Telengard
Encyclopedia
Telengard is a computer-based video game that provides an early example of the dungeon crawl
genre. The game, written in 1978 by Daniel Lawrence (1958–2010), was purchased by Avalon Hill
in 1982
and made available on multiple computer platforms. These included the Commodore C64, the Apple II+, TRS-80
, Atari 400 and Atari 800, and various IBM
machines such as the IBM PCjr
, and the IBM PC
. Telengard is available on Windows
and many ports and emulations are available for modern computers and operating systems.
Telengard, written from only 8 kilobytes of memory, offers no final solution for players. It simply provides a gaming platform for players to explore dungeons in real time. It has been referred to as a predecessor to Diablo
, and is an early example of a roguelike
video game.
, at Purdue University
in 1978. Lawrence rewrote DND in BASIC
with only 937 lines of code on a Commodore PET 2001 computer, and called it Telengard. Since the maps presented a memory capability problem, he "reduced the number of dungeons from three [in DND] to one, and ... had the game generate the map algorithically". This allowed the early versions of the game to fit into 8 kilobytes (kB) of memory, later expanded to a "luxurious" 32 kB of memory. Lawrence developed the game to be played in real time due to limited amount of time on computers for play-testers. The intent was to "get them moving and not hog the terminals".
After Avalon Hill
purchased the game in 1982, Telengard became one of its "first round of computer game releases" for the Apple II+ and TRS-80
system, as BASIC
was similar in these systems. Since the internal variables of the Atari 400/800 were different than these systems, its release took longer. C
was used to program the IBM-PC version of Telengard.
/wizard
” character
. These include Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma, which influence gameplay (image left). When “entering the dungeon” players start at experience level one, are equipped with a sword, shield, and armor, and can use level 1 spells only.
The premise of Telengard is simple: “enter the dungeon
, gather treasures, gold, and experience, and come out alive.” Players begin on level 1 of a fifty-level dungeon. Each level is 200 × 200 rooms, for a total of two million rooms. Characters begin at the bottom of the stairs to the Worthy Meade Inn, one of the many inns only accessible on level 1 of the dungeon. The interface is simple—players can move north, south, east, and west through the rooms of the dungeon. Experience can be gained by defeating any of the twenty types of monsters through armed combat or through spells. Experience is also acquired by “snarfing” treasure (gold, gems, jewels, silver, treasure chests, and even refuse) which is translated into a gold value (image below right). One piece of gold is equal to one experience point when a character returns to an Inn, deposits the gold, and spends the night—which also regenerates a characters spell units and hit points. When a character acquires 2,000 experience points, experience level two is reached, and a player’s hit points and spell units increase—by values dependent on the strength of the players Constitution and Wisdom attributes, respectively.
Players move from level 1 to lower levels of the dungeon by using circular stairways, accidentally falling into a pit, entering a Grey Misty Cube, using a Level 5 teleport spell or entering a teleport room. Lower levels bring more dangerous monsters, but higher rewards when finding treasure. While exploring the dungeon, players will encounter altars, jeweled thrones, small boxes with buttons (safes), fountains, and other features. Interaction with these features—such as sitting in a throne or drinking from a fountain—can produce varied results ranging from changed attribute points to gain or loss of experience. Players can also amass a huge treasure by opening one of the many safes in the dungeon. Magic weapons, armor, rings, boots, scrolls, potions, and treasure chests appear randomly in the dungeon. Sometimes a “friendly” monster will simply give an item to a player, and some monsters (notably elves) will befriend charismatic players and heal them to full strength.
The game relies on text and keyboard
interaction and is played in real time—“Once you’re playing a real game, there is no way to check the mail or make a cup of coffee.” Gameplay can only be stopped by returning to an Inn or saving the game in the dungeon (allowable in some versions). A twist on gameplay is provided with the use of a keyboard buffer which “holds two or three characters, so if you get excited and begin pushing keys without thinking, you’ll blindly affect your future”. The graphics for the early versions are extremely basic—in the case of the Apple version, simple walls are drawn and the player is represented by an “X” in the center of the rooms. Some versions, such as those for the Commodore 64 and IBM, feature rudimentary character and monster figures, as well as dungeon hazards (image left).
