I remember the first time I became aware of the existence of the whole Dungeons and Dragons concept. One of my uncles was a bit of a nerd and had a bunch of cool stuff in his library. Star Wars novels, Star Trek memorabilia, sketches, fan art of fantasy characters, you name it. A smorgasbord of 70s and 80s nerd culture in his collection. One of the objects in his collection that drew my attention was a bright red box in his library. I pulled it out while he wasn’t looking and started reading through the contents. It was the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons. It was all very complicated to me but I kept pouring through the manuals intent on understanding it. Later my uncle showed me his collection of miniatures and dice. It was a very memorable moment in my life and made me interested in learning more about the tabletop game.
This is roughly what a first edition book of Dungeons and Dragons looked like. A rare artifact nowadays, I'm sure.
A few years later I would get a chance to own my first Dungeons and Dragons set. I was visiting a comic book store with my parents and set my eye on a First Quest box set. It contained a beginner level adventure with the rule books, dice and miniatures all included. I got it as a gift and I would bring it to my school and play it with friends. It was a formative experience that was fun at times, but filled with chaos. Many adventures were had, laughs were shared, sensitive souls got upset at their failures, smarter kids tried to bend the rules to their convenience, some rebels tried to test the patience of the game master by trying to push out the implied boundaries of the game scenario. There was nothing quite like it.
A Portuguese version of the First Quest module. All the figurines, dice and rule books bring back fond memories of adventures.
Naturally, as my interest in both Dungeons and Dragons and video games grew, so did my curiosity in D&D themed games. I have to confess, it hasn’t been an easy journey with D&D licensed video games over the years. The quality level of these games has wildly fluctuated over the years. Sometimes I feel like my interest in Dungeon and Dragons games is pathological. No matter how janky or awkward the experience is I will give it a try because of my love for the tropes of the genre. A game that can both capture all of the intricacies of the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset while also being functional, bug free, aesthetically pleasing and well written is as rare as an albino gorilla. Even so, there is some redeeming qualities to be found in these games, if you look hard enough.
As rare as you may be, Mr. Gorilla, you aren't as rare as a high quality licensed D&D game used to be in the early 90's.
This search of D&D video games led me to the company known as Strategic Simulations Inc. They were the first company to acquire the Dungeons and Dragons license for the purpose of video game adaptations. They were making D&D video game adaptations all the way back in 1988. Their early era games are collectively known as the “Gold Box” games. Most of their early games have all the charm of an excel spreadsheet so I haven’t been in too much a rush to try them out. Still, they did make some rather innovative games with the D&D license, like the first commercially distributed MMO, named Neverwinter Nights. Not that I had internet in that time or a PC to play those games, but they were doing some groundbreaking work in the gaming space.
AOL exclusive?!? This game would've cost a bajilion of dollars to play in the early 90's!
My first experience with an SSI game was “Eye of the Beholder” on the SNES. I tried it out a couple of times as a rental from my local Blockbuster and regretted it every time. I remember getting absolutely annoyed at this game as a kid. The first problem with this game is that was a quick console port of a PC game done as a contractual obligation by Capcom to acquire the Dungeon and Dragons license. (Capcom would end up making magic with the D&D license later on, as Octopus covers here) You know you are in for a bad time when a console game is controlled through a mouse pointer interface. Yeah, they didn’t bother re-engineering the interface for the SNES port, just mapped the pointer to the D-pad. Oof. There’s barely any story in the game, just the same basic introductory story prompt of a generic D&D adventure. The Lords of Waterdeep hire some nameless adventurers to delve through the sewers for reasons. Yup, that’s it. What absolutely kills this game for me is the lack of any sort of mini-map or automap function. Even with myself mapping the dungeon manually, I was lost for hours in the second level due to disorienting traps and teleporters. Other SNES dungeon crawler games were capable of providing automaps, so I don’t see a reason for the lack of this feature. Maybe the PC version includes maps, I cannot say for sure as I haven’t tried it.
Don't hold this game against Capcom, they didn't make it. Just ported it rather lazily.
Basically the whole story can be summed up with this sentence.
Not the worst graphics or UI ever, I suppose. Just annoying to control a mouse cursor with a D-Pad.
Later on, a friend of mine clued me into this D&D PC game called “Menzoberranzan”. What an unwieldy name. The uptick in quality from “Eye of the Beholder” was noticeable from the first glance. Story, cutscenes, automap function, voice acting and more attractive graphics. Was this really an SSI game? Oh, it was outsourced, that explains it! Anyway, I got a copy of Menzoberranzan from that friend. It was my first exposure to the denizens of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. This game is loosely based on the characters from R.A. Salvatore’s novel “The Legacy” and features Drizzt Do’Urden, protagonist of that novel, as a playable character. It does an decent job of explaining the dynamics of the Drow elf culture and made me interested in reading the novels in the series. Gameplay-wise, it follows the same dungeon crawler style formula but with various semi-open areas in between. The auto mapping helps a lot in making the more mazelike parts of the game tolerable. If you enjoy that type mazelike dungeon delving game, chances are you’ll enjoy this one.
