Dunjonquest: The Curse of Ra

Rah rah rah! Here are the maps for the third and final expansion module in the original "Apshai" trilogy, "The Curse of Ra."

Level One: The Well of Forever


This simple level is a nice introduction to both the game and the overriding Egyptian theme, and it only gets hairy once you reach the pit.

Level Two: The Sphinx


No annoying riddles in this one. The actual MONSTER sphinx is something you meet right near the beginning. The fun part is enjoying their attempt at creating a level which is actually SHAPED like a sphinx, complete with paws, ears, and a tail.

Level Three: The Pyramid

And what a huge place it is, too! Here's the exterior and interior:


but you only reach those inner rooms when you go partway up and then return through the FIRST passage:
Compared to all the other levels, this one provides the most opportunities for increasing your stats (in the sandy rooms to the north). Watch out for the moving statues.

Level Four: Temple of Ra


Because the Apshai engine didn't allow for triggers or conditions of any kind, attempts to convey a complicated causal environment were bound to falter now and then...if you enter a room LATER that the level designers assumed you'd enter much EARLIER, for instance, you might read a room description that tries to evoke a progressive narrative by referring to a room you haven't been in yet. Causality gets reversed. It feels weird.

This is my way of saying that if you proceed through the levels in the way they HOPED you would, you'll feel nicely submerged in the action. If you DON'T, however, then you might feel like you're watching the episodes of a TV series in the wrong order.

Fortunately I played "Temple of Ra" in the "correct" way, so I was baffled by the "mysterious force" in the secret area following the Temple Room. I do suggest you play through the base of the Ra statue before going to the upper section.

And after you're done...that's it for "Temple of Apshai!" But don't despair, the "Hellfire Warrior" sequel comes next.

Dunjonquest: The Upper Reaches of Apshai

(See this post for background on what I'm talking about here)

Give some creative and intelligent people a framework for creating games, and before long they'll figure out how to do tricks that are far beyond the original specifications. "Temple of Apshai" may have kept rigidly within the Dunjonquest engine's parameters, but "Upper Reaches of Apshai" has the software jumping through hoops.

Specifically, they've realized three things:

1. Rooms can overlap. Because each room's data is totally discreet -- not being part of a single large structure -- you can create a multi-leveled effect. This is first seen in the spiral staircase of level four, "Benedic's Monestery."
2. Adjacent doors don't have to have the same connections. This is first seen in "Merlis' Hall of Magic," (level 2) where returning through a door takes you to a room that LOOKS identical but is totally different (and might have different exits, secret doors, etc.) This adds a whole new dimension to the game, allowing rooms to "change" depending on how you enter them.
3. The other effect of disconnected doors is the simple one-way exit, fully exploited in the "cave ins" within "Olias' Cellar" (level 3). It's easy but effective: walk through a door, and the next room doesn't have a door that goes back in the opposite direction.
4. Finally, the most maddening and subtle trick of them all: the "two rooms appear to be one room" trick. Because all Dunjonquest rooms must be rectangular, you begin to assume that every rectangle is a single room...you check for secret doors within a room and then you walk out. But by creating two adjacent rooms, each with only three walls, the level creators can make a "hidden" room that is only visible when you cross the midpoint. A treasure might be in that room, or -- in the case of the "bear cave" in "Olias' Cellar" -- a secret door that cannot be detected until you cross the room.

What amazes me about these games is how polished they are. Each time I find that I've missed a room or a treasure, my first thought is that I've encountered a bug, but no...after diligent searching I realize that I didn't find what I was looking for because the level designers wanted me to WORK HARD.

That said, I think there IS a bug in "Olias' Cellar," involving a secret door in room 19 that leads to a corridor section (15) which overlaps another corridor section (20) but shares the same exits. Nothing in the text explains why this happens, so I suspect the design was glitchy and they just left it in.

(I also think there's a missing treasure in the final level of "Curse of Ra," but I'll get to that next time).

Anyway, here are the levels for "The Upper Reaches of Apshai."

Level One: The Innkeeper's Backyard



Level Two: Merlis' Cottage



Level 3: Olias' Cellar



Level Four: Benedics Monastery


Besides the innovations in the room connections, these levels are more fun to play because they're coherent. They have interesting backstories and little mysteries which go far beyond the "kill monsters and find treasures" plots of "Temple." More importantly, these levels tend to be FUNNY. There are actually JOKES in them. Rather than endlessly fighting motivationless Antmen ("Oh no! Antmen") you are meeting vicious farmyard animals ("Oh no! Goose!") and doing your darnedest to vanquish the Creeping Crud.

Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai

I have so many guilty pleasures that I'm in a permanent state of mortification, and one of my pleasures is a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl. It's not because I love killing monsters and collecting treasures; the actual BULK of a dungeon crawl game is incidental to me. What I REALLY like to do is to EXPLORE.

I've always gotten a thrill out of mazes, tunnels, and imaginary digital worlds. Unfortunately there are few games that are simply about exploring...pissy monsters are always attacking you and you have to solve anachronous "eight queens" puzzles at every second step. I'm of the opinion that the world (the real one) is waiting for a computer simulation of a rich landscape that doesn't necessarily have anybody else in it. The fact that I'd enjoy such a thing is creepy, really.

But anyway, my favourite games as a teenager were the ones where you could wander around a maze and map it, and then stare for hours at the map wondering what sort of cool place it would be to live in. Unfortunately back then I had a very low threshold for frustration, so I rarely succeeded in finishing the games that were so fun to explore: Ultima, The Eidolon, Alternate Reality, and...

...the Dunjonquest series, considered to be the first dungeon crawls for the 8-bit home computers. Originally developed by Jon Freeman (who is most idolized these days as being one of the creators of Archon) for his fledgling Automated Simulations company (likewise most idolized for later becoming Epyx), these games were all about wandering around mazes, killing monsters, raising your stats, collecting treasures, and running from Antmen who apparently used a vanilla-scented body lotion.

The Dunjonquest game that most people remember is "Temple of Apshai" and its two sequels, "Upper Reaches of Apshai" and "Curse of Ra." These three games -- like the "Hellfire Warrior" trilogy that followed them -- presented you with a very basic depiction of your surroundings, requiring you to actually read the room descriptions from the accompanying manual (or "Book of Lore.")

Originally written in BASIC in 1979, the first games required a great deal of patience and imagination, and the subsequent games -- with the exception of "Gateway to Apshai," a very different arcade-style adventure -- used the same engine. Even when the Apshai games were eventually released as a re-written, integrated, machine-language "Temple of Apshai Trilogy" -- the way most people remember them -- you still needed to shuffle your little character along featureless corridors, bumping into walls and slaying barely-animated 4-colour monsters.

So Dunjonquest games don't have a lot of appeal to gamers these days, and they've slowly faded away from the eyes of even the most nostalgic 8-bit fans.

Until now!

I'm happy to say I'm not alone in my love of these games, and I've been collaborating with Robinson Mason -- and scrounging the darkest corners of the internet -- to reclaim the programs. And not just the programs, but also the even more rare "Books of Lore" which are both essential for play and a delight to read.

While my compatriot tirelessly unearths more of the games and materials, I've been concentrating on reverse-engineering the BASIC code and mapping all the levels. I've discovered some interesting things buried in the convoluted rats-nest of oddly-ported BASIC, but that will come later. Right now, here are maps for the four levels of the first game, "Temple of Apshai."

I decided not to include room numbers, traps, or treasures -- that would not only clutter up my tiny drawings but would also spoil more of the game. And I make no claims to the 100% accuracy of these maps; they are complete and fully-connected, but their proportions may be slightly off. Click on an image to see a larger version.

Temple of Apshai - Level One


Temple of Apshai - Level Two


Temple of Apshai - Level Three


Temple of Apshai - Level Four


The maps for the next game ("Upper Reaches of Apshai") are coming soon (along with playing tips), and I expect there'll be a resource site starting up eventually. Until then, spare a thought to all those digital worlds that are locked up in decaying floppy disks in attics and basements, and consider rescuing them for one last time.

Dwarf Fortress

I loved "The Sims." I loved "Zangband." I also loved "Sim City" and "Alpha Centauri." I have a thing about games that let me build and micro-manage a situation, especially on a microscopic level.

But rarely does a game possess me so entirely that I can literally spend an entire weekend (and perhaps more) playing it, dreading even the thought of MAKING DINNER or doing anything else that might take precious minutes away from The Entertainment.

