very simple game, but this was the one! (probably pretty basic and obscure, hence hard for us to recognize...)

Oh, and this is on a green screen - hence the shading. The game doesn't actually involve any color....

EDIT: was so excited, forgot to mention the name - the website says it's called Superquest. (Strangely enough, this doesn't ring a bell, though the "quest" part certainly does. I wonder if we knew it under a slightly different name back in my computer lab days... )

EDIT2: here's a website ( http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Sel/sqx5.htm ) with a description of the game. I swear, the loading screen looks completely unfamiliar to me, but the description, play, and screenshots are right on. Unless this is a different version somehow of the game I remembered, this has to be it.