Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (Intellivision)

[VideoGameCritic]

Not sure what inspired me, but decided to go back and re-review the Intellivision AD&D series. Frankly it's been about 20 years so I don't remember much. It's like having a clean slate!

Anyway the first AD&D is pretty much exactly how I would have programmed D&D back in the day. You have a high level wilderness map that's kind of strategic. When you enter dungeons, you have these random passageways that materializes as you creep through them. You can shoot arrow independently from your movement! This is genius.

Next up is Treasure of Tarmin. This is REALLY advanced. It's a first-person Dungeon Crawler. Remember Dungeon Master of the Sega CD and home computers? It's a lot like that! Pretty amazing on a technical level, but we'll have to see if the fun factor holds up.

Finally we have Tower of Doom which basically reprises the original game with smoother controls and move colorful graphics. I like this a lot. When you get in a battle, there's a "close up" screen that appears as you trade attacks. Very impressive.

Anyway you all can look forward to new reviews for these in the near future. Anybody play these? Thoughts?

[Matchstick]

Remember Dungeon Master of the Sega CD... Anybody play these?

Did you mean Eye of the Beholder for the Sega CD? That one, I played quite a bit in my tabletop RPG days.

It had a rockin' soundtrack that honestly had no business being in a game of that type. And I believe the composer was the same musician responsible for the Shinobi and Streets of Rage games? I noticed you mentioned the music in your own review for the game, so it's nice to know it didn't go unnoticed.

I do love the throwback D&D games, as they tend to emulate the simple joy of making a character, forming a party, and running through a dungeon pretty well. Glad you're having a good time with these, Critic

[Tron]

I was around 6 years-old when the original D&D game, on Intellevison, came to my house. I still remember the suspense of hearing snakes hissing & the dragons roaring offscreen so I knew they were nearby, but couldn’t yet see them. The game actually creeped me out a bit & I loved it. Resident Evil is credited as the first survival/horror game, but for my 6 year-old self it was D&D!

[scotland]

The same year - 1982 - saw Avalon Hill release Telengard. This was written by Daniel Lawrence who enjoyed the original Dungeons and Dragons in the mid 1970s, and wrote 'DnD' on his university's mainframe instead of doing his calculus homework. It was around before 1982, but this was when Avalon Hill got into it - makers of infernally complicated strategy games like Squad Leader - and became more widespread. That was one hard game. Sometimes your character dies in less time than it took to create the poor slob

1982 also saw the release of Epyx's Sword of Fargoal which is more similar to the Intellivision game.

[noah98]

I've been enjoying Tower of Doom and the first AD&D on the Evercade.

[Gleebergloben123]

My friends and I loved playing AD&D back in the day. I loved the use of sound to let you know when you were approaching a monster. And I remember actually getting scared when I stumbled upon a dragon without hearing it first. I thought the game was well designed and fun to play.

Boy oh boy did I play Treasure of Tarmin a ton, a cool maze type R&D. To get the full effect I’d draw the shades in my room to get it nice and dark. I definitely got my money’s worth from this game.

I’ve never played Tower of Doom and had never even heard of the game until I started coming to this site. Probably had never heard of it as it was released in 1986. By then I was only going to arcades, my home gaming stopped from around 1985 to 1995. Tower of Doom looks like a game right up my alley.

One other game that seems to fit this genre is Thunder Castle also for the INTV. I have never played Thunder Castle and only learned about it by coming to this site. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about this game (VGC gave it an A- in 2017) as Thunder Castle was released in 1982, when I was heavily into gaming.

[DocHix]

When I was a kid, several of my hardcore D&D playing friends mowed lawns, collected cans from building sites (all beer, interestingly), kept the change when running family errands, held auctions in their front yards where they sold their "Star Wars", "Micronauts" and "GI Joe" toys to the highest bidder...all to buy an Intellivision in order to play the first AD&D game. I clearly remember that none of them were disappointed. Looking forward to reading your updated reviews!

[SpiceWare]

Not sure what inspired me, but decided to go back and re-review the Intellivision AD&D series.

Maybe my comment about playing AD&D via the NINTV-DS emulator on my 3DS?

[bigfriendly]

I never had an Intellivsion but I was a member of a home video game club in the early 80s. They had every system set up and all of the games available to try out. Sometimes on Saturdays if my Mom had errands to run she would drop me off there so I could pick out a game to rent for the week. I played these AD&D games and they were a lot of fun. Especially the Tarmin game with its first person perspective. Dang, that was an awesome place to visit back then. What a great time to be a kid:)

[DocHix]

I never had an Intellivsion but I was a member of a home video game club in the early 80s. They had every system set up and all of the games available to try out. Sometimes on Saturdays if my Mom had errands to run she would drop me off there so I could pick out a game to rent for the week. I played these AD&D games and they were a lot of fun. Especially the Tarmin game with its first person perspective. Dang, that was an awesome place to visit back then. What a great time to be a kid:)

Great memory! The home video game club sounds like a really cool idea.