RPG Blog
Related Articles
In the end, it’s hard to improve Witchcraft‘s UI, and, once you notice it, you’ll see it everywhere. Go play a Pokemon game and you will see the Witchcraft DNA in its diversity. Lots of great indie games (like Monster Sanctuary) even manage to use this old (but familiar and simple) style while incorporating modern tweaks.
Sorcery’s innovative trappings have laid the foundation for some of the cruelest tricks passed down from souls
Ah, the Selia crystal tunnels of Ring of Elden. We’ve all been there at least once and our first visit probably wasn’t by choice. We were minding our own business, hoping Agheel the dragon wouldn’t roast our already tarnished chestnuts or gather loot in hopes of finding something to make the early game a little easier. All of a sudden we opened the wrong chest and we were surrounded by creepy centipede dudes shooting at us like it was a classified Call of Duty match. Cool.
you can thank Witchcraftand, by extension, Dungeons & Dragons for these unforgettable experiences. Facial expressions have haunted gamers since 1977 J&D Monster Manual invited them to destroy parties, turning treasure chests into super-powered bastards. Witchcraft turned those same creatures into digital nightmares, giving them a perfect home in video games as mindless traps and monsters sent to rob you of your hard-earned loot.
Mad Overlord’s Proving Ground actually “trapped” the majority of his enemy-dropped loot chests. If your attempt to disarm these chests fails, a variety of bad things could happen (from taking heavy damage to ingesting deadly poison). A little like Ring of Elden, Witchcraft also included teleport traps that could put your heroes in difficult situations. While you’ll usually end up on the same floor, they might also send you to an upper level section located on a part of the map you weren’t supposed to go to yet. If you don’t have a mage with the level 7 Malor spell to teleport you to… well, hopefully you saved your game.
Wizardry’s Minimalist, Choose Your Own Adventure Story Set the Stage for Choice-Based RPG
Whereas Witchcraft offered a straightforward plot (and even overarching storyline) in its early entries, it didn’t get past the basic storytelling process. An evil wizard steals a MacGuffin, and it’s up to you to kill it and get it back. Lore was minimal, in part because disk space and memory were limited. Most of your clues to what this world was like came from brief character interactions and changes in the dungeon that were revealed as you went deeper into its depths.
Your real task in Witchcraft was to map out an unknown world and piece together the real story elements as we go. Soon the game world became your world (all without having to organize a schedule with your local Dungeon Master).
