Dnd (video game)

Dnd (also The Game of Dungeons ) is a computer role-playing game. It is considered the oldest surviving computer game in the genre. It was written in 1974 by Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood at the University of Illinois, where it ran on an early computer learning environment called PLATO.

Gameplay

The player controls in a self-created character dnd through a large dungeon with multiple levels, where you have to fight on the way to play target enemy monster and can be equipped with found objects. A simple stylized graphical representation illustrates this is happening.

It can already be found all basic characteristics of modern computer role-playing games: The player creates a character according to your wishes, which is constantly evolving and with found items is always powerful. Even a simple magic system already exists. The enemies will become stronger with each dungeon level and react differently to different spells. The game has a defined end goal and provides a simple trading system in the context of two dealers in which various items can be purchased. One penetrates deeper into the dungeon, you can skip levels by means of teleportation.

Development

Over time there have been various clones and extensions for dnd. The extensions added mainly added additional resources and more independent of the original dungeons. Other authors created their own systems which were based fully or partially on the dnd code, and provided this fledgling genre games for wide distribution. The best-known offshoot of dnd should be Telengard.

The name comes from the abbreviation dnd D & D of the pen & paper role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which also was published in 1974.

Predecessor

Even if dnd is the oldest surviving this kind of game, there are at least two predecessors, about which something is known yet. pedit5 ( later published as Orthanc, named after the tower from Lord of the Rings ) and m199h to have been similar games, but they were deleted by the administrators of the system because computer games at that time were regarded as waste of computing time. Whether it before and never had a purely text-based role-playing games, is unknown, but assumed.

243149
de