The game ends only when a character's hit points drop to zero. There is no final mission and no way to "win" the game. It is simply a gaming platform. The player's manual provides numerous suggestions for gameplay such as contests to determine (in a given time standard), what player can amass the most experience, attain the highest level, stay alive the longest on a particular dungeon level, or slay the strongest monster.
, such as Skeletons and Zombies; certain spells are effective only against them, such as Turn Undead and Holy Symbol. Conversely, some spells are ineffective against the undead, such as the Sleep spell.
Dungeon crawl
A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters, and looting any treasure they may find...
genre. The game, written in 1978 by Daniel Lawrence (1958–2010), was purchased by Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...
in 1982
1982 in video gaming
-Events:* December 27 - Starcade, a video game television game show, debuts on TBS in the United States.-Notable releases:*October 13 - Mystique releases the Custer's Revenge adult video game for the Atari 2600 home console....
and made available on multiple computer platforms. These included the Commodore C64, the Apple II+, TRS-80
TRS-80
TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...
, Atari 400 and Atari 800, and various IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
machines such as the IBM PCjr
IBM PCjr
The IBM PCjr was IBM's first attempt to enter the home computer market. The PCjr, IBM model number 4860, retained the IBM PC's 8088 CPU and BIOS interface for compatibility, but various design and implementation decisions led the PCjr to be a commercial failure.- Features :Announced November 1,...
, and the IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
. Telengard is available on Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and many ports and emulations are available for modern computers and operating systems.
Telengard, written from only 8 kilobytes of memory, offers no final solution for players. It simply provides a gaming platform for players to explore dungeons in real time. It has been referred to as a predecessor to Diablo
Diablo (video game)
Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and released by Blizzard Entertainment on December 31, 1996....
, and is an early example of a roguelike
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...
video game.
Development
Daniel Lawrence modeled Telengard after its predecessor, DNDDnd (computer game)
dnd is a computer role-playing game. The name dnd is derived from the abbreviation "DND" from the original role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which was first released in 1975....
, at Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
in 1978. Lawrence rewrote DND in BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
with only 937 lines of code on a Commodore PET 2001 computer, and called it Telengard. Since the maps presented a memory capability problem, he "reduced the number of dungeons from three [in DND] to one, and ... had the game generate the map algorithically". This allowed the early versions of the game to fit into 8 kilobytes (kB) of memory, later expanded to a "luxurious" 32 kB of memory. Lawrence developed the game to be played in real time due to limited amount of time on computers for play-testers. The intent was to "get them moving and not hog the terminals".
After Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill
Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...
purchased the game in 1982, Telengard became one of its "first round of computer game releases" for the Apple II+ and TRS-80
TRS-80
TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...
system, as BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
was similar in these systems. Since the internal variables of the Atari 400/800 were different than these systems, its release took longer. C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
was used to program the IBM-PC version of Telengard.
Legacy
Telengard is one of the first dungeon crawl video games. As an "action RPG", it established "the model for which other games perfected (such as Diablo) years later", and "is arguably one of the originators of the genre". Telengard also introduced some "ideas that became commonplace in Roguelikes, such as scrolls, and teleporters", which "didn't set any standards, but probably inspired a lot of authors to program Roguelikes of their own".Synopsis
At the outset of the game, players select randomly generated attributes for their “warriorWarrior (character class)
Warrior is a character class found in many role-playing games. This class may also be referred to as Fighter, as in Dungeons & Dragons. The class is sometimes also referred to as a Knight, although in some games this is a separate class with a more chivalric aspect...
