There's also a 'dungeon' of sorts inside the city-the Rusty Nail tavern-but there isn't much to do there unless you want to attack people for no reason. The ruins south of town (about 60 x 90 squares) hold exactly three 'dungeons': the old thieves' guild, Gozaroth's Mansion, and Tarmon's castle, which are two, three, and six levels respectively. I didn't encounter that at all with the Apple II version, making me wonder what the difference is. I was sick of having to reload after 5 out of 6 combats. It was so hard, in fact, that I stopped playing. The town offers a temple, an inn, a tavern, and various shops.įrom my experience 7 years ago with the DOS version, I remember an extremely sharp difficulty curve once the characters leave town and start exploring the ruins. From then on, the town is safe to wander around in, and you only have to enter the small wilderness north of town or the ruins south of town to find enemies to fight. Wandering around the town at night continues to provide battles against brigands and thieves for a while, but eventually you clear all of them and get a gold reward from the mayor. There is one side-quest involving rescuing a maiden from some brigands, after which you can visit her family mansion and get some gold and a broadsword +2. The game starts off easy enough as you try to clear the town itself.

One of about 5 places were 'Read Ancient Writings' is important. And while I understood the uses of 'Scan,' 'Stealth,' and 'Alchemy' in tactical combat, I was never sure if they made a difference in quick combat. 'Shield' seems like an important skill, but later you find that the best weapons are two-handed. (I basically ignored missile weapons for my playthrough.) The game is frank that 'Hunt' isn't used in Wizard's Crown, but it doesn't bother to tell you that neither is 'Track' or 'Treat Disease.' I don't think I ever found more than two traps for 'Disarm Trap.' I was never quite sure what 'Combat Awareness' was doing for me. Since there are separate skills for each weapon type, it makes sense to have each character specialize in only one weapon, or perhaps two if you want to fight a lot of tactical combat and switch between melee and missile weapons. At the outset, knowing which skills to prize and which are completely useless is difficult. You start with 20 experience points to spend on skills. The ability to spend experience directly on skills distinguishes Wizard's Crown from typical 'level-based' games.

This is, in short, a hard-statistics RPG. There's a morale system, an encumbrance system, an ambush system that is influenced by which character you have 'on point.' Armor doesn't just have an 'armor class' it has separate defensive ratings against each type of attack. Instead of just a pool of hit points, there's an injury system and a bleeding system. Success is heavily dependent on developing a couple dozen magic, combat, and adventuring skills, on which you directly spend experience. (I gather from interviews that lead designers Keith Brors and Paul Murray-both of whom went on to Pool of Radiance-both loved tabletop RPGs but came from more of a wargame programming background.) It is minimalist in graphics and sound and heavy on logistics and numbers.

Wizard's Crown is far more attuned to its strategy/simulation sources than its RPG sources.

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