Nostalgia and some early D&D'esque influences

[Shemeska]

Now I didn't actually play D&D till sometime in 2000'ish (around the time that the first 3e MM came out), but I was somewhat familiar with the concept behind the game from a number of things earlier during my childhood, including but not limited to: the old D&D cartoon, some very abortive attempts to play 2e AD&D at a neighbor's house, a bunch of Endless Quest books from the local library, and another one that's the main gist of this post - the Apple 2E Eamon games.

Does anyone else remember these? They were a bunch of quasi-D&D text based adventure games that you could create a character in, get weapons, learn some spells (a whopping 4!) and then go on various adventures conveniantly contained on gigantic floppy disks.

I played these things obsessively from around 1986 till around 1992. Taking a character through the opening starter adventure, innovatively called "The Beginners Cave". Killing rats, getting a magic potion, fighting a giant ape, trying to open a chest that was actually a killer mimic, killing a deranged evil cleric, and getting a pile of jewels and a magical sword called 'Trollsfire' from a pirate. Awesome stuff.

1992 was when my mom put a magnetic travel chess set on top of the floppies and erased them all. But I spent so much damn time in the library playing the two adventures I initially had 'Assault on the Clone Master' and 'The Death Star'. A few years later I ordered a bunch more from a mail order Apple 2e game company/club, and spent even more time playing them (when I wasn't playing Oregon Trail or the Carmen Sandiego games).

A few years ago I managed to snag a bunch of those old adventures that were ported to Windows by some totally awesome person, and prior to that point I'd made do with a Windows Apple 2e emulator. So much nostalgia for those games on my part.

Does anyone else remember those games at all? Given the none-so-subtle bits of D&D'isms that permeated those games, they were probably one of the things that made me ripe for recruiting into D&D and other RPGs many years later. Anyone else?

Edit: Here's a link to a page with a bunch of them and details and such

 

[Scott_Rouse]

I don't remember those games but around the same time the guy who introduced me to D&D had a Apple IIe and had Castle Wolfenstein. We played the crap out of that game.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Those Endless Quest books? I still own a handful.

Currently trying my attempt at module creation for a 3E/Tale of the Twin Suns game; Expedition to the Ruins of Brookmere.

 

[armorclass10]

I don't recall that Apple Game. Although I played tons of Telengard, which I have a ported version of, and that was pretty early on when everything was "tape" based and took 2 hours to boot up. I also got hooked on the Bard's Tale Series, SSI's Gold Box stuff, all of these later on and on the C64. I did read those Endless Quest books like crazy. Not ringing a bell. Sorry

 

[Keefe the Thief]

My first D&D computer game was Pool of Radiance - and now, 20 Years later, i built my first 3.5 & 4e Campaign on the experience. It is, as was to be expected, totally awesome.

I still remember when my local gaming mag ASM reviewed the game - on 4! pages. That was unheard of back then. What totally sucked me in was - beside the cool background information in Journals, Maps and Rumors - the awesome tactical combat. That´s why i´m totally stoked about my 4e conversion.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

The two computer games that live with me to this day from my youth are:

- Dungeons of Daggeroth (TRS-80)
This game to fit within 16kb was completely and utterly astounding. Having some programming experience now, I simply marvel at what that game was able to achieve!

- Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle (Macintosh)
Again, the gameplay was before it's time and even in B&W, this game was just pure genius.

Both of these games as well as the fighting fantasy game books City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon pointed me in the direction of D&D and the red box set. Thank you very much to the creators of these from the bottom of my heart.

Does anyone else remember these ones?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Mallus]

I have fond memories of Wizard's Crown, an SSI RPG they put out a few years before their 1st Gold Box D&D title. It had the best combat system I've ever seen, plus a nifty random magic item generator.

 

[freyar]

In the early '90s I was into the ASCII graphics game Moria, in which you are an @ symbol running around and killing various things. Maybe five years ago, I enjoyed playing the more modern version angband, mostly the Zelazny variant because it had more cool monsters. But I never got very good at it.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Actually related.

The Spoony Experiment » Dragon Strike Board Game Review

I knew someone who owned Dragon Strike. That video is just as hilarious as that video portrays. That said, I got into D&D mostly from proxy; I knew of it, but never played it. I got slowly drawn in from my regular visits to the Friendliest LGS that has and will ever exist (and my god do I still miss it) for CCG stuff.

 

[Oni]

"Thank you Cleric, by healin' me you may have saved a thousand lives."*

That was probably the most often repeated line of my first year of table top gaming.




*It's been quite a while I may not have it exactly right.