Game 392: Oldorf's Revenge (1980)

Despite the copyright date, magazines attest to the availability of the game in 1980.

         

Oldorf's Revenge

United States

Highlands Computer Services (developer and publisher)

Released in 1980 for Apple II, 1981 for Atari 800 as Warlock's Revenge

Date Started: 1 January 2021

Date Ended: 1 January 2021

Total Hours: 4

Difficulty: Easy (2/5)

Final Rating: 9

Ranking at Time of Posting: 9/392 (2%)

     

My definition of an RPG requires character development. The character must increase his abilities, levels, or skills as a reward for overcoming obstacles in the game. Such development, along with the statistics associated with combat and inventory, are the primary mechanisms, drawn from tabletop role-playing games, that put the "RPG" in "CRPG."

      

This definition has been occasionally challenged by gameplay elements that seem "close enough." Chief among them are these two:

   

• The player chooses from multiple character classes and plays in a manner that makes sense for the chosen class, but the character himself does not improve.

• There is a character creation process that involves either chosen or random allocation of points to attributes or skills, but those attributes and skills never improve after creation.

 

These elements can be present in a single-character game or a multi-character game. They can exist alone or in combination.  Bad Blood (1990) is a single-character game featuring the first element. Shadoworlds is a multi-character game with both elements. I rejected both, but there are times that I've allowed titles to pass, including basically the entire Paragon Software library (MegaTraveller, Twilight: 2000, Space: 1889) because there was rare, nebulous character development, or because the tabletop RPGs on which they were based allowed for character development. I recognize that there's a fine line sometimes. Not here, but sometimes.

      

How is this underground?

       

Oldorf's Revenge is an early example of a game that could fool some players into thinking of it as an RPG. It's not; it's an adventure game, and not much of one, but it offers an RPG-like choice of character classes, not only at the beginning but throughout the game. It otherwise fails all three of my RPG criteria, but MobyGames still insists on listing it as an RPG and I still get occasional inquiries about it. As often happens, I started writing this as a BRIEF and then found that the game was so short, I might as well win it.

    

The game features a group--I hesitate to use the term "party"--of seven adventurers who seek to loot 300 points of wealth from an underground empire. One of the areas from which they loot the wealth is Oldorf's Castle, which vaguely explains the title, although Oldorf himself appears nowhere in the game, nor does he in any way take revenge. Oldorf's Castle is the second area that you reach after an introductory area; later, you loot Snotgurgle's Palace and the Land of Lynxor before finally escaping, ideally with your 300 points of treasure.

        

If I were rich enough to have a palace, I'd probably find some time to change my name.

        

The seven characters are cleric, thief, gladiator, strongman, magician, wizard, and elf. You choose one during the extremely limited "character creation" process, but throughout the game you can switch to any of the other classes by hitting the "C" key. This process costs 2 points of strength, from an initial pool of 100, and can only be done 5 times per class.

 

The point of switching is that each character has unique skills that only he can activate. Only the gladiator can fight in melee combat, for instance. The cleric has the ability to READ, SPEAK, and TRANSLATE languages. The thief can UNLOCK and PICK doors. You use the strongman for anything that involves MOVE, LIFT, PUSH, or SMASH. The wizard's sole command--CAST--does a variety of things given the situation; the magician's MAGIC command works more nebulously. The elf has no special commands, but he can fit into small places. This isn't a Tolkien elf.

        

Only the cleric can read.

      

What's unclear during the game is whether all seven characters are exploring together and when you C)hange classes, you're just selecting the active one, or whether there's one character, but he's somehow able to morph into different races and professions. The latter option makes less sense logically, but it makes more sense in the context of the game. There are places that only the elf can squeeze through, for instance, but he still has all his other class options once he gets to the other side.

         

Switching to another character mid-game.

        

Navigating the game is largely about solving puzzles with these various special commands. If you're thinking that each character can solve puzzles according to his strengths, think again. There are places that only one character can solve even when it looks like others should be able to try. One is on the first screen. To get into the dungeon, you have to open a door. If you didn't choose the thief (UNLOCK) or the wizard (CAST), you have to spend 2 strength points on a class change already, even though it feels like the strongman ought to be able to SMASH it.

          

A rare combat.

