The History of CRPGs, Part Two

Gamasutra has published the second installment of Armchair Arcade’s extensive “History of CRPGs” article, this time covering role-playing games released from 1985 to 1993. They call this the “Golden Age”, and for good reason. Some of the greatest CRPG classics of all time were released during those years:

The first Gold Box game is Pool of Radiance, a game which marked an important turning point in CRPG history. The game shipped in a distinctive gold-colored box (hence the nickname for the series), which sported artwork by celebrated fantasy illustrator Clyde Caldwell (Caldwell also designed the covers for Curse of the Azure Bonds and several other TSR-licensed games and books). It was initially available only on the Atari ST and Commodore 64 platforms, though soon ports were available for most major platforms, including the NES. Pool of Radiance was an instant best-seller, and not just because it was the first officially licensed AD&D computer game. Awash with strong competition, SSI took the sensible approach–take the very best elements of its own and rival CRPGs and pool them together. Indeed, the Gold Box engine is essentially a medley of Bard’s Tale and Wizard’s Crown, which can trace their own ancestry back to Ultima, Wizardry, and Tunnels of Doom. Nevertheless, Pool of Radiance is much greater than the sum of its parts, and more than deserves its reputation among serious CRPG critics as one of the best (if not the very best) CRPG ever designed. Though later Gold Box games would refine the engine and address some annoying flaws in the interface, all of the qualities that made the Gold Box games so legendary are present in Pool of Radiance.

Before I go on, let me put my cards (or, should I say, dice?) on the table here. Every critic has those few games that it’s just impossible to be truly objective about. We all have that “first love,” that first game that taught us that playing computer games was something we’d be doing for the rest of our lives. For me, that game is most certainly Pool of Radiance. Although I had played earlier CRPGs like The Bard’s Tale and Ultima, there was just something about Pool of Radiance that made these other games look hopelessly mundane. I loved the game so much that I bought every other Gold Box game and even the pulpy novels that were based on them. I would’ve bought the breakfast cereal and the underwear if they’d made them. In short, Pool of Radiance awakened me to a whole new world–the world of D&D, fantasy, Tolkien, Dragonlance, and, most importantly, CRPGs. How can I be objective about a game that shaped me into the man I am today? I adore Pool of Radiance, and so should you! After all, you wouldn’t be reading this article if I had never played it.