''Dungeons of Daggorath'' is one of the first

real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...

role-playing video game A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...

s. It was produced by DynaMicro for the TRS-80 Color Computer in 1983. A sequel, ''Castle of Tharoggad'', was released in 1988.

Gameplay

''Dungeons of Daggorath'' was one of the first games that attempted to portray three-dimensional space in a real-time environment, using angled lines to give the illusion of depth. It followed the 1974 games ''

Maze War ''Maze'', also known as ''Maze War'', is a 3D multiplayer first-person shooter list of maze video games, maze game originally developed in 1973 and expanded in 1974. The first version was developed by high school students Steve Colley, Greg Thomp ...

'' and '' Spasim'', written for research computers, and the first 3D maze game for home computers, ''

3D Monster Maze ''3D Monster Maze'' is a survival horror computer game developed from an idea by J.K. Greye and programmed by Malcolm Evans and released in 1981 for the Sinclair ZX81 platform with the 16 KB memory expansion. The game was initially released ...

'', released in 1981. The game '' Phantom Slayer'', which was released in 1982 for the Color Computer, also featured monsters lurking in a maze. While ''Daggorath'' was visually similar to these games, it added several elements of strategy, such as different kinds of monsters, complex mazes, different levels of visibility, and the use of different objects and weapons. The player moves around a dungeon, issuing commands by means of typing – for example, typing "GET LEFT SHIELD" or "USE RIGHT" (or abbreviations such as "G L SH" and "U R"), gathering strength and ever more powerful weapons as the game progresses. Various creatures appear, and can often be heard when they are nearby, even when not visible. The object of the game is to defeat the second of two wizards, who is on the fifth and last level of the dungeon. A unique feature of the game is a heartbeat which rises as the player moves, takes actions or takes damage within the virtual environment. The heartbeat is a direct predecessor of the "health" indicator in later games; the higher the heart rate, the more vulnerable the player is to attack. The player can faint from overexertion, in which case there is the risk of being attacked while defenseless. This heartbeat system was used instead of numerical

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

such as

hit points Health is an attribute in a video game or tabletop game that determines the maximum amount of damage or loss of stamina that a character or object can take before dying or losing consciousness. In role-playing games, this typically takes the for ...

or vitality, and was inspired by

arcade game An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade v ...

s, specifically 1978's '' Space Invaders'' where a heartbeat-like sound gradually increases pace as enemies advance towards the player.

Development

The game was developed by Douglas J. Morgan and Keith S. Kiyohara, with sounds by Phil Landmeier, in 1980–81 for the Tandy (

RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

) TRS-80 Color Computer. Produced by DynaMicro, it was released in 1983 as an eight

kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix ''kilo'' as 1000 (103); per this definition, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes.International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quantiti ...

ROMpak cartridge for the Color Computer, which took several months of recoding to achieve. Despite this, the game features a multi-level

maze A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lea ...

and has what for the time were advanced sound effects that provide important clues to the locations of monsters.

Legacy

After ''Dungeons of Daggorath'' became one of the most popular Color Computer games, Tandy produced a sequel, ''Castle of Tharoggad'', in 1988 which was made without the participation of the ''Daggorath'' team. It was poorly received. Around 2001, Douglas J. Morgan noticed that the exclusive copyright had fallen back to him since for years there was no production and selling by the publisher

. He released the game under a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

-like license to the public, also offering the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

for a small fee. It has been ported by fans to

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

, RISC OS and PSP via the SDL library. A free, open-source version has also been ported to th
Web
''Dungeons of Daggorath'' was featured in the book '' Ready Player One'', where the protagonist has to solve the game, emulated within a simulated universe. The plot point does not appear in its film adaptation. The game's artwork was used also for the

Oneohtrix Point Never Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer and songwriter. His music has experimented with tropes from various music genres and eras, s ...

album '' Garden of Delete'', which is an edit from a screenshot of the game.

References

External links

''Dungeons of Daggorath''
at the Tandy Color Computer Games list

with Douglas J. Morgan interview
Original ''Dungeons of Daggorath'' Source Code
on github.com, retrieved January 26, 2022. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dungeons Of Daggorath Dragon 32 games Fantasy video games First-person video games TRS-80 Color Computer games Role-playing video games 1982 video games Commercial video games with freely available source code Video games developed in the United States