Pool of Radiance - Classic Dungeons and Dragons

You can recognize the old graphics and simplicity of the game engine in an instant, but it was new for its time. The modern game is TOTALLY different - and yet very fun in its own way.

Gold Box: The classic game began with you creating a party of 6 characters. For each character you would "roll" their base statistics in Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma, and pick their class & race. Classes are sort of like their jobs - and would determine what abilities they had, what weapons and armor they could wear, and what their role in the party would be. Race would provide additional abilities or penalties, depending on what you chose. Elves, for example, were immune to sleep spells. My standard party generally included two fighters, 2 clerics, 1 magic-user, and 1 thief. The fighters would be the up front monster killing machines. The clerics would be back-ups to the fighters, and provide the healing spells the party needed. The magic user was generally the weakest physically, but could launch powerful magic from behind the front line of the fighters and the clerics. The thief not only helped in picking locks and disabling traps, but would usually be my main archer, shooting arrows from behind the front line as well.

Each area of the map was a 16 x 16 grid that you would map on a piece of graph paper while you explored each section. The point of view during wandering mode would be from the point of view of the party, looking forward. When entering combat, the view would shift to an overhead view, showing your party as individual characters, and the monsters as opposing characters. Combat was handled like a game of chess, where you could move and direct the action of each member of your party, while the computer's AI system controlled the monsters. After each battle, if you were victorious, the surviving members of your party would be given experience points, and you'd be able to loot the fallen monsters of their weapons, armor, and treasure.

As characters earn more and more experience points, they can advance in level with extra training, granting them extra hit points and abilities which vary based on their class.

The premise of this game started your party in the Civilized area remaining of a once great city, and you are a party of adventurers seeking your fortune. There is a Town Council offering commissions (which are specific quests or jobs they need accomplished). If you complete the task and return to them, you receive an experience point bonus in addition to some extra treasure. The commissions take a variety of forms, clearing out areas of monsters, investigating rumors they've heard about, recovering lost items, etc. As you continue through the game, you find scraps of paper or books with helping full information. The computer screen gives you a reference #, that you would look up in the Game Manual to see what you found. It could be a map, or a clue about a treasure's location, or a trap to be avoided.

There are also shops in the Civilized area where you can purchase equipment for your characters, upgrading them to better, more powerful weapons and armor, or selling off the weapons and armor you take off of the monster you've defeated to get some extra spending cash.

Magic is a key part of this game, and it takes two forms. Clerical magic comes from paying to the Gods and Goddesses of the realm, and involves healing magic, as well as combat and other tasks. Mages use magic that comes from written spells that they inscribe in their spell books and commit to memory for casting later. Both clerics and mages "forget" a spell once they cast it, but can memorize or pray for new spells when they rest. As they gain levels, they can access to more powerful spells.

There is nothing like dropping a fireball right in the middle of a large pack of monsters and watching them all fall down at once, and then letting your fighters work "clean up" duty on the survivors. :)

The original game had just a few movie-like sequences in it, most of it in the finale, as that was really new at the time. Most of the best sequences were still pictures with text boxes underneath telling you what's going on.

In the remake, you have full length videos with audio, music, and everything you expect in a current role-playing game. It makes the old version look amateurish, but it was SO MUCH FUN!

As I said, I still have all of my maps and my notes from playing these games - I probably could still walk my way through the slums today and tell you where the hardest combats and best treasure is to be found from playing so often. :)

One of the best parts of the Gold Box series of games is being able to carry your characters forward from one game to the next. So after completing Pool of Radiance, I could save my party, and import them into Curse of the Azure Bonds to continue their adventure. Usually each new game started with a premise that involved you losing all or most of your possessions, so you couldn't bring in the powerful magic items you had gathered in the previous game to the new one. But I was able to take one set of characters through all four games, and they were amazing.

I learned how to stategically position my characters for the best offensive and/or defensive positions, what spells were the most effective, and how to best explore areas for drawing my maps without missing anything.

These skills game in very handy as I moved on to other role-playing computer games like the Might and Magic series. Now THAT is a series that evolved as the technology did. I have all nine games in the Might and Magic series and have completed all of them except for III (which I didn't get until much later, and have never gotten a chance to go back and play it). Although just like with Pool of Radiance, comparing Might and Magic IX to Might and Magic III is Night and Day as well. I'd much rather play the rich video laden game of M&M IX.

The lessons learned in Pool of Radiance also helped me as new games came out in the Dungeons and Dragons series with new and improved game engines (Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights). Due to lack of time, I haven't been able to complete these either. But hopefully someday :)

Role playing has continued to evolve over the years to where there are now online internet realms like World of Warcraft and Runescape where players and adventure in the game world on their own, or joining parties formed by players around the world to take on adventures.

Who knows - it might not be too far in the distant future that the virtual reality gameworld of .Hack comes to life. And in some ways - those ultra modern technological marvels will have the simple games like Pool of Radiance to thank, for they started gamers like me down that path.