In the thread about the new Tomb Raider movie right about here, I offhandedly mentioned the old Dungeons of Daggorath game that was played on the TRS-80 systems (notably the Color Computer) back in the early- to mid-1980s.
As it turns out, you can still download the game, which was a precursor to Doom and other first-person shooter games, here.
Anyone else out here play this game back in the day? You never began with a map; in fact, you had to pull the torch from your sack and light the thing before you could do anything. And of course this was all on the keyboard; no joysticks for this game! Sound was minimal, too, but one thing I always liked to do was to sit in one spot (a corner, preferably, looking to the left and right) and wait. And wait, and wait. You’d hear the Stone Giant, the Spider, the Snake (there was another name for him, wasn’t there?). But the most chilling noise would come when you’d hear - in the distance, but who knows how far - the Blob.
If you played, how far did you make it? Ever solve it?
I was always more of a “Rogue” player, myself. Never got off the first level of DoD. Now I can’t get past the other games on the disk image of DoD that I have!
A - [space] - R - [enter]!
A - [space] - R - [enter]!
<grumble> <grumble>
You’d think that if I saved the instructions I’d have the damned CARTRIDGE some place!
<grumble> <grumble>
Are you saying you still have a CoCo to play the cartridge on?
If not, you can visit the link above and download the emulator so you can play it on the PC. It’s free.
If he doesn’t, I do. CocoII with the funky beige case. It might even still work (insofar as it ever did). I might possibly still have the cartridge–I certainly obsessed over the game enough when I was a kid.
Of course, if I dig through my technology graveyard here long enough, I’ll probably find some gears from Babbage’s engine, too.
OF COURSE I still have a CoCo! F-Board CoCo1 (the off-white one, last before the CoCo2) from, say, late '83, early '84. Not that I’ve had it that long, but it’s my current one. I have had more CoCos than you’ve had hot meals, boy! And edited one of the last CoCo newsletters.
I have all the emulators except Jeff Vavasour’s CoCo3, which I probably should buy. You’ll want his latest CoCo2 because it behaves better under Windows. An excellent product.
It was my first computer, in 1980.
But anyway, back to the OP…
That link in my OP gives a cool walkthrough of the entire game. I never made it past the third level, either (the one where the scorpions first appear).
I do remember getting a flask or ring and looking the words up in a dictionary (!!!) to find out how to incant or reveal them.
I really should re-download that emulator! Man, that was fun…
I’ve downloaded the emulator and have begun playing DoD again. But I can’t get sound! What am I doing wrong? Anyone have an idea?
I don’t know. Some of the emulators do the sound better than others, but none seem to have sound as good as the Real Thing.
Update: Jeff’s latest (see link above) handles the sound. IIRC, not much worse (!) than the original, too. Return of CoCo is a windows emulator that doesn’t do sound. Mess is, well, a mess with sound.
If you hit F5, you can turn sound on or off, and if you hit F6, you can change the sound source from external to internal, whatver that means (you can also adjust the external-sound volume with the <> keys).
So the first time I play the game after loading it, I hit F5, and I hear the heartbeat. Cool.
But no sounds for the monsters.
So then I get killed and start another game. And voila! Sound from the monsters, albeit really rudimentary sound.
Oh well, better than nuttin.