Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Tower of Mystery for Atari
There is a growing interest in older video games that were once played on ancient systems like the Atari 2600 and the first Intellivision system. Now, like a sword pulled from a stone, many gamers are getting back into these games. It seems there is a certain nostalgia and personal pleasure in returning to the simpler games. One of the greatest of these games, in the fantasy adventure category, was Advanced Dungeons and Dragons; Tower of Mystery.
These older adventure games such as a similar game called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin these games brought the first RPG style of play into the forefront and really set the stage for future RPG games like Diablo and the PC series of Dungeons and Dragons games. And now, collectors and game aficionados are showing a greater appreciation for the graphic and gaming advances of those times. To continue to push the envelope in adventure games shows just how badly in demand these types of games have always been.
The most promising thing about the return to the older fantasy adventure games is that they are far less serious and time consuming than say the World of Warcrafts and Everquests of today. Will there be a return of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games like Tower of Mystery?
Like many early games, there was a certain evolution associated with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Tower of Mystery. This game was being created in 1984 for Atari right as Mattel Electronics was going out of business. Fortunately, INTV (Intellivision) picked up the game and released it as Tower of Doom in 1987. The name change was due to get out of paying the associated licensing fees.
In the original Atari game, you are stuck on the Tower of Mystery, and your goal is to preserve your strength and protect the hoards of treasure beneath you. The INTV version involves various adventurers in the form of warlord, knight, barbarians and the like. You move through 10 different adventure sequences by moving through doors, gathering your loot and attaining weapons and life sustaining food. Of course, there are plenty of monsters to be vanquished along the way. Each adventure sequence is won by getting to the exit.
This is arguably the most favorite of the fantasy adventure games of its time due to the random mazes and the many types of characters to choose from (10 different characters to choose from, which was revolutionary at the time). Adventurers seem to like the multi-layered dungeon style and the close up battle sequences. You can even bargain your way out of a battle! Some other great features were some very nice graphics and a solid weapons list. There are tons of great artifacts to find including projectiles, hand-held weapons and treasure.
While there are not game cheats that are currently known, there was an interesting hidden message if you typed in 1-1-2-6-5-6. This little code would get you a credit scroll where they even misspelled “designed”. This is fun stuff for the hearty adventurer.
The popularity of this game has many hoping that a ROM version will come out soon. Unfortunately for lovers of this game, there has been no ROM version created, likely due to copyright disputes. And as far as we can tell, there isn’t even a version that is playable on www.intellivisionlives.com although there is a PAL version that is built into an Intellivision gaming system along with 24 other games.
For those gamers who really enjoyed those old games, it appears there is a great deal of hope for their return. Even the younger generation of gamers is starting to understand the effort that was put into these older fantasy adventure games. It’s kind of like rediscovering the Beetles or Black Sabbath. The great thing about having these games return is that they really offer a few minutes of intelligent escapism without becoming addicting or taking up all of your time.
Perhaps there is an underlying genius in these older programs that we are just now seeing today. In our quest to create better and better fantasy adventure games, did we finally become too good at it? How many times have you heard stories of online role playing gamers who have lost their jobs and lives to the more popular games like World of Warcraft and Everquest.
The promise of bringing games like the Dungeons and Dragons games is that we can continue to be entertained with swords and sorcery, but at a much cheaper price to our lives and pocketbooks.