Cutscenes like these were impressive back in my day, for real. They almost had like 10 polygons on the screen at the same time. High tech stuff.
The interface got a glow up, when compared to the Eye of the Beholder. Playable Drizzt is cool too.
The automap feature is nice (left), and so is the paperdoll click and drop inventory system (right)
The other two games in the series were set in the Ravenloft campaign setting. This setting was based more on horror tropes. The adventures in this series had a sort of “Isekai” type of premise where a group of adventurers are teleported to a horror world controlled by an evil being. They have to confront or defeat the evil being to escape the horror plane of existence and return to their original world. The first game, Strahd’s Possession, is set around a world controlled by a vampire lord called Baron Strahd Von Zarovich. The story is reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in many ways. I didn’t get the opportunity to play this game growing up, but through the magic of GOG.com I was reconnected with this gem of yesteryear. It is actually kind of janky and buggy at times. I had to reload a few times on the last encounter due to freezes and there are some puzzles that are not intuitive. Not the best title in the series, in my opinion, but still quite playable.
Start menu with the artwork of the vampire lord. Creepy!
The character creation sequence is quite neat. A Vistani fortuneteller reads you your future in the form of a character sheet.
Meeting Count Strahd von Zarovitch in his castle involves a cutscene sequence. Pretty cool for 1994!
The party gets spirited away to the plane of the vampire lord in this sequence.
The last game in the series is the one I did actually own. It was called Stone Prophet, another game set in the Ravenloft campaign setting. This one was intended as a sequel to Strahd’s Possesion and the player could import a party from that game to the new one. This adventure has the players “Isekai’d” away again to another horror plane, this time based on ancient Egypt. An ancient immortal mummy cursed the land and the player has to undo the curse to escape the plane. This was the most polished game in the series. Improved graphics, less janky bugs than the earlier games, actually interesting quests and challenging puzzles, better layout of the open world and dungeons. It looks like they mastered the capabilities of their game engine with this title.
The evil mummy lord villain of this plane of existence in full display.
The graphics and interface were improved even more in this version.
The party recruiting the NPC, Trajan Khet, as a permanent member. All of the interactions with NPCs were voice acted.
If any of these games sound interesting to you, they can usually be acquired from GOG.com for cheap. Let me know if you’ve tried any of the SSI games or if you have any particular favorite obscure D&D games. (If interested in more information about the history of tabletop gaming, I recommend this excellent article by Octopus)
This is roughly what a first edition book of Dungeons and Dragons looked like. A rare artifact nowadays, I'm sure.
A few years later I would get a chance to own my first Dungeons and Dragons set. I was visiting a comic book store with my parents and set my eye on a First Quest box set. It contained a beginner level adventure with the rule books, dice and miniatures all included. I got it as a gift and I would bring it to my school and play it with friends. It was a formative experience that was fun at times, but filled with chaos. Many adventures were had, laughs were shared, sensitive souls got upset at their failures, smarter kids tried to bend the rules to their convenience, some rebels tried to test the patience of the game master by trying to push out the implied boundaries of the game scenario. There was nothing quite like it.
A Portuguese version of the First Quest module. All the figurines, dice and rule books bring back fond memories of adventures.
Naturally, as my interest in both Dungeons and Dragons and video games grew, so did my curiosity in D&D themed games. I have to confess, it hasn’t been an easy journey with D&D licensed video games over the years. The quality level of these games has wildly fluctuated over the years. Sometimes I feel like my interest in Dungeon and Dragons games is pathological. No matter how janky or awkward the experience is I will give it a try because of my love for the tropes of the genre. A game that can both capture all of the intricacies of the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset while also being functional, bug free, aesthetically pleasing and well written is as rare as an albino gorilla. Even so, there is some redeeming qualities to be found in these games, if you look hard enough.
As rare as you may be, Mr. Gorilla, you aren't as rare as a high quality licensed D&D game used to be in the early 90's.
This search of D&D video games led me to the company known as Strategic Simulations Inc. They were the first company to acquire the Dungeons and Dragons license for the purpose of video game adaptations. They were making D&D video game adaptations all the way back in 1988. Their early era games are collectively known as the “Gold Box” games. Most of their early games have all the charm of an excel spreadsheet so I haven’t been in too much a rush to try them out. Still, they did make some rather innovative games with the D&D license, like the first commercially distributed MMO, named Neverwinter Nights. Not that I had internet in that time or a PC to play those games, but they were doing some groundbreaking work in the gaming space.
