2 posts tagged “role playing games”
I seem to be on a retro jag at the moment. My excuse is that there was good design in the constraints, plus a message from my mother that they have found a couple of boxes of old role playing games.
So emulators are being downloaded, 'copies' of games I had found on the net (I used to have a box of Commodore 64 games but it got left in a flat move somewhere. Oh foolish student that I was).
Also a scouring of ebay and a bizzare hope that old hardware and playing these games on the original hardware will give me some kind of epiphany. It wont but it will be fun for a short while.
But what are the games that most stick in my mind, well most seem to be from the Commodore 64 (I had a Vic 20 and a ZX81 before that, but none of the games except monster maze really remain in my memory, well that and the Scott Adams adventure game 'The Count' which was a cartridge for the Vic 20). After the 64 came my Amiga 500. Games on that, well I loved playing Trip-A-Tron. Daft that, but anyway..
From the 64 (in no order):
- Shadowfire
- Psi Warrior
- Enigma Force
- Frankie Goes To Hollywood
- Zoids
- Lords of Midnight
- Domarks Revenge
- The Sentinal
- Infocom games, Suspended, Deadline and Starcross.
In fact on my 64 I remember being obsessed with the next Beyond release, or following the releases of Denton Designs.
On the spectrum I always wanted to play Mel Croucher's 'Deus Ex Machina'. I think I have just snagged a copy from ebay, just need a spectrum to play it on.
I think the only hardware that is still in the family is the Amiga and that is probably not in a good way. I hope to try and rescue that when I visit the family to recover the box of RPG's.
And in that box, well I am not sure but I know that I had far too many rules and not enough time to play them all, in fact I enjoyed the construction of the game worlds in the rule books so much that I collected rules. I know I had:
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Star Frontiers
- Indiana Jones RPG
- Star Trek
- Paranoia
- Call of Cuthulu
- Car Wars
- Killer
- Warhammer
and maybe a few others, which ones remain and in what state I am yet to discover but it feels stupidly exciting.
I am sure I can think of a good excuse to talk more about a long time ago as if it was relevant to now.
In a spat of googling and wikipedia poking around I just found this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Trap
It describes the Live Action Role Playing Game Tresure Trap that was founded in the UK in 1982. In a castle in Cheshire, people went along and dressed up as orcs, hobbits, elves and adventurers. In fact for one weekend my best friend from school and I went along and played a game.
We had seen a piece about it on Blue Peter. A quick letter to the BBC and we had a sheet of information on Treasure Trap. We played quite a few role playing games, Dungeons & Dragons and Star Frontiers were the main ones.
My friends dad drove us up there, and soon we were playing an introduction adventure in the castle.
What do I remember from it? Not loads, but I do remember the sponge covered swords. One puzzle in one of the rooms was 'Red To red or else your dead'. Someone had to solve a red face on a rubiks cube so we could get out of the room, meanwhile the 'gamesmasters' were waving a torch back and forth, slowly getting lower to represent the ceiling coming down.
I also remember getting separated from the main party and getting captured by a group of Orcs. I was sent back with a curse so that I could not speak.
It was fun, i enjoyed it. Of course we did not join. It was too much for school kids from London, how would we get there to play a game? I am sure our parents would not have enjoyed having to drive there every weekend.
But it was a good game.
More memories are available here http://www.treasuretrap.net/.
