Alternate Reality: The Dungeon

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Alternate Reality: The Dungeon
Alternate Reality - The Dungeon Coverart.png
Commodore 64 cover art
Developer(s) Paradise Programming
Publisher(s) Datasoft
Designer(s) Philip Price
Ken Jordan
Dan Pinal
Composer(s) Gary Gilbertson
Platform(s) Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Commodore 64 / 128
Release1987
Genre(s) Role-playing
Mode(s) Single-player

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.

Contents

Gameplay

The player is entering the Dungeon (Atari 8-bit screenshot) Alternate Reality The Dungeon Atari 8-bit PAL screenshot.png
The player is entering the Dungeon (Atari 8-bit screenshot)

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 Dungeon's 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. [3] In 1993, Scorpia called The Dungeon "better than the first, but not by much". [4]

Alternate Reality: The City 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 Dungeon2+1⁄2 stars. [5]

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References

  1. ↑ Barton, Matt (23 February 2007). "The History of Computer Role-Playing Games Part 2: The Golden Age (1985-1993)". Gamasutra . Retrieved 3 January 2017.
  2. ↑ "Christmas Buyers Guide". Computer Gaming World . No. 41. November 1987. p. 20.
  3. ↑ Scorpia (February 1988), "Alternate Reality: The Dungeon", Computer Gaming World , pp. 12–13, 17–19
  4. ↑ Scorpia (October 1993). "Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games". Computer Gaming World. pp. 34–50. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  5. ↑ Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (July 1988). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (135): 82–89.
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