''pedit5'', alternately called ''The Dungeon'', is a 1975
dungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video games an ...
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 ...
developed for the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
's
PLATO
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
computer network by Rusty Rutherford. In it, the player controls a character exploring a fixed, single-level dungeon containing randomly-generated monster encounters and treasure. When they encounter a monster, they can fight the monster with a weapon or spells, or attempt to flee. Characters can be saved between sessions. Rutherford developed the game over four to six weeks in late 1975 as a computerized take on the ''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
''
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
; it was named ''pedit5'' as it was stored in the fifth "pedit" slot his school group had available. It is considered to be the first example of a dungeon crawl video game and one of the first computer role-playing games. An improved version was later created on the PLATO network as ''orthanc''.
Gameplay
''pedit5'' is a
dungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video games an ...
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 ...
, in which the player guides a
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
who wanders a single-level
dungeon
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...
accumulating treasure and killing monsters. When a player encounters a monster, they can use one of several
spells
Spell(s) or The Spell(s) may refer to:
Processes
* Spell (paranormal), an incantation
* Spell (ritual), a magical ritual
* Spelling, the writing of words
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Spell'' (1977 film), an American ...
. Characters can be saved from one play session to the next. The dungeon is rendered in a two-dimensional overhead view using on-screen character graphics, and controlled via keyboard commands. The dungeon has a fixed layout, but the monster encounters and treasure are randomly generated.
They are generated whenever a new character was created, and saved with the character. When the player encounters a monster, they can choose to fight, cast a spell, or run; if the player does not immediately defeat or flee the monster, the player-character and monster fight to the death in a battle controlled by the game without further player input.
Development
The game was developed by Rusty Rutherford over four to six weeks in late 1975 for the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
's
PLATO
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
computer network, which by the 1970s supported several thousand
graphical terminals distributed worldwide, running processes on nearly a dozen different networked
mainframe computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
s.
Rutherford had been playing the
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...
''
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...
'' since earlier in the year, and wanted to create a video game based on the concept. He knew of another game based on the same concept that was under development in the PLATO system, under the title ''
dnd'', but as it had not yet been finished he wanted to start on his own version. As the ''dnd'' project had promised to be a multiplayer game but had not yet been able to deliver the feature—nor would it—he set out to create a single-player game. Rutherford tried to use ''Dungeons & Dragons'' concepts as much as possible, including hit points, levels, and experience and treasure rewards for defeating monsters. The player-character was a combination of a fighter, magic user, and cleric. The limitations of the system required Rutherford to compromise on size; the dungeon was limited to 40-50 rooms on a single level, and the game could only store 20 players at a time, which Rutherford later said was a large problem when the game became popular.
The game was named ''pedit5'' as Rusty Rutherford was a member of the Population and Energy Group at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; each group was assigned a limited number of program slots on the school's mainframe, with the Population and Energy Group having program slots names "pedit1" through "pedit5". The group had used the first three slots, and Rutherford was able to code his game into the fifth slot, which became the game's default name. Rutherford used pedit4 for the game's manual.
Because at the time the game was not seen to be an appropriate use of the resources by system administrators ''pedit5'' was eventually deleted, but Rutherford continually restored it.
Legacy
''pedit5'' was one of the first
computer role-playing games; ''pedit5'', ''dnd'', and ''
Dungeon
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from ...
'' were all created around the same time in 1975, though they may have been preceded by the swiftly-deleted ''m199h'' in 1974.
It is considered to be the first example of a dungeon crawl game. The random generation of monster encounters and treasure makes the game an early predecessor of the
roguelike
Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player characte ...
genre.
A new version of the game, based on the original work but significantly expanded, was written by three other programmers as ''
orthanc
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings, Isengard () is a large fortress in Nan Curunír, the Wizard's Vale, in the western part of Middle-earth. In the fantasy world, the name of the fortress is described as a translation of Angrenost, a word ...
'', named after a tower in ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
''. The original version of ''pedit5'' was resurrected as ''orthanc1''. Both ''orthanc'' and ''orthanc1'' remained on the PLATO system. Since then, copies of the game's source code have been made available allowing users to play the title on the PLATO (Cybis) system, or an
emulator
In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run so ...
of it, connected to the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
.
References
{{reflist
External links
cyber1.org website dedicated to PLATO, with emulators for a variety of operating systems
1975 video games
Fantasy video games
PLATO (computer system) games
Role-playing video games
Video games developed in the United States