D&D and Computer Games, through the ages

[hexgrid]

I played the gold box SSI games in the late 80s/early 90's before I played any actual table top D&D.

 

[Snowbird]

Wizardry was out around the time I got started with D&D. Damn cool - think that was 4th grade.

I would say that Ultima III though really drove the fascination home. What an amazing concept it was at the time.

Then later in life, after having given up P&P RPGs for a while, Baldur's Gate brought me back in. "Big Gate" was such a big damn deal in computer RPGs.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I started playing D&D somewhere in the mid 90's, I think. I never really thought about the specific date... I was in high school then.

I started playing videogames around ten years before that, when I was still in preschool. Around the time I was in the first grade, I played my first adventure/RPG genre game: Dragon Warrior (AKA Dragon Quest). A few years later, I played Final Fantasy II for the SNES for the first time, and I got hooked on the RPG genre.

I play D&D because I got interested in fantasy games and stories through videogame RPGs. I have never once thought of a videogame as some kind of substitute for D&D or as some method to experience the "D&D feel".

 

[okdaddio]

Dungeons of Daggorath for the TRS 80.

 

[Ktulu]

Hi my name's Ktulu and my interest in D&D was started by Baldur's Gate.

I had just purchased the game, thinking it would be like the Diablo series. My Dad, a huge fan of all things fantasy, played it more than I did. In the box was a little add for the AD&D Core Rules 2.0 CD, containing everything needed to play D&D on one CD!

Well, I bought it out of curiousity and taught my friends how to play. The rest is, as they say, history.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

There was a Dungeons & Dragons game for Intelivision. What I remember the most was that as you went through the maze, the closer you got to the main bad guy, the louder you could hear his growl. As a 3 year old that scared the poop out of me. Its like watching a horror movie and knowing something bad is going to happen right around the corner.

Because I am old and had an Intellivision growing up...I will needlessly expound on your topic.

The game you refer to was called Dungeons and Dragons: Cloudy Mountain. That game ruled.

There also was a second game called Dungeons and Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin which was similar to Bards Tale or Wizardry and had a turn-based and first person gameplay. That game didn't rule quite as much, but actually was more akin to playing D&D.

I spent a great part of my young youth playing the Intellivision and my brothers Apple II. I had an awesome party in Wizardry but never made it all the way to the bottom of the maze. I didn't have the ability at the time (I was in 2nd and 3rd grade) to actually map out the levels on graph paper.

In 4th grade I moved up to the Commodore 64, which was the super-awesome game experience of the time. There was no lack of role-playing games for that, but the D&D gold box games were a real treat.

I went for many years after my Commodore years without a PC, but finally I picked one up just in time for Baldurs Gate, which along with its expansions is my second favorite video game (and favorite RPG) of all time, sitting only behind Star Control II.

Since then nothing has grabbed me and pulled me in nearly as much. It may just be that I have gotten a little bit older and time has marched on. I haven't given up, however, and hope that Dragon Age might provide a bit of what I have been missing.

DS

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Dungeons of Daggorath for the TRS 80.

I was just about to mention this. If you can jamb more dungeon goodness into 16kb then I have not seen it. An absolute star!!!
After this I progressed to Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle on the Mac. Sometimes I think modern games can't hold a candle to some of these classics.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Betote]

I came to D&D through console videogames, specially the Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy and Sword of Mana series, which I played in my SuperNES for hours.

When I found out there was a way to play something similar to that (and to the HeroQuest boardgame) with my friends, I was instantly sold.

 

[Woas]

I started playing D&D in like 2002 I think when I was like 19. I played a lot games like Sim City, Sim Ant and Aerobiz. I never liked adventure games and still don't really.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I started playing D&D in 1977.

Like others, I did play arcade/console/computer games that had a fantasy angle to them.

Besides the occasional arcade game like Joust, Gauntlet, and Dragon's Lair over the years, I've played:

1. Art of War
2. Wizardry 1-3
3. Ultima 2-4
4. Bard's Tale 1 & 2
5. Adventure
6. Kingdom of Loathing
7. Pool of Radiance
8. Warlords
9. Zork
10. Madventure
11. Prince of Persia

and others that I've forgotten.

The thing is, I rarely finished any of them- I've never been what one would call "hard-core," and some of my games were messed up.

On occasion, they were damaged by my misguided attempts to give copies of them to my buddies, like Ultima 3. (If you've read my posts on piracy, understand that I was 14 or so- I've learned a bit since then.)

OTOH, Pools of Radiance was simply a buggy mess. I was going along just fine, enjoying the game when my MU/Th got hit by a Specter in a library. She had over 9000 negative levels...and yet she was still walking around, casting spells and hitting things with her sling or dagger. I puzzled at this, but kept playing for a while, and eventually saved my game and shut down my computer. That game would never re-open- it had a 100% crash rate after that. (This was on a computer without internet access, so no virus was to blame.)

Art of War was kind of a "capture the flag" type game, and it had a peculiar bug- If you selected the "Sherwood Forest" scenario played with "Genghis Khan" as your adversary, your flag was invariably placed right next to one of your foe's units. The game was over on the first turn.