A day has passed since the success of Adventure Quest and jubilation reigns in Valaii! At sunset yesterday the city was beseiged by a sea of orcs, with more arriving every hour, and it seemed that the defenders were doomed. But at sunrise, the watch looked out over an empty plain – the attackers had given up the assault when on the point of victory.
Initially, the only reaction was stunned amazement. But gradually a rumour began to spread: first whispered in quiet corners, lest the telling should make it untrue, but eventually shouted in every street…
“The Demon Lord is dead!!!”
Dungeon Adventure marks the third of a trilogy that the Austins (Pete, Mike, and Nick) of Level 9 produced in 1982 (previously: Colossal Adventure, Adventure Quest). It was originally (or at least as soon as marketing started on the second game) the Middle-Earth Trilogy but later had Middle Earth references ripped out. To be consistent with my prior playthroughs, I again am playing the non-Tolkien Atari version made with graphics.
I managed to get through Adventure Quest without hints, but to be honest it was a near thing. I have heard this game is harder. I’ll try my best.
From the Museum of Computer Adventure Games.
This continues directly from the previous game, during the celebrations of the Demon Lord’s defeat. It doesn’t seem to be the same character, though! You (not being as heroic as Prior Protaganist) realize the Demon Lord “must have been very rich” and decide to make a beeline for the Black Tower, when about “a mile from the tower itself” you are hit by a sleep spell.
Some time later you wake, cold and wet, on a mudbank below a bridge spanning a wide river. All of your weapons and magic are lost. It seems that you were robbed and then your body was thrown into the river but that, rather than drowning, you have survived long enough to be washed up on the shore.
You clamber soggily up onto the bridge and ponder over your fate. Can you take on the Dungeons of the Demon Lord unaided? It seems you have little choice, as this is where the adventure starts….
Ah, the Metroid reset! You know, where an experienced bounty hunter really ought to have a full armament of gear and all the special suits acquired from previous adventure, but due to early happenstance of the plot has nothing.
This reverts back to a “collect the treasures” plot, which is curious since most companies/people get it out of their system (so to speak) and move on, but we have had games like Ghost Town go back to basics. It does make things a bit more modern because, as the manual indicates, there was popular demand for a way to carry more items (the previous games had a max inventory of four) so there’s now more than one way to exceed that.
You start at the entrance of the suitably grim dungeon of the title, although the earlier BBC version has you in a slightly different position, down from here.
I’m not sure what the deal with the driftwood is yet (described as “resinous” in inventory). The “huge” packing case is large enough to enter.
You can go in yet further and find a “store room” where the treasures go.
The button “scans your body”. I’m not sure yet past that.
Checking out the rest of the layout of the outside, there’s:
a.) Two sleeping giants where you can climb a tree next them. Grab a nearby berry and throw it, and they’ll get mad at each other and run off.
b.) Past that puzzle (the only one I’ve solved) there’s a belt and the berry you just tossed. The belt makes you stronger and that four-item inventory limit is already increased. (I think the “portable treasure room” is the other way the manual was talking about of having more lugging capacity.)
c.) Other oddities include a part of the forest where you get hit by a sleep spell and wake up back at the mud bank; a large bird in an “untidy nest”; an impressive tower that seems to be impossible to refer to; a “seed pod” by some poppies that makes lots of noise when you drop it; a “circle of distorted monoliths”.
I don’t understand how and why I got this scene. I experimented later and it never came up, even after waiting a long time and repeating the same actions.
d.) There’s a siren that kills you. SWIM is not one of the verbs in the game. Oops.
That’s it for outside, for now. If enough time passes the sun eventually sets and a ghoul kills you, so there isn’t unlimited time to hang out without a light source.
Speaking of light sources–
This is as far as I’ve gotten popping into the ugly orc mouth before hitting darkness. Right before the darkness is a jeweled crucifix (counts as a treasure, but might also count to fend off a vampire or some such) and a miner’s hat with a lamp (which has “neither fuel nor wick”, also counts as a treasure).
The only other place worth mentioning is a trap, but at least it is an obvious one.
It’d be fun if the treasures were accessible right away, but you still need more treasures, since our goal is to catch them all.
Renga in Blue 
Thought I recognized that line! It’s Zelazny reference (from _Lord of Light_, which has immaterial demons called Rakasha).
I wonder how that got there. Nothing else you’ve quoted looks particularly like a reference.
I’ll test the BBC version in order to see if there’s a Tolkien equivalent, except I don’t know how to trigger it yet
It then does a dice roll you can win or lose (I think it is genuine RNG, not a puzzle, just from the way it gets shown)
from the BBC version, seems to be a matter of just making a beeline there without doing other stuff:
You are within a circle of distorted monoliths, etched into grotesque figures by the acid rain. Lightning arcs overhead, revealing the stark horror of this haunted place, while thunder echoes from every crag.
What next? W
You can’t move in that direction Dazzling lightening spears the hill top and a host of fierce flames spring forth: they are Rakshasa! Their leader floats forwards. “Hou about a game: If you win I’ll strengthen the flames of your soul
If you lose, I get your body. OK?”
YES
I’ll roll a dice: 1-3 you lose, 4-6 you win.
It’s a 2! YOU LOSE!
You have managed to get yourself killed!
Want to be resurrected?
I also confirmed, re-doing the sequence, that it is pure RNG — I won the second time
Space rock pioneers Hawkwind had a track on their 1972 Doremi Fasol Latido LP called Lord of Light, and the lyrics include some of the elements referenced in that particular room description, so it’s possible that they got it from there, or at least were turned on to the book by it.
I like how the artist clearly meant the machine to be a square box with a round button, but somehow the image got stretched horizontally A LOT.
Rakshasa are authentic mythological creatures that appear in the Mahabharata and elsewhere. I’d heard of them from D&D where they are vulnerable to enchanted crossbow bolts; apparently this is not mythologically genuine (whatever that means) but comes about because Gygax was inspired to put them in D&D by an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker where the rakshasa happens to be killed by a crossbow. Given that these seem to be coming in from Zelazny and/or Hawkwind, I’d expect the crossbow thing to be irrelevant.
I am editing the next post right now and I talk about the Kolchak/D&D thing (especially because the manual explicitly says elements of this came from a Cambridge D&D campaign)
Pingback: Dungeon Adventure: I’ll Strengthen the Flames of Your Soul | Renga in Blue
Pingback: Blog Roundup (2024-16-9) - Virtual Moose