Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai (1979)

Look: 6/10 Again, from what I've seen, even the released-very-soon-after Apple II and Atari releases seem to have interesting graphics In fact, from what I've seen of those, I LOVE them. But for the sake of the project, and knowing there's Trilogy release in just a couple years, I will continue on. Excited to see this same setting and concepts with fewer system limitations.

Play: 6/10 Essentially unplayable from how slow and clunky it is. Such great ideas, ostensibly well-executed, but uff dah, the TRS-80 version is just too slow to enjoy. The limitations were too impacting on this original version, so I'm excited to play the "remake" so to speak in the Trilogy release. Even before I realized its limitations, I already was iffy about how, like avatar and oubliette just before it showed, rpg's were getting too complex and convoluted around this time. After the prior limitations of, say, the first iterations of pedit5 or dnd, I think people got a bit too excited about expanding the limitations. From what I've read about the history of D&D, you could likely say the same. I guess you could say the same about all videogaming, and I'm just a crabby old man. But yeah.. so many options, have to turn your character, count steps, keep track of fatigue and several other stats... I prefer simplicity, personally. Anyway, the game's simply too slow and clunky to be fun... a lot of great ideas, and sure fundamentally fun, so I'm excited to play the re-released version/s. Pro-tips: http://www.c64sets.com/details.html?id=833 - the list of commands. thank goodness for manuals https://atariage.com/forums/topic/183584-temple-of-apshai-trilogy-maps/?tab=comments#comment-2313372 also, these maps are very useful

Feel: 7/10 Let's start with the positives: it's very D&D-inspired like its PLATO cousins-once-removed; I love that you can import your own character stats if you have a D&D or otherwise character already; and I like that it's a set map, I always like the completionist feel of those--especially when there's no official set "goal," to boot. Like I've said a few times, though, no matter how great the ideas are, and the manual is, and even though I can safely say it was well-executed given the limitations, and its realizations on later platforms intrigue me.... it's just too unplayable for me to give this a high rating. For me, I prefer the text-based RPG adventures of microcomputers of this era, since they “accept” their limitations more so to speak. This would have been a great text rpg tbh, ith the text from the manual. Like fr fr, I kinda wanna indie-make that for non-profit playing among friends. Hmmmm, intriguing idea... Anywho, the manual was at least as entertaining as the game (i.e., the manual has a vivid description of each of the numbered rooms you will vaguely notice numbered on the right side of the screen ha). What I actually chose to play, and as I could move along the manual with the game reading the descriptions, and using that atariage forum's maps to help, was very fun. Can't wait to play the future games.

Attachment: 8/10 This may seem odd, after all my text above, but I am strangely attached to this game. The ideas are so potent... and the fact I know they later become more and more realized, iteration after iteration. And I mean it's technically high in replayability cuz I already wanna replay it to see if I was just being impatient, or move to a later version of it just for the speed of it. The maps and graphics from that atari forum I linked above make me wanna try the atari version since it looks like the graphics improved considerably. But, perhaps I just didn't love it enough to play those other versions immediately... or its the pressure of the chronology project. But still, makes sense, the early console and microcomputer rpgs are gonna be a lot rougher than the PLATO ones–I was spoiled with those PLATO mainframe RPGs!!!!