AOL exclusive?!? This game would've cost a bajilion of dollars to play in the early 90's!
My first experience with an SSI game was “Eye of the Beholder” on the SNES. I tried it out a couple of times as a rental from my local Blockbuster and regretted it every time. I remember getting absolutely annoyed at this game as a kid. The first problem with this game is that was a quick console port of a PC game done as a contractual obligation by Capcom to acquire the Dungeon and Dragons license. (Capcom would end up making magic with the D&D license later on, as Octopus covers here) You know you are in for a bad time when a console game is controlled through a mouse pointer interface. Yeah, they didn’t bother re-engineering the interface for the SNES port, just mapped the pointer to the D-pad. Oof. There’s barely any story in the game, just the same basic introductory story prompt of a generic D&D adventure. The Lords of Waterdeep hire some nameless adventurers to delve through the sewers for reasons. Yup, that’s it. What absolutely kills this game for me is the lack of any sort of mini-map or automap function. Even with myself mapping the dungeon manually, I was lost for hours in the second level due to disorienting traps and teleporters. Other SNES dungeon crawler games were capable of providing automaps, so I don’t see a reason for the lack of this feature. Maybe the PC version includes maps, I cannot say for sure as I haven’t tried it.
Don't hold this game against Capcom, they didn't make it. Just ported it rather lazily.
Basically the whole story can be summed up with this sentence.
Not the worst graphics or UI ever, I suppose. Just annoying to control a mouse cursor with a D-Pad.
Later on, a friend of mine clued me into this D&D PC game called “Menzoberranzan”. What an unwieldy name. The uptick in quality from “Eye of the Beholder” was noticeable from the first glance. Story, cutscenes, automap function, voice acting and more attractive graphics. Was this really an SSI game? Oh, it was outsourced, that explains it! Anyway, I got a copy of Menzoberranzan from that friend. It was my first exposure to the denizens of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. This game is loosely based on the characters from R.A. Salvatore’s novel “The Legacy” and features Drizzt Do’Urden, protagonist of that novel, as a playable character. It does an decent job of explaining the dynamics of the Drow elf culture and made me interested in reading the novels in the series. Gameplay-wise, it follows the same dungeon crawler style formula but with various semi-open areas in between. The auto mapping helps a lot in making the more mazelike parts of the game tolerable. If you enjoy that type mazelike dungeon delving game, chances are you’ll enjoy this one.
Cutscenes like these were impressive back in my day, for real. They almost had like 10 polygons on the screen at the same time. High tech stuff.
The interface got a glow up, when compared to the Eye of the Beholder. Playable Drizzt is cool too.
The automap feature is nice (left), and so is the paperdoll click and drop inventory system (right)
The other two games in the series were set in the Ravenloft campaign setting. This setting was based more on horror tropes. The adventures in this series had a sort of “Isekai” type of premise where a group of adventurers are teleported to a horror world controlled by an evil being. They have to confront or defeat the evil being to escape the horror plane of existence and return to their original world. The first game, Strahd’s Possession, is set around a world controlled by a vampire lord called Baron Strahd Von Zarovich. The story is reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in many ways. I didn’t get the opportunity to play this game growing up, but through the magic of GOG.com I was reconnected with this gem of yesteryear. It is actually kind of janky and buggy at times. I had to reload a few times on the last encounter due to freezes and there are some puzzles that are not intuitive. Not the best title in the series, in my opinion, but still quite playable.
Start menu with the artwork of the vampire lord. Creepy!
The character creation sequence is quite neat. A Vistani fortuneteller reads you your future in the form of a character sheet.
Meeting Count Strahd von Zarovitch in his castle involves a cutscene sequence. Pretty cool for 1994!
The party gets spirited away to the plane of the vampire lord in this sequence.
The last game in the series is the one I did actually own. It was called Stone Prophet, another game set in the Ravenloft campaign setting. This one was intended as a sequel to Strahd’s Possesion and the player could import a party from that game to the new one. This adventure has the players “Isekai’d” away again to another horror plane, this time based on ancient Egypt. An ancient immortal mummy cursed the land and the player has to undo the curse to escape the plane. This was the most polished game in the series. Improved graphics, less janky bugs than the earlier games, actually interesting quests and challenging puzzles, better layout of the open world and dungeons. It looks like they mastered the capabilities of their game engine with this title.
The evil mummy lord villain of this plane of existence in full display.
The graphics and interface were improved even more in this version.
The party recruiting the NPC, Trajan Khet, as a permanent member. All of the interactions with NPCs were voice acted.
If any of these games sound interesting to you, they can usually be acquired from GOG.com for cheap. Let me know if you’ve tried any of the SSI games or if you have any particular favorite obscure D&D games. (If interested in more information about the history of tabletop gaming, I recommend this excellent article by Octopus)
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