Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin
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Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin is a video game for the Intellivision video game console and the Mattel Aquarius computer system. The game was written by Tom Loughry in 1981, and was published by Mattel in 1983. In this licensed Dungeons & Dragons adaptation, the player wanders through a multi-tiered dungeon, each level consisting of an 11x11 maze and its surrounding hallway. The objective is to slay the Minotaur who guards the Treasure of Tarmin, and take his treasure chest.
The game's catalog gives the following description of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin:
- "You've found the secret map to the underground lair of the dreaded Minotaur. You can go in, but you'll never come out unless you slay the Minotaur and claim his Tarmin treasure. As you make your way through the hallways and chambers, monsters wield their conventional or spiritual weapons. You must gather the proper defenses along the way. But use them sparingly, the Minotaur looms closer!" [1]
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin is different from most games of its era, as it involved a first-person view, giving it a three-dimensional feel. Treasure of Tarmin was the second AD&D game for the Intellivision, being created after Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain. The player begins the game with only the lowest level bow, a small supply of food and arrows (amount dependent on the selected difficulty level), and minimal 'Spiritual' and 'War' health. Randomly placed throughout the maze are new weapons, armor, magical items, and treasure [2]. The treasure in the maze (aside from the Treasure of Tarmin the Minotaur holds) actually serves little purpose aside from increasing the player's treasure score on the map screen. This total has no bearing on gameplay or the ending.
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[edit] Types of Threats
Note: As well, each enemy (aside from the Minotaur) comes in three colors of difficulty. [3]
- Skeletons: The easiest enemy to defeat in the game. They attack the player's War health, and are very easy to defeat. Cloaked skeletons are more difficult to defeat. Both regular and cloaked skeletons may have shields, which as well increase their difficulty.
- Giants: The other primary enemy to attack only the player's War health. These can have shields as well, and are significantly more difficult than any of the above listed Skeletons.
- Giant Ants: The easiest of the enemies who attack the player's Spiritual health.
- Dwarfs: Much like Giants in their difficulty as well as attack. These come either with or without shields, however these attack only the player's Spiritual health.
- Giant Scorpions: Another mid-range difficulty enemy who attacks the player's Spiritual health.
- Giant Snakes: More difficult than Giant Scorpions, Giant Snakes attack the player's Spiritual health, and as you can assume have more health.
- Alligators: The next more difficult of the Spiritual-attacking enemies. How this fits in with an underground maze beneath a castle is uncertain; regardless, they do a great deal of damage.
- Dragons: The most difficult of the enemies that attack only the player's Spiritual health.
- Ghouls: These don't appear in the game until the player has gone several levels down into the game. They attack either the player's War health or Spiritual health, and are capable of switching between either type of attack at any point during the battle. On the easiest two difficulties, its type of attack is determined randomly, but on the hardest two difficulties it attacks the weakest health. One peculiar aspect of this enemy is that it's listed as existing with a shield in the instruction manual, but does not actually show up in the game.
- Wraiths: These are more difficult than Ghouls, and can be either shielded or normal. As the player gets deeper into the game, these can and will become significantly harder to defeat than the Minotaur itself.
- Minotaur: This is the 'end boss' of the game, and is a different color than any other enemy (purple), and attacks both Spiritual and War health as well. Upon defeating him, he will drop the Treasure of Tarmin, which can be picked up to end the game. However, if the player leaves the treasure on the ground, they can continue playing. More Minotaurs will show up on lower levels, and often even in the same level.
- "Door Monsters": These special creatures hid the three spell books and were usually found only on the lowest levels of the dungeon. They looked only like a door opening up on a blank, colored wall. Blue (the weakest) would give a book that teleported through walls. Pink would give a book that allowed one to see through walls. Purple ones had a book that would turn ordinary items to platinum (thus making any war weapon or treasure the highest value possible). They tended to strike with high-end Spirit weapons.
[edit] Game play
- To increase health, the player had to either attack or be attacked by enemies, followed by resting (consuming a food item), or with the aid of Spirit or War tomes found in treasure chests. The player's health could eventually (with the aid of maximum-health limit increasing potions) reach 199 War health and 99 Spiritual health.
- The player could keep going down levels (by accessing a ladder located inside each maze) until they reached level 255, after which the game cycled the player back to level 1. The player still had all of their inventory and health, but attacked enemies at the first floor's difficulty, making them extraordinarily easy to defeat. In fact, the game could in theory be played infinitely, especially if the player were to possess all three of the magic spell books, which allowed the player to see through walls, allowed the player to move through walls, and allowed the player to turn all their items platinum. Although the spell books also never break through use, the more powerful weapons break often.
- It was possible to be defeated but not lose the game. Upon dying, the player could be 'reincarnated' to another section of that maze, with all of their pack's inventory gone. However, the player would still have the weapon that they were wielding, their shield (if they had one), and their supply of arrows and food.
[edit] Atari 2600 Version
In 1983, Mattel Electronics, commissioned an Atari 2600 version of Treasure of Tarmin. This was developed by Synth Corporation in Chicago. Two Synth software developers, Michael Bengtson and Neal Reynolds, wrote the game to conform to the play of the Intellivision version. While the game was completed, it was not released before Mattel Electronics closed their doors.