I was reading old friend Ian's blog and one of his first posts was about "Dwarf Fortress," described as the most complicated game of all time. I didn't want to delve into some hackneyed freeware game with a steep learning curve, but the premise was intriguing: you manage a settlement of dwarves as they build and defend their fortress.

So I downloaded it and started playing. Wading through the countless menus and options was daunting. I didn't understand what any of the symbols were supposed to mean. The manual was sparse and unsatisfying. I couldn't get anywhere. So I sadly closed the program and resolved not to play it again...

...until I discovered the Dwarf Fortress Wiki, and in particular the "Your First Fortress" page. I followed the suggestions and I began -- haltingly -- to learn the logic of the game's user interface. Each small step revealed another wealth of possibilities until -- as of yesterday morning -- I became totally hooked.

I've got this handful of dwarves, see? Each one of them has a unique and detailed personality, included quirks and religious leanings, along with a huge set of potential skills.

Then I've got this enormous, fractal-generated world full of realistic geology and overlapping biomes. I've got to dig this huge fortress, find a place to stockpile my stones and food and a place for my dwarves to throw their garbage. I need to cut down trees so I can make beds, I have to build their dining halls and kitchens, I have to organize them into military squads.

But dwarves don't like to be outside, so I need to get them to plant crops underground. Since they can't sow seeds into chert (one of the dozens of types of stone you're liable to encounter, each with its own uses), I need to dig channels from a far-off river, diverting the water so that it creates an underground lake under my mountain. Then I need to build floodgates and attach them to gears and levers, which my dwarves can pull in order to selectively irrigate my underground chambers. Then the dwarves plant the crops, harvest them months later, eat them or brew them into alcohol, save the seeds, weave some of them into fiber which can then be made into clothing, sewn with images, dyed, made into ropes which are attached to buckets and blocks to create wells...

...and your wood furnace can be used to make ashes, which can be mixed with water to create potash...or turned into lye and made into soap in the alchemist's workshop...but to build that workshop you need to create glassware, which means collecting sand and heating it in a glassworks...and on and on and on.

Meanwhile the dwarves are interacting with each other. Some of them fall in love and have children, who gradually grow to have lives of their own. They sit and chat, they wrestle, they play with the dogs, they go out to chase the wildlife or fish by the water. They grieve for lost friends, especially when those friends drowned in the water supply and started belching up great clouds of pink, corrupting miasma.

This description doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. I've been playing constantly for three days and I STILL don't really know what I'm doing.

My advice? DON'T PLAY IT. You will either hate it or you'll be unable to stop, so either way you lose.

ZAngband, My Guilty Pleasure

Every few years I dust off the old Roguelike and spend some time obsessively playing it. For the last eight years my personal favourite has been ZAngband, and I've spent a week joyfully hacking away at it.

What's so nice about a Roguelike? You can play it on any platform. The vibrant development base makes for frequent updates and tweaks. With no attention paid to spiffy graphics -- as you can see above -- all the code can go toward providing balance, interest, and surprise. At the best of times it's like playing randomized chess. At its worst it's an endless tapping out of the same command codes ("m4b*t, m4b*t, m4b*t...").

The BEST thing about playing a Roguelike, though, is that it provides a good opportunity to just sit and listen to a CD at the same time. Each time I sit down to play the game, I put in a CD I haven't properly listened to and then play along with the CD. When the CD's over I force myself to quit the game, because nothing kills your character like general game fatigue.

Another nice thing about it is the "code of game ethics" which states that when your character dies...that's it. Game over. You don't do anything tricky -- like back up your save file -- to resurrect it. This leads to a lot of reflection during the game and a reduction of potentially suicidal choices. It also leads to intense frustration when eight hours of your life go down the toiled due to "Yet Another Stupid Death."

What's so nice about ZAngband? It's the only Roguelike with a huge randomized wilderness full of towns, ruins, and themed dungeons. Its magic system is unparalleled. It also has a good sense of humour, having strayed from the traditional Tolkein influences to bring us Robin Hood and -- jeez -- Barney the chaos-spewing dinosaur.

ZAngband has so many character options -- race, class, magic types -- that it can be a bit daunting to the beginner. So I have only one (nerdy) thing to say: Mindflayer ranger with Death magic. You'll spend the first hour or so running away from everything, but once you hit your stride...