      

The two-page manual doesn't offer much help with universal keywords, but it turns out there aren't many beyond directions (N, E, S, W, U, D) and each class's special commands. Found items are picked up and used automatically in the appropriate places. There's one room where I had to specify that my strongman MOVE TABLE before MOVE CHAIR, but it's otherwise possible that no command required more than a single word. The solution is pretty obvious in most cases, and when it isn't, having the wizard CAST almost always gets you through. There are a couple of combats you can fight with the gladiator (ATTACK or KILL) or the wizard (CAST).

        

One of the most complex puzzles in the game.

        

The harder part of the game is managing your swiftly-dwindling class changes and strength pool. Every spell costs 10 strength points, so you want to limit those castings. You want to accomplish as much as possible with one character before switching to another. In practice, this means making several trips through the dungeon, noting puzzle locations in which a particular class is necessary, before you can outline an optimal plan. When I finally won, I had no cleric, strongman, or wizard changes left. I confess that I didn't win it 100% honestly: I allowed myself to use the maps created by CRPG Addict fellow Jason Dyer in his 2019 review of the game. My excuse is that the game is a particular pain to map because you get no indication in each room which directions will work. You have to try all of them.

        

I run out of strength.

       

The introductory area funnels you to a bridge where you have to pay a 50 gold piece toll. There are exactly 50 gold pieces in the area, so you have to find all of them. Some (like all the treasures in the game) are found by just walking onto the right screen; some require you to solve a puzzle. A common puzzle, found throughout the game, has a word written in a runic language or foreign language that the cleric has to TRANSLATE and the magician has to then invoke. There are also several small spaces that only the elf can reach.

       

It's not really clear who's enforcing this toll.

      

Across the bridge is Oldorf's Castle. That's where you start finding treasures that earn you permanent points. You can also start saving the game at this point; before the bridge, you can only quit without saving. In the castle, you have to find a key to unlock a coffin, which has a ring, which allows you to translate some books in the library, which gives you a keyword that when invoked causes a bookcase to slide aside revealing a passage. This is one of several places in the game where you get a graphical cue as to the effects of your commands rather than a textual one. 

       

A signpost offers directions to the major sections of the game.

      

The castle gives way to Snotgurgle's Palace. Puzzles include a room where you have to move a table and then move a chair onto the table to get a gold cross. There's a bizarre psychedelic area ("strange!" and "wierd!" [sic] are two of the rooms' titles) that culminates in finding some magic mushrooms. One puzzle requires you to interpret some roman numerals and say the number they represent. Another requires the cleric to LISTEN to a pillar, which says "Move Me," requiring the strongman to do as the pillar says. 

         

Indeed.

        

The caverns of Lynxnor are the third area, and here I was stumped briefly by one of the less sensible puzzles in the game. Faced with two serpents' heads, or maybe cats', I found that the gladiator's ATTACK did nothing. The wizard's CAST killed one but not the other; for the other, I needed the magician's MAGIC. Why? No reason--just the game's own logic.

    

One had to be killed, one contained. Ours is not to reason why.

      

There's a final battle in the caverns with a couple of serpents before you find the exit. If you've collected all the treasure when you exit, you win.

      

Hell is going to be thousands of game developers trying to be funny.

        

Changing between character classes is an interesting idea that would have been better served in a more challenging game. It earns a 9 on the GIMLET, with 0s and 1s in most categories. I gave it 2s for having a quest and for at least being short (part of the "gameplay" category).

     

Oldorf was the first game issued by Highlands Computer Services of Renton, Washington, a town to which I have been numerous times and would readily designate "the Renton of Washington." The company specialized in adventure games with simple text parsers and "high-res" graphics. A sequel to Oldorf called The Tarturian came out the same year but no one seems to think that one is an RPG. Early advertisements indicate that Oldorf's Revenge was originally going to be called Wizard 1, with sequels continuing the numbering. In some listings, Wizard 1 survives as a subtitle. At some point, Robert Clardy of Synergistic Software acquired the rights to the game and made an Atari 800 port that he re-named Warlock's Revenge, which continues to make no sense.

    

We might have another BRIEF (or BRIEF that turns into a full entry) this week as I build up enough interesting things to say with Bharas.