/wizard
Wizard (character class)
The Wizard is a type of magical character class in certain role-playing games and computer role-playing games. Wizards are considered to be spellcasters who wield powerful spells, but are often physically weak as a trade-off. Wizards are commonly confused with similar offensive spellcasting...
” character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
. These include Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma, which influence gameplay (image left). When “entering the dungeon” players start at experience level one, are equipped with a sword, shield, and armor, and can use level 1 spells only.
The premise of Telengard is simple: “enter the dungeon
Dungeon
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably belongs more to the Renaissance period...
, gather treasures, gold, and experience, and come out alive.” Players begin on level 1 of a fifty-level dungeon. Each level is 200 × 200 rooms, for a total of two million rooms. Characters begin at the bottom of the stairs to the Worthy Meade Inn, one of the many inns only accessible on level 1 of the dungeon. The interface is simple—players can move north, south, east, and west through the rooms of the dungeon. Experience can be gained by defeating any of the twenty types of monsters through armed combat or through spells. Experience is also acquired by “snarfing” treasure (gold, gems, jewels, silver, treasure chests, and even refuse) which is translated into a gold value (image below right). One piece of gold is equal to one experience point when a character returns to an Inn, deposits the gold, and spends the night—which also regenerates a characters spell units and hit points. When a character acquires 2,000 experience points, experience level two is reached, and a player’s hit points and spell units increase—by values dependent on the strength of the players Constitution and Wisdom attributes, respectively.
Players move from level 1 to lower levels of the dungeon by using circular stairways, accidentally falling into a pit, entering a Grey Misty Cube, using a Level 5 teleport spell or entering a teleport room. Lower levels bring more dangerous monsters, but higher rewards when finding treasure. While exploring the dungeon, players will encounter altars, jeweled thrones, small boxes with buttons (safes), fountains, and other features. Interaction with these features—such as sitting in a throne or drinking from a fountain—can produce varied results ranging from changed attribute points to gain or loss of experience. Players can also amass a huge treasure by opening one of the many safes in the dungeon. Magic weapons, armor, rings, boots, scrolls, potions, and treasure chests appear randomly in the dungeon. Sometimes a “friendly” monster will simply give an item to a player, and some monsters (notably elves) will befriend charismatic players and heal them to full strength.
The game relies on text and keyboard
Keyboard (computing)
In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
interaction and is played in real time—“Once you’re playing a real game, there is no way to check the mail or make a cup of coffee.” Gameplay can only be stopped by returning to an Inn or saving the game in the dungeon (allowable in some versions). A twist on gameplay is provided with the use of a keyboard buffer which “holds two or three characters, so if you get excited and begin pushing keys without thinking, you’ll blindly affect your future”. The graphics for the early versions are extremely basic—in the case of the Apple version, simple walls are drawn and the player is represented by an “X” in the center of the rooms. Some versions, such as those for the Commodore 64 and IBM, feature rudimentary character and monster figures, as well as dungeon hazards (image left).
The game ends only when a character's hit points drop to zero. There is no final mission and no way to "win" the game. It is simply a gaming platform. The player's manual provides numerous suggestions for gameplay such as contests to determine (in a given time standard), what player can amass the most experience, attain the highest level, stay alive the longest on a particular dungeon level, or slay the strongest monster.