Armchair Caving

I'd like to say "put me in a cave and I bravely explore the smallest crevasse," but the truth is more like "put me in a cave and I scream 'help, I'm stuck, there are bugs, get me out!'"

No matter my reluctance to actually squeeze through the dark, buggy confines of a real-life cave, I love to read about OTHER people going into them, which is why Roger Brucker's book "The Longest Cave" is such a treat.

It's the story of the Mammoth/Flint cave system, and in particular the attempts of the authors (and many others) to survey and connect them. I've always thought that the grueling nature of caving was just about "squeezing through that tight spot" or "ducking under that stalactite," but Roger Brucker brings the truth home. Have you ever spent five hours crawling on your belly through a dusty passage only slightly bigger than your horizontal body, trying to find the end of a mysterious, extended tunnel, occasionally sleeping, rarely given the opportunity to turn around?

No? Well you're not alone, because apparently nobody's ever gotten to the end of that passage (called "Left of the Trap"). And therein lies some of the beauty of "The Longest Cave." It describes in a matter-of-fact way the places that humans JUST CANNOT GO, because even the most acclimatized of us simply do not have enough stamina. And that's incredible.

Although Brucker's style tends to be of the "We walked through the passage, Clive kept on singing, we told him to be quiet" variety, he really does maintain the tension until the very end: the connection of the Flint and Mammoth systems to create the world's longest cave. He's not a great author but his passion and his first-hand experience more than make up for his stylistic stumblings.

As an aside I've discovered that it's almost impossible to actually see a MAP of these caves; the maps in Brucker's book are not very detailed, and there don't appear to be online sources for ANY Flint/Mammoth cave maps. I wonder why? I bet they're kept pseudo-secret to prevent people from wandering into them and getting lost.

I Am Here in Oolite

No, I haven't mysteriously vanished. I'm afraid that my mind has been grabbed by the iron fist of Oolite, and for the moment I can't escape.

I've always been fascinated by space travel in its most mundane sense: getting from here to there. I just can't grasp the distances between planets, let alone solar systems, let alone GALAXIES. It amazes me that it's all unexplored, in the way that people must have been amazed by (and attracted to) "darkest Africa" and the poles, before we found out it was all pretty much normal, just harder to get to.

So give me a game where I can explore a "universe," and I'm happy. Make it a game where the travel is mind-numbingly dull -- watching your destination approach over half an hour while your fellow ships travel around you -- and I'm THRILLED. Give me the ability to ADD to the universe with custom MODs, and I widow my blog (and my cat) so I can study the modding language and create mysterious ghost ships and space-age Voyageurs.

As if this wasn't enough, Oolite's universe is also procedurally generated, a process that has obsessed my slightly-autistic mind since I was a child, watching computer-landscapes blossom from the union of a number seed and an algorithm. You needed to think about these things when you had only 64K to play with.

Once I've explored its boundaries and gotten frustrated by the scripting languages, I'll probably put aside Oolite and never play it again. I already can't believe that I'm willing to sit for ages watching a planet get slightly bigger, while my cat cries "love me!" from the floor. But sometimes I get hooked on these things, and since this weekend was a scheduled "no-bar" interval this is the perfect time to indulge myself.

So I'm sorry that the blog hasn't been updated. I'll make it up to you soon with ANOTHER new obsession, which is a surprise and infinitely more social.

Shamus 2

Ah yes, give me a game I can map and I'll be happy for hours. I didn't care much for William Mataga's "Shamus: Case II" back in 1983, but thanks to the joy of emulation -- and the instructions here -- I can finally enjoy the game. And win it. On the Novice level. By saving it an awful lot.

I couldn't find any online maps or spoilers for Shamus 2, so here are mine. I'm sorry the map isn't very pretty (click for a larger version).
And here are the spoilers: there are 38 rooms, the devilish "sliding ladders" start to appear in room 27, and the only way across room 20 is to fall down into the ingenious "hidden room" (17).

Room 38 contains a "detonator." After you've armed it you need to get back to room zero (which you can do in ten moves), at which time you're told that "The Shadow is dead on this level" and you start at the Intermediate level. The instructions say that you actually DO BATTLE with The Shadow, so I assume that eventually you do get to meet him.

It's a nifty game with neat cross-genre appeal, but the real joy for me is the joy of mapping. The higher levels are probably the same, maybe with different obstacles...YOU can find out!