BlackDragon

Original author(s): Robert H. Maples, Sr. (1939-2000)
Current maintainer(s):
Other people of note:
Company:
Year released: c. 1982
License: Commercial
Supported platforms: It was on Compuserve and The Source, so it probably ran on a PDP-11. It was written in Fortran V.
Features: TTY graphics (the screen redrew every time the player moved), fixed maps, vendors (randomly occuring shopless shopkeepers), no character classes

This pre-roguelike ran on The Source until it was bought out by Compuserve in the late eighties, and then ran on Compuserve until they removed all of their ASCII-based single player games in 1994-1995. The object of the game was to kill a powerful unique, Asmodeus, that lived on the lowest (the tenth) level of the dungeon. The screen showed only a small overhead portion of the level at one time, as if the player was looking at a Rogue screen through a keyhole. Also, the player was the only character on the screen--monsters, items, and the like were described at the prompt. It may have been primitive (although it was still more sophisticated than, say, Larn), but it was entertaining and challenging, it is said.

Screenshots

... would be nice, though unlikely.

A word from the author

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