SwordThrust

Last updated
SwordThrust
SwordThrust cover.png
Developer(s) Donald Brown
Publisher(s) CE Software
Designer(s) Donald Brown
Platform(s) Apple II
ReleaseMay 1981 [1]
Genre(s) Adventure / RPG
Mode(s) Single-player

SwordThrust is an interactive text adventure game for the Apple II, created by Donald Brown and published by CE Software in 1981. It consists of seven separate adventures (each sold separately) and is the commercial successor to Brown's Eamon (1980).

Contents

Premise

Players take on the role of a warrior/adventurer in the magical, feudal world of Diurla. Play begins at the Main Hall of the Guild of Free Rogues, where the player creates a character, buys equipment and learns spells before venturing out to gain wealth and experience. Each scenario has a different goal, and typically a time limit. A save option is available, allowing the player to suspend the game and pick it up later. [2]

Adventures

Seven separate adventures were released for the SwordThrust system: [2]

  1. The King's Testing Ground by Donald Brown. Intended for "beginning rogues", this adventure is the equivalent of Eamon's Beginners Cave and contains relatively easy opponents.
  2. The Vampyre Caves by Donald Brown
  3. The Kidnappers Cove by Donald Brown
  4. The Case of the Sultan's Pearl by Donald Brown
  5. The Green Plague by Donald Brown
  6. The Eternal Curse by Donald Brown
  7. The Hall of Alchemie by Peter Wityk

Reception

Forrest Johnson reviewed SwordThrust in The Space Gamer No. 43. [3] Johnson commented that "SwordThrust is not the best game of its type; it's the only. It has flaws, but so does every milestone." [3]

Debuting in May 1981, Swordthrust #1 sold 1,000 copies by June 1982, appearing on Computer Gaming World 's list of top sellers. [1] A 1982 review in the magazine praised the game's departure from the typical Dungeons & Dragons character class system, instead allowing a character to advance in any skill, closer in style to RuneQuest . [4] Computer Gaming World stated in 1991 and 1993 "It's a pity that Swordthrust did not survive into the graphic era, as it had great potential". [5] [6]

Dale Archibald reviewed Sword Thrust #1: The King's Testing Ground in Ares Magazine #14 and commented that "if gothic, nurse, mystery and western writers can publish four books at a time about a character, why can't a software publisher? It's an attractive idea, if you've got a good character and good plots. Brown has the best character going: you. And his plots are interesting." [7]

Norman Banduch reviewed The Eternal Curse in The Space Gamer No. 58. [8] Banduch commented that "The Eternal Curse is an excellent adventure program, ideal for building up characters for other SwordThrust adventures. It is also good fun on its own." [8]

Reviews

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Rogue</i> (video game) 1980 video game

Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman with later contributions by Ken Arnold. Rogue was originally developed around 1980 for Unix-based minicomputer systems as a freely distributed executable. It was later included in the Berkeley Software Distribution 4.2 operating system (4.2BSD). Commercial ports of the game for a range of personal computers were made by Toy, Wichman, and Jon Lane under the company A.I. Design and financially supported by the Epyx software publishers. Additional ports to modern systems have been made since by other parties using the game's now-open source code.

<i>Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds</i> 1982 video game

Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds is the second game in the Wizardry series of role-playing video games. It was published in 1982 by Sir-Tech.

<i>Curse of the Azure Bonds</i> 1989 video game

Curse of the Azure Bonds is a role-playing video game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) in 1989. It is the second in a four-part series of Forgotten Realms Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Gold Box adventure computer games, continuing the events after the first part, Pool of Radiance.

<i>Temple of Apshai</i> 1979 video game

Temple of Apshai is a dungeon crawl role-playing video game developed and published by Automated Simulations in 1979. Originating on the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, it was followed by several updated versions for other computers between 1980 and 1986.

<i>Eamon</i> (video game) 1980 video game

Eamon, sometimes known as The Wonderful World of Eamon, is a game creation system and a role-playing adventure game series created by Donald Brown and released for the Apple II in 1980. The game is a text adventure similar to other early titles like Adventure (1976) or Zork (1980) and to later text-based multi-user dungeons (MUDs), though with many role-playing elements not available in other interactive fiction. Eamon software is non-commercial and is freely available in the public domain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual Theatre</span> Game engine by Revolution Software

The Virtual Theatre is a computer game engine designed by Revolution Software to produce adventure games for computer platforms. The engine allowed their team to script events, and move animated sprites against a drawn background with moving elements using a point-and-click style interface. Upon its first release, it rivaled competing engines like LucasArts' SCUMM and Sierra's Creative Interpreter, due to its then high level of artificial intelligence. The engine was first proposed in 1989, while the first game to use it, Lure of the Temptress, was released in 1992, followed by Beneath a Steel Sky (1994), Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996) and Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror (1997).

<i>Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord</i> 1981 video game

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is the first game in the Wizardry series of role-playing video games. It was developed by Andrew C. Greenberg and Robert Woodhead. In 1980, Norman Sirotek formed Sir-Tech Software, Inc. and launched a beta version of the product at the 1980 Boston Computer Convention. The final version of the game was released in 1981.