Character attributes
Players choose from characters with six attributes which are randomly generated with a numerical value from 3–18; higher numbers make the character stronger. The character attributes are strength (used to "determine success during combat"), intelligence (assists in spell casting), wisdom (good for "healing spells and spells dealing with Undead Creatures"), constitution (life force of the character), dexterity (helps in evasion tactics and in preventing the player from falling into pits), and charisma (assists in "creature reactions" to the player).Spells
Characters are able to use Level 1 spells at the outset of the game and acquire new spell levels (up to Level 6) as they increase in experience levels. Players can recharge their limited number of spell units by spending the night in an inn or drinking from a fountain (a risky endeavor with unpredictable results). Spells can be cast during combat or when the player is unoccupied. Combat spells are instantaneous or last only for the duration of the combat, such as Magic Missile or Finger of Death. Duration spells, such as Continual Light or Invisibility, will last a few turns when cast outside of combat. The spells available in the game are listed below.| Level 1 | Level 2 | Level 3 | Level 4 | Level 5 | Level 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magic Missile | Web | Lightning Bolt | Pass Wall | Teleport | Time Stop |
| Sleep | Levitate | Cure Serious Wounds | Fireball | Astral Walk | Raise Dead |
| Cure Light Wounds | Cause Light Wounds | Continual Light | Cause Serious Wounds | Power Word Kill | Holy Symbol |
| Light | Detect Traps | Invisibility | Flesh to Stone | Ice Storm | Word of Recall |
| Turn Undead | Charm | Hold Monster | Fear | Wall of Fire | Restoration |
| Protection from Evil | Strength | Phantasmal Force | Finger of Death | Plague | Prismatic Wall |
Features
Various features are encountered during gameplay. Some provide the player with an opportunity to acquire treasure, such as by opening a safe or prying the jewels from a throne (which can be a dangerous endeavor if the Zombie King returns while doing so). Drinking from a fountain or sitting in a throne can have various effects on a character; a player may rise or fall an experience level, or could gain or lose an attribute point—such as Strength or Dexterity.
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Monsters
The monsters listed below are in order of their danger to the character, with the Gnoll being the least and the Dragon being the most powerful. The playing manual suggests to players, "Don't foolhardily take on a Level 5 Dragon if you are still a lowly Level 1 character. In fact, don't even take on a Dragon. Heroes die young." Some monsters are undeadUndead (Dungeons & Dragons)
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, undead is a classification of monsters that can be encountered by player characters. Undead creatures are most often once-living creatures, which have been animated by spiritual or supernatural forces....
, such as Skeletons and Zombies; certain spells are effective only against them, such as Turn Undead and Holy Symbol. Conversely, some spells are ineffective against the undead, such as the Sleep spell.
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Orc An orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien.... Fighter (Dungeons & Dragons) The fighter is one of the standard playable character classes in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. A fighter is a versatile, weapons-oriented warrior who fights using skill, strategy and tactics.... Mummy (Dungeons & Dragons) A mummy, in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game, is an undead creature whose corpse has been mummified and animated, often through the power of an evil god of the Egyptian pantheon such as Set.-Publication history:... Elves in fantasy fiction and games In many works of modern fantasy, elves are a race of semi-divine humanoid beings.-Characteristics and common features:Modern fantasy literature has revived the elves as a race of semi-divine beings of human stature who are friendly with animals. Fantasy elves are different from Norse elves and the... Ghoul A ghoul is a folkloric monster associated with graveyards and consuming human flesh, often classified as undead. The oldest surviving literature that mention ghouls is likely One Thousand and One Nights... |
Troll A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology... Ogre An ogre is a large, cruel, monstrous, and hideous humanoid monster, featured in mythology, folklore, and fiction. Ogres are often depicted in fairy tales and folklore as feeding on human beings, and have appeared in many classic works of literature... Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur , as the Greeks imagined him, was a creature with the head of a bull on the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, "part man and part bull"... |
Giant (Dungeons & Dragons) In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, giant is a type of creature, or "creature type." Giants are humanoid-shaped creatures of great strength and size.-Dungeons & Dragons :... Vampire Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person... Demon (Dungeons & Dragons) In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, demons are the most widespread race of fiends. The demons are chaotic evil by nature, and are native to the Abyss... Dragon A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern... |
Magical treasure
During play, the character may pick up various magical items. Except for potions and scrolls, items can have an associated strength indicator, such as a "Sword +3" or an "Armor +24". The higher the indicator, the more powerful the item. Potions, such as the Potion of Healing, can be used at any time. The Scroll of Rescue, which is useful when an adventurer needs to return to an inn (minus any found gold) can be used only when not in combat.
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