Dunjonquest

Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai is a dungeon-crawl role-playing game set in a sprawling underground complex. Create an adventurer, equip them at the inn, and explore more than 200 rooms filled with monsters, traps, and treasure. It is considered one of the first graphical role-playing games for home computers. It was an enormous success for its era, selling 30,000 copies by 1982 and remaining a best-seller for at least four years.

Released: 1979
Platforms: Apple II Atari 8-bit Commodore C64/128/MAX Commodore PET Commodore VIC-20 MS-DOS TRS-80
Genres: Role-playing
Developers: Epyx
Publishers: Epyx
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric
Themes: Action Fantasy

About

Dunjonquest is a series of single-player, single-character fantasy computer role-playing games by Automated Simulations (later known as Epyx). Temple of Apshai was the most successful and most widely ported game in the series. The games relied on strategy and pen & paper RPG style rules and statistics.

There were two types of Dunjonquest games:

›Story

You are Brian Hammerhand, having just arrived by ship in a small, nameless coastal town. After a quick brawl in the Wallowing Whale Tavern, and nearly penniless, you set out to explore the town. A boy you meet leads you to the house of Merlis the Mage.

There, you learn about the legend of Apshai. Apshai is the ancient god of insects, and it is said that his priests, though very knowledgeable, meddled in dark rites. The followers of the earth god Geb drove the Apshaians away, and they eventually found a new home in an underground cave, which they relentlessly expanded over time. They built a huge temple in tribute to the god Apshai and prospered immensely in the years that followed.

Then, one day, there was a great roar, the earth shook, and the temple, along with the village of the Apshaians, was utterly destroyed. They fled their home, never to return.

In the years that followed, expeditions occasionally sought the riches and secrets buried in the Apshaians' underground settlement. But hardly any of those who ventured there ever returned. Can you, Brian Hammerhand, solve the mysteries of the Temple of Apshai and return safely with riches beyond imagination?

Keywords

turn-based
roguelike
dungeon crawling
cga graphics
dungeon

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Reception

Alan Isabelle reviewed Dunjonquest (specifically, The Temple of Apshai, The Datestones of Ryn, and Morloc's Tower) in The Space Gamer No. 31. Isabelle commented that "These games are quite good, but perhaps overpriced a bit. You're on your own with this one."

Legacy

The Dunjonquest method of listing detailed descriptions of places and events in the manual was adopted by SSI's Goldbox series of official Dungeons & Dragons computer adaptions and Interplay's Wasteland.

The concept of room descriptions in top-down view CRPGs is carried on in titles with limited budgets for voice acting or limited graphics, such as the indie titles of the Avernum series by Spiderweb Software and the Eschalon series by Basilisk Games. Like in the Amiga version of Temple of Apshai, the descriptions are presented in text windows within the game.

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

Platform	Released	Regions
TRS-80	1 August 1979	North America
Commodore PET	31 December 1979	North America
Apple II	31 December 1980	North America
Atari 8-bit	31 December 1980	North America
MS-DOS	31 December 1982	North America
Commodore C64/128/MAX	31 December 1983	North America · Europe 31 December 1984
Commodore VIC-20	31 December 1983	North America