I registered an account here but for some reason I'm unable to post here under it--so I'll post here as a 'guest' for now.
But I'd like to say that I am humbled by the warm reception that this game has received here. Especially from RPG enthusiasts here. During the making of this, I read quite a few articles by Matt Barton as well, which have been quite informative.
The VIC-20 was vastly under-served in terms of RPG games. But there have been a few of them, most notably:
-Temple of Apshai
-Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash
-Sorcery (1984, unpublished).
Mt. Drash wasn't really an Ultima game, but it had some RPG elements. It was a tragedy that "Sorcery" never got published. The creator had submitted it, but the publisher dropped the ball and never did anything with it. 1984 being at the tail end of the VIC-20's commercial life was also a factor. You can get it from here http://www.kdef.com/geek/vic/vicbjsw.html
Realms III is mostly influenced by the following CRPGs:
-Ultima IV (in-context game music + map)
-Wizardry (portrait combat + 3D mazes)
-Telengard (water fountains, thrones, 6 classic D&D attributes, algorithm to generate the mazes)
-Temple of Apshai (using the term "Dunjon" + font)
-Phantasie (for the variety of races that can be used for your characters + the evil Wizard who is resurrected).
While it's true that Realms III does not have any overtly complex plot or character development, I wanted it to embrace the dungeon crawler and traditional RPG conventions to the fullest: evil wizard, orbs of power, traditional attributes (STR, INT, WIS, etc), one "shoppe" to buy all of your gear, etc. In fact, when you 'solve' the game by killing Nikaedor, his "son" returns to avenge him and the mazes are re-randomized (and if you kill his "son", another "son" takes his place, etc). It's a never-ending game. Of course, your party becomes increasingly more powerful with each iteration. My main game tester solved it 3 times with the same party but kept playing to acquire more levels, more magic items, etc. What you see with Realms III is the RPG game that I've always wanted to play.
Of course, Ultima IV tried to break the "dungeon crawler" mold by taking character development to a whole new level -- but this was done because dungeon crawlers had been done to death on 8-bit platforms at the time. But VIC-20 users never really got to play an RPG on the same scope as say the first 3 Wizardry or Ultima games, save for the handful of examples I mention above. I'd say that Realms III has a plot that's slightly more complex than Akalabeth and Telengard but with the production values of a late 1980s Commodore 64 release.
Thanks to Matt's articles, I was able to discover Oubliette for the Commodore 64. As much as I really like the concept, the interface is very cumbersome. As much as I wanted to make a retro CRPG for the VIC-20, one thing I did NOT want is to have a cludgy interface like those early 1980s games. The one thing I am most proud of about Realms III is how smooth the interface works.
As much as I love games like Ultima IV or Pool of Radiance, I'd say that the CRPG that I've spent the most hours on is Telengard. While it is a bit slow (it's done in BASIC), it is simply a fun game. You roll characters, you step out of the Worthy Meade Inn and then you get burned to a crisp by a LVL 4 DRAGON :) What an amazing concept!
I registered an account here but for some reason I'm unable to post here under it--so I'll post here as a 'guest' for now.
But I'd like to say that I am humbled by the warm reception that this game has received here. Especially from RPG enthusiasts here. During the making of this, I read quite a few articles by Matt Barton as well, which have been quite informative.
The VIC-20 was vastly under-served in terms of RPG games. But there have been a few of them, most notably:
-Temple of Apshai
-Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash
-Sorcery (1984, unpublished).
Mt. Drash wasn't really an Ultima game, but it had some RPG elements. It was a tragedy that "Sorcery" never got published. The creator had submitted it, but the publisher dropped the ball and never did anything with it. 1984 being at the tail end of the VIC-20's commercial life was also a factor. You can get it from here http://www.kdef.com/geek/vic/vicbjsw.html
Realms III is mostly influenced by the following CRPGs:
-Ultima IV (in-context game music + map)
-Wizardry (portrait combat + 3D mazes)
-Telengard (water fountains, thrones, 6 classic D&D attributes, algorithm to generate the mazes)
-Temple of Apshai (using the term "Dunjon" + font)
-Phantasie (for the variety of races that can be used for your characters + the evil Wizard who is resurrected).
While it's true that Realms III does not have any overtly complex plot or character development, I wanted it to embrace the dungeon crawler and traditional RPG conventions to the fullest: evil wizard, orbs of power, traditional attributes (STR, INT, WIS, etc), one "shoppe" to buy all of your gear, etc. In fact, when you 'solve' the game by killing Nikaedor, his "son" returns to avenge him and the mazes are re-randomized (and if you kill his "son", another "son" takes his place, etc). It's a never-ending game. Of course, your party becomes increasingly more powerful with each iteration. My main game tester solved it 3 times with the same party but kept playing to acquire more levels, more magic items, etc. What you see with Realms III is the RPG game that I've always wanted to play.
Of course, Ultima IV tried to break the "dungeon crawler" mold by taking character development to a whole new level -- but this was done because dungeon crawlers had been done to death on 8-bit platforms at the time. But VIC-20 users never really got to play an RPG on the same scope as say the first 3 Wizardry or Ultima games, save for the handful of examples I mention above. I'd say that Realms III has a plot that's slightly more complex than Akalabeth and Telengard but with the production values of a late 1980s Commodore 64 release.
Thanks to Matt's articles, I was able to discover Oubliette for the Commodore 64. As much as I really like the concept, the interface is very cumbersome. As much as I wanted to make a retro CRPG for the VIC-20, one thing I did NOT want is to have a cludgy interface like those early 1980s games. The one thing I am most proud of about Realms III is how smooth the interface works.
As much as I love games like Ultima IV or Pool of Radiance, I'd say that the CRPG that I've spent the most hours on is Telengard. While it is a bit slow (it's done in BASIC), it is simply a fun game. You roll characters, you step out of the Worthy Meade Inn and then you get burned to a crisp by a LVL 4 DRAGON :) What an amazing concept!