Ahh, Wizardry...
Cue flashback.. and go!
1981... yes, back in the days when floppies were floppy. The Apple ][+
was one of the best computers out there, and had the best non-console
games available.
Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead of Sir Tech Software had just
released Wizardry - The Proving Grounds of
The Mad Overlord. This was the defining game that started the
entire genre of role playing computer games. Baldur's Gate owes its
existence to Wizardry.
Here, Trebor (the mad overlord and 'Robert' spelled backwards) sent you
down into the dungeons
under the castle to fight a myriad of different monsters, and rescue
treasures from their vile grasps. At the bottom, was Werdna (evil wizard
who happens to have the name 'Andrew' spelled backwards) who
had stolen an amulet. A good map was critical - level 3
had a myriad of spinners and halls that all looked the same. Good
stuff was useful too - few can forget the first time they walked about
level 4 and saw the door with the sign on it "Monster Allocation Center"
and promptly getting slaughtered.
Wizardry had the classic races - Human (boring), Elf (Mages and Bishops),
Dwarves (Fighters and Priests), Gnomes (Priests and Thieves), and
Hobbit (Thieves). There also existed a basic set of classes: thief,
fighter, mage, and priest. The bishop was almost a basic class - you
could get it on the initial roll.
Alignment was also part of the game and limited your party forming
abilities. Fighters and mages could be of any alignment, thieves couldn't
be good, priests couldn't be neutral. You couldn't have a good and evil
character in the same party. Not a big problem for basic classes.
Once you got to the elite adventurers though, it got a bit more interesting.
- Bishops could identify objects (including the mystical #9) and could
learn mage and priest spells (though slowly). Like the priest, they
could not be neutral.
- The samurai was an 'advanced' fighter who learned mage spells. A
samurai couldn't be evil.
- The lord was a fighter/priest combo, who had to be good.
- The Ninja was a mean evil fighter/thief who eventually got to the
point where they would walk around the dungeon nude and kill things
with critical hits with their bare hands. The ninja must be evil.
The spell system was also interesting - it had a language of its own.
Basic
- Dalto - cold
- Di - heal
- Dilto - darkness
- Lito - fire
- Morlis - fear
- Porfic - shield
- Sopic - glass
- Tino - Air
Modifiers
- ba - bad
- la - BIG
- ka - bad
- ma - big
- mon - still
- -os - little
- -al - more
- -kan - tower
Granted, not all the combinations were available, but most were.
While 'katino' was a sleep
spell, 'lakatino' was
suffocation.
'Halito' was a little
fireball, 'lahalito' was a
fire storm and 'litokan'
was a
pillar of flame.
'Dios' was a first level heal spell, and 'badialma' was a "big bad hurt more"
which did allot of damage to the monster. You get the idea. But don't
forget '
Tiltowait' - for which the best translation was
"
Nuke them until they glow".
Ahh, the memories this brings back... of seeing the sun rise over a
green monochrome monitor and realizing that the school bus came in an hour.
Indeed a classic game.