In the beginning there was Rogue.
Back in the mid-eighties, when I finally came across a 'serious' computer, one of the games circulating
was called Rogue. The PC, which had been synonymous to me with boring accounting programs, suddenly
took on a new charm as I explored dungeon after random dungeon, losing myself in the black and white
light of the monitor into the late hours. Scavenging, evading traps, fighting all kinds of weird monsters.
I admired the way that gameplay had been put above graphics to the point of at last recreating the fun
of a good role-playing game session with a few pals.
Crude, but fun for a few hours until the tediousness of remembering the meaning of every single
text character being used to represent the world of Rogue wore through my patience and I just
left it at that.
The best was yet to come.
And then, around 1989, I discovered Moria on the Amiga, the best machine I ever saw, way ahead of it's time.
Thanks to the efforts of Robert Alan Koeneke and a few students at the University of Oklahoma,
Moria saw the light of day on a VAX minicomputer. From there it was converted to Unix by James E. Wilson.
A vastly enhanced version of Rogue, Moria was a stunning encounter for me.
At first, I thought this was yet another ambitious attempt to bring a real RPG to the computer
using tiny graphics from a bunch of public domain lamers.
Was I wrong ! When I realized that you could spike a door to block it and delay a monster from entering the room,
my mind just boggled.
Somebody had gone to this length to recreate the true Dungeons&Dragons feel to the screen.
I was in awe and instantly hooked. I had to go deeper in this game and find out just how good it could get.
Not only was I not disappointed, but the game shined from the passion and dedication of those who had put it together.
The cherry on the cake was the humor that transpired in the replies from the shopkeepers when
you tried to haggle for an item ("My children will starve, but you can have it for that price !" etc),
or when a monster insulted your mother ! Great stuff. :)
The Amiga version was of course vastly superior to any other version thanks to Bryan and Richard Henderson
who had the commitment to upgrade the original program. The graphics were transformed from austere if not unrecognizable
simple text characters to more bearable color 8x16 tiles. This of course made it not only acceptable to the average
gamer, but gave Moria the fame and praise it deserved.
Here is the Commodore Amiga version : Mines of Moria v3.0 in DMS format for WinUAE.
The public domain descendants of Rogue today
Angband is the latest public-domain successor to Moria, but again, even though it has many qualities,
I don't find it attractive enough to justify spending so much time playing it.
It is still using graphics that are badly dated and the sound effects are laughable.
By adding yet another layer of complexity, IMO, Angband is just putting itself beyond the patience
of a lot of would-be adventurers that traveled the tunnels of the original mines.
Nethack is one of the more charming descendants of Rogue, and whose graphics are decent, if still
a bit on the minimalist side. After playing it for a while, I got tired of the awkward interface and
the scale of the graphics just annoyed me as well.
A commercial success : Diablo
Diablo was directly inspired by Moria, as it's main developer once acknowledged in an interview.
However, as with a lot of games, the graphics took over the depth of gameplay.
Very pretty and quite close in many regards to what made Moria so addictive, but I found the isometric graphics
often obscured and took away much of the charm that came from the tactical simplicity that the original displayed.
It went on to sell over a million copies and numerous add-ons and sequels were made.
A success well deserved but I wasn't overly impressed. Where was the true spirit of Moria ?
This is one of the reasons why I set out to try and make a modern version of this game,
dedicating more of todays computing power towards the potential interactions between the game
elements than on some 3D bore that would guide my every step, blinding me with it's eye candy
instead of the neverending surprises of a random universe.
(C) Copyright 2005 Philippe Wartelle