<i>Gateway to the Savage Frontier</i> 1991 video game

Gateway to the Savage Frontier (1991) is a Gold BoxDungeons & Dragons computer game developed by Beyond Software and published by SSI for the Commodore 64, PC and Amiga personal computers.

<i>Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn</i> 1983 video game

Wizardry III: Legacy of Llylgamyn is the third scenario in the Wizardry series of role-playing video games. It was published in 1983 by Sir-Tech.

<i>Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero</i> 1989 video game

Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero is a 1989 adventure game/role-playing game hybrid, designed by Lori Ann Cole and published by Sierra On-Line for MS-DOS. It is the first game in the Quest for Glory series, and has been credited for being a genre-defining game, as it tried to mix graphical adventure gaming with role-playing-like elements such as statistic building that would actually affect the ability to accomplish certain parts of the game. The game has a satirical and silly tone. Ports for the Amiga, Atari ST, and NEC PC-9801 were released in the early 1990s. A VGA remake, titled Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero, was released in 1992 for DOS and later in 1994 for Mac OS.

<i>Phantasie II</i> 1986 video game

Phantasie II is the second game in the Phantasie series of role-playing video games.

<i>Knights of Legend</i> 1989 video game

Knights of Legend, released by Origin Systems in 1989, is a fantasy role-playing video game.

<i>World of Aden: Thunderscape</i> 1995 video game

World of Aden: Thunderscape is a swords & sorcery role-playing video game for MS-DOS compatible operating systems developed by Strategic Simulations and published by Mindscape in 1995. The game is based on the world described in the fantasy trilogy of the same name.

<i>Telengard</i> 1982 video game

Telengard is a 1982 role-playing dungeon crawler video game developed by Daniel Lawrence and published by Avalon Hill. The player explores a dungeon, fights monsters with magic, and avoids traps in real-time without any set mission other than surviving. Lawrence first wrote the game as DND, a 1976 version of Dungeons & Dragons for the DECsystem-10 mainframe computer. He continued to develop DND at Purdue University as a hobby, rewrote the game for the Commodore PET 2001 after 1978, and ported it to Apple II+, TRS-80, and Atari 800 before Avalon Hill found the game at a convention and licensed it for distribution. Its Commodore 64 release was the most popular. Reviewers noted Telengard's similarity to Dungeons and Dragons. RPG historian Shannon Appelcline noted the game as one of the first professionally produced computer role-playing games, and Gamasutra's Barton considered Telengard consequential in what he deemed "The Silver Age" of computer role-playing games preceding the golden age of the late 1980s. Some of the game's dungeon features, such as altars, fountains, teleportation cubes, and thrones, were adopted by later games such as Tunnels of Doom (1982).

Donald M. Brown is a programmer and the creator of Eamon, a long-running non-commercial role-playing game series for the Apple II computer first released in 1980.

<i>Space: 1889</i> (video game) 1990 video game

Space: 1889 is an adventure game developed by Paragon Software and published in 1990 for Amiga, Atari ST, and MS-DOS.

<i>Beneath Apple Manor</i> 1978 video game

Beneath Apple Manor is a roguelike game written by Don Worth for the Apple II and published by The Software Factory in 1978. Higher resolution "Special Editions" were released in 1982 and 1983, through Quality Software, for the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers. It was one of the first video games to use procedural generation.

<i>City of Lei Tabor</i> Tabletop fantasy role-playing game adventure

City of Lei Tabor is a 1980 fantasy role-playing game supplement published by Judges Guild for RuneQuest.

<i>Hellfire Warrior</i> 1980 video game

Hellfire Warrior is a dungeon crawl video game for the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 published by Automated Simulations in 1980. A port to Atari 8-bit computers was released in 1982. Hellfire Warrior is the direct sequel to 1979's Temple of Apshai. Two expansion packs were published.

<i>Galactic Adventures</i> 1982 video game

Galactic Adventures is a video game published in 1982 by Strategic Simulations for the Apple II and Atari 8-bit computers.

References

  1. 1 2 "Inside the Industry" (PDF). Computer Gaming World . September–October 1982. p. 2. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  2. 1 2 "SwordThrust Manual" (PDF). CE Software. Retrieved 2012-01-15.
  3. 1 2 Johnson, Forrest (September 1981). "Featured Review: SwordThrust". The Space Gamer (43). Steve Jackson Games: 10–11.
  4. Maloy, Deirdre (January–February 1982), "The SwordThrust series: A survey", Computer Gaming World , no. Jan–Feb 1982, p. 2
  5. Scorpia (October 1991). "C*R*P*G*S / Computer Role-Playing Game Survey". Computer Gaming World. p. 16. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  6. Scorpia (October 1993). "Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games". Computer Gaming World. pp. 34–50. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  7. Archibald, Dale (Spring 1983). "Software". Ares Magazine (14). TSR, Inc.: 47.
  8. 1 2 Banduch, Norman (December 1982). "Capsule Reviews". The Space Gamer (58). Steve Jackson Games: 46.
  9. "Ludotique | Article | RPGGeek".