Alternate Reality: The Dungeon Explained

Alternate Reality: The Dungeon
Developer:Paradise Programming
Publisher:Datasoft
Designer:Philip Price
Ken Jordan
Dan Pinal
Composer:Gary Gilbertson
Released:1987
Genre:Role-playing
Modes:Single-player
Platforms:Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Commodore 64 / 128

Alternate Reality: The Dungeon is a role-playing video game published by Datasoft as the second game in the Alternate Reality series. It was created by Philip Price, and was released in 1987.[1] Price was unable to complete The Dungeon which was finished by Ken Jordan and Dan Pinal. Gary Gilbertson composed the music.

Gameplay

Alternate Reality: The Dungeon closely continues its predecessor in that the player is still held captive by aliens in an alternate reality. They now enter the dungeon with the sole intention of surviving. The City was about exploring the city and gaining strength, the Dungeon has a more linear path. The player has access to stores such as inns and the smithy. Also, the player has the option of joining any of the six guilds that have made it inside the dungeon. All things now have a weight associated with them; carrying too much hinders speed and endurance, which is a significant change in the gameplay.

Technology

The Dungeon, if loaded with an unauthorized copy, featured two "FBI agents" as encounters during the beginning of the game, who attacked with "the long arm of the law". The two agents were overly powerful and unbeatable, so as to kill the character before being able to play the game. Due to a bug, the other way to run into these characters was to try to transfer over a character from the city. In effect, it was impossible to actually transfer a character over from the city to the dungeon without mailing in the disks to be exchanged for a fixed version.

Reception

Computer Gaming World in 1987 said that The Dungeons design and mechanies were superior to The City.[2] The magazine's Scorpia's review of The Dungeon described the game as "a big improvement over City, but it is still ultimately unsatisfying". While the graphics were much-improved, especially on 8-bit versions, the game lacked any sense of accomplishment. She found that starting characters from scratch is nearly impossible, and several aspects of the game arbitrarily punished the players, such as the unbeatable Devourer which eats items if the player has too many, and the reduction of stats when playing from a backed-up save. In 1993, Scorpia called The Dungeon "better than the first, but not by much".[3]

and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon were both the subject of the feature review Dragon #135. The reviewers gave Alternate Reality: The City 3 stars, and Alternate Reality: The Dungeon stars.[4]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part 2: The Golden Age (1985-1993). Barton. Matt. Gamasutra. 23 February 2007. 3 January 2017.
  2. Christmas Buyers Guide . . November 1987 . 20 . 41.
  3. Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games . Computer Gaming World . October 1993 . 25 March 2016 . Scorpia . 34–50.
  4. The Role of Computers. Lesser. Lesser. Lesser. Hartley. Patricia. Kirk. Dragon. 135. July 1988. 82–89.