Black Crypt

The player is given the task of creating four heroes to traverse the twenty-eight levels of the "Tomb of the Four Heroes" and defeat the evil Estoroth Paingiver. Estoroth, a powerful cleric, was banished to a black crypt for committing unspeakable acts. The guilds of Astera believe Estoroth is attempting to unseal his crypt, and send the four heroes to seal him away forever.

Unlike Dungeon Master, Black Crypt does not have pre-generated characters to select as possible heroes. When starting a new game, the player must first create and name their four heroes, then choose their class (fighter, cleric, magic user and druid) and set their starting attributes.

Black Crypt was originally conceived by Brian Raffel and Steve Raffel in the late 1980s as an adventure module for pen-and-paper role-playing games, although work began in April 1990 to eventually turn their idea into a video game. The game's budget was $40,000.

According to a pre-release blurb in The One, Black Crypt consists of 12 interconnected dungeons rendered in 64 colours, and an EA spokesman purported that Electronic Arts "like to think of the game as a dungeon simulator rather than a game".

Upon release, Black Crypt was met with "widespread critical acclaim", receiving an 92% from The One and 83% from German reviewer Amiga Joker.

Amiga Power gave the Amiga version of Black Crypt an overall score of 85%, the reviewer begins their review remarking their disdain for RPGs, calling them "escapism for accountants", but expressing that "[Black Crypt] somehow managed to draw me in and keep me there". Amiga Power furthermore calls it 'unoriginal' and expresses that Black Crypt appears based on Dungeon Master, and states "The variety of monsters is not wide and none of them seem out of the ordinary." Despite these criticisms, Amiga Power's reviewer expresses that they "quickly found myself excusing its flaws, and despite a lack of atmosphere there was a healthy feeling that progress was being made. Not once did I reach the stage where I thought 'Now what?'