Welcome back, brave adventurer, to the second part of my history of our favorite genre of computer game–the Computer Role-Playing Game (the CRPG). Last time, we explored the CRPG’s murky precursors, which included tabletop war and sports games like Tactics and Strat-O-Matic. Of course, I also discussed the CRPG’s most direct grindy games ancestor, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s Dungeons & Dragons game, which itself derived mostly from their earlier fantasy-based strategy game called Chainmail. Since so much of D&D consists of mathematics, programmers realized at once that a considerable bulk of the game was well suited for play on a computer. The first CRPGs appeared on mainframes like the PDP-10 and a special educational platform called PLATO. By the early 1980s, these graphically simplistic but technically masterful games had been adapted or ported to almost every home computer on the market. Although the first commercial CRPGs for home computers (Akalabeth for the Apple II and Temple of Apshai for the Commodore PET and TRS-80) are hardly ever played today, they laid the groundwork for much of what would follow.
Throughout the “Silver Age,” which lasted from 1981 until 1983, change would come gradually and mostly consist of improvements in graphics and user grinding games interface. Important series like Ultima and Wizardry appeared on the market, solidifying every gamer’s expectations about what a CRPG should be. Meanwhile, innovative games like Telengard, Dungeons of Daggorath (Tandy CoCo), Tunnels of Doom (TI-99/4A), and The Sword of Fargoal (VIC-20, C-64) offered new alternatives to gamers and new models for developers. In short, by 1983, the field was sown with great ideas and impressive examples, but everyone knew that the best was yet to come.
By 1985, the CRPG would enter what I have chosen to call “The Golden Age,” the period from 1985 to 1993, when the very best CRPG makers were steadily releasing masterpieces in an orgiastic frenzy of creative development. Indeed, the triumphs of this period would not be matched until the “Platinum Age” of the mid-90s, when outstanding developers Bioware, Bethesda, and Blizzard arrived on the scene. However, although Baldur’s Gate and Diablo may receive far more attention and interest today than Golden Age classics like The Bard’s Tale or The Pool of Radiance, we must forever keep in mind that these earlier games were their direct ancestors. Later developers would only refine, not re-define, the genre. Anyone who truly desires to understand the CRPG must turn her attention to the Golden Age, the era in which towering developers like Interplay, SSI, New World Computing, and FTL released games so superbly designed that they are still actively played by tens of thousands of gamers even today. There are few games that can arouse more passion than venerable Golden Age titles like Wasteland, Dungeon Master, and Quest for Glory. But enough of this build-up; it’s time to enter the Golden Age of CRPGs!