[Apple II] Akalabeth - World of Doom (1979/1980) (California Pacific Computer Company)

[BLACKSABBATH0HM]

Oh sit that noise scared the living hell out of me O_O

[Andulamb]

When I would play this, I would actually jump a little when a monster "suddenly" appeared before me. It looks terrible now, but back then it was the best we had.

[Rxdvd]

lol "stat's"

[Petrhrabal]

wow! that is superrealistic picture!

[centralscrutinizer66]

I used to love the game that I think came before this called Wizards, I don't think it was as involved as this one was. Early games were written in BASIC and when you hit the reset button you could read the program and find the answers to the riddles. Great old-old school gaming to be sure.

[sneasalmaster]

@fulaingt I wanna go back to 1979 and show them a modern rpg like oblivion lol

[TyltyI]

Every old game looks so fascinating. It's impressive to see the effort they've put in them. They look simple anche cheesy now, but back then they were innovative and funny. Now they have powerful hardware and innovative controllers, but somehow they are missing the point of squeezing the fun out of a game without giving pointless achievements and easy online matches. No point in making a solid game if you end up playing online with other people. What about the good old single player challenge?:)

[iwpoe]

So that's like a frame rate of... one?

[KillerSalmon]

It's actually not that bad once you get into it and look past the poor graphics, etc. It's pretty harsh compared to modern games. You can starve to death pretty quickly. It's not as good as Dungeons as Daggorath but it's still okay.

The reason it's slow is because it was programmed almost completely in Applesoft BASIC. Richard Garriott even kept the BASIC 3D routines in Ultima I (the original Ultima I, not the re-release).

[resurgam44]

@SuperiMac2

Wait, you have an honest-to-god Apple I? Damn! Lucky guy.

[piromaniac9999]

ultima 1 acording to wikipedia:, September 2, 1980 date of release.

Akalabeth: World of Doom:1979 somewhere says circa doesn't have a date.

[mikeusat]

Looks like a pretty blatant Wizardry rippoff.

[LordKarnov42]

@mikeusat Might want to check out which game came out first. [Akalabeth wins by two years. But loses by having a terrible gameplay engine]

[LordKarnov42]

@SuperiMac2 Nope, head to eBay.

[baneskrbic]

Nice frame rate.

-.-

[Jonhny2]

Those are really simple graphics!

They make the graphics on the Super Nintendo look AWESOME.

[OmegaFrank]

@Jonhny2 of course, snes is the best console ever!!! =p

[yooperd]

Great game, still have it. Could never understand why the guy could never make a move without eating. ha

[DecoySephiroth]

"WELCOME, FOOLISH MORTAL"

I was afraid of this XD

[Bastiest]

Hmm... Intresting in a way. It's just awfully slow paced and world map doesn't seem to make much sense.

Though back in the days gamers had more time and patience in their hands plus you just couldn't download a new game everytime you got bored to old one so I suppose this was a good waste of time when you weren't getting drunk or having unprotected sex with your nerdy girlfriend... Assuming that you were old enough... >_>

[LordKarnov42]

@Bastiest Haha, I was -5. My parents weren't even old enough.

[SomethingGodAwful]

Combat Evolved is better than this.

[LordKarnov42]

@SomethingGodAwful Only goddamn slightly.

[SomethingGodAwful]

@LordKarnov42 So Karnov.. what's the deal with you and your fascination with old crappy games no one has ever heard of?

[LordKarnov42]

@SomethingGodAwful Someone has to play them. Oh, and, hey, this is the only crappy one on here!

[YariMatthews]

@LordKarnov42 Hey, give it a break, it's pretty much the first real RPG

[greytale]

"Thou hast received 15 pieces of eight"????

lol... I guess good old Richard "Lord British" Garriott meant "gold"?? :)

[LordKarnov42]

@greytale /wiki/Spanish_dollar

[greytale]

@LordKarnov42 hahhaha... good point.  I guess this was also a bit of where "thou hast lost an eighth!!" came from, lol... ok, ok, more like from the 8 virtues based on the 3 axioms, hahahh

[LordKarnov42]

@greytale Ahh Ultima IV was awesome. Discovering how the eight virtues combined to form the three principles, and realizing how the dungeons of anti-virtue were connected through the three shrines of principle.

[zoom98]

I can't believe this sold "tens of thousands of copies" (quoth Wikipedia). But assuming this was running on old 32K Apple IIs, it may not have been possible to write a better-looking program. BTW this was programmed in Applesoft BASIC!

[LordKarnov42]

@zoom98 Haha, yep. So was the original release of Ultima, which is also nearly unplayably slow.

Oh god, I hate the new youtube. Put it bacccckkkkk

[brainstormer9]

aaaah stick man

[barchiesi89]

it takes a while to load.....wow

[LordKarnov42]

Yeah, it's even like that on my actual Enhanced Apple IIe, so either it's REALLY REALLY slow, or it's programmed to wait that length of time whether or not it's already done loading.

[LordKarnov42]

It's actually not very good, haha... Thankfully it was popular enough to spawn Ultima and all of the great games in that series.

[Koomeet30]

3D graphisms are awesome for 1979

[marth231]

This game is awesome