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Role-playing

Dungeon crawler

A role-playing game where you work through enclosed labyrinths level by level, fighting monsters, avoiding traps and collecting treasure. The challenge is managing your character's or party's health and resources to reach ever deeper.

Also known as: dungeon crawl, blobber

This is a basic entry: it has the definition and the classification. Full entries add history, games and a demo.

History

  1. 1975
    Origin

    The first on computers was pedit5, created in 1975 by Rusty Rutherford on the PLATO system; dnd and Moria followed.

    Dungeon crawl (Wikipedia)
  2. 1981

    Wizardry popularises first-person dungeon crawling with a party of adventurers.

    Role-playing video game (Wikipedia)

Reference games

1975

dnd

Gary Whisenhunt y Ray Wood. PLATO

One of the first computer role-playing games, made on the PLATO university system. You go down a dungeon, fight monsters and improve your character; it is also the first game with what would later be called a boss.

1980

Akalabeth: World of Doom

Richard Garriott. Apple II

Richard Garriott programmed it in BASIC as a teenager. You travel an overhead map and go down into first-person wireframe dungeons; it is the direct ancestor of the Ultima series.

1981

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

Andrew C. Greenberg y Robert Woodhead (Sir-Tech). Apple II

You form a party of six adventurers of different classes and guide it floor by floor through a first-person maze, with turn-based battles chosen from a menu. It is the first truly party-based role-playing game.