There’s a dearth of good Intellivision writing on the Internet — so we’re doing our bit to put that right by working our way through the library of fascinating games for this unusual system!
In total, the Intellivision system played host to three games that were originally intended to be licensed adaptations of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop ruleset. Two of them, Cloudy Mountain and Treasures of Tarmin, were initially released under this branding — and subsequently again without it — but the third, Tower of Doom, ended up releasing too late to be part of the agreement. And thus it simply became its own thing.
Which is sort of interesting, because in many ways Tower of Doom is actually the most Dungeons and Dragons-y of the three games in terms of mechanics and execution. It’s also one of the most complex, ambitious and interesting games on the platform — and while its 1988 release date means that both home computers and consoles had done plenty of similar things by this point, it’s still fascinating to see a game like this running on late ’70s technology, and working well within its host platform’s inherent limitations.
Tower of Doom doesn’t really have a story other than “there’s this tower, right, and it’s full of doom (and also treasure) — you should probably go check it out” but given the game’s nature as a dungeon crawler with some distinctly roguelike elements, that’s all you need. Your goal is simple: make your way through all the levels of the tower (starting at the top, inexplicably — presumably you got airlifted in by a dragon or something) and collect as many shiny things as you can along the way. Also don’t die.
But Tower of Doom immediately distinguishes itself from other games of its type on home consoles by offering a veritable wealth of options before you start playing. There are multiple different quests to take on, for example. These all have the same basic goal — get shinies, escape — but vary in their difficulty level and whether or not their maps and item effects are randomised. Several of the quests also have multiple variations depending on how long you want your game to be — if you want a quick game, go for a smaller number of floors, while if you want an epic, lengthy quest, bump the floor count right up.
After choosing a quest, you get to choose a character. The game doesn’t actually tell you the differences between any of these characters, but they vary in terms of both their starting statistics and the items they begin their exploration with. The Warlord is the easiest to start with, beginning the game with relatively high stats and a pack full of various weapons; at the other end of the spectrum, the Waif begins with low stats and nothing but an old boot in his inventory.
Once into the Tower itself, you’re presented with a top-down view of your surroundings that gradually reveals itself as you explore. Pleasingly, the map is revealed both on the close-up view of the current area you’re in and a helpful minimap at the side of the screen, meaning there’s no need to get the graph paper out for this one.
The map features are pretty simple: for the most part, you’ll be navigating arrangements of passageways, though there are occasional doors that tend to open into self-contained rooms, and each floor tends to have a number of traps arranged around the place. These have varying effects according to their colour, some of which aren’t immediately obvious — but you’ll soon learn which ones are the most annoying ones, as they’ll freeze you in place or scramble your controls for a short period.
Monsters show up every so often — only ever one at a time per area that you’re in — and walking into them results in a battle. What follows is a very simple hack-and-slash affair, with the damage you put out and take determined by both you hitting the “attack” button and your Strength and Stamina scores. Notably, you also have the opportunity to use your “Diplomacy” stat by dropping an item to bribe a monster; doing this doesn’t net you experience points, but for some weaker character classes it’s a better approach than trying to fight.
As you explore, you’ll stumble across various items. These are all represented in a variety of different colours. In some of the quests, the colours always mean the same thing; in others, the correlation between colour and effect is randomised with each new run — though it is consistent within that one run. Either way, the only way to determine the effect of an item is to try and use it — and even then it’s not always obvious.
Many items have a positive effect: rings and cloaks can increase your protection, for example, while potions and scrolls can speed you up, make you more likely to find treasure or boost your hit points over their usual maximum. But, in true roguelike tradition, some have negative effects or are cursed — and you’ll just have to deal with the consequences accordingly.
Treasures, however, are immune to negative effects. They can be used in a few different ways: they can be dropped in battle to use as bribes for monsters; they can be “cashed” from your inventory to provide an immediate lump of both experience and Treasure Score — your ultimate measure of success in the game — or, if you hold on to one and descend the stairs to the next level, you’ll get bonus Treasure Score for any treasures still in your pack when you start the next level. You can then cash it as normal — or indeed attempt to hold on to it for as long as possible!
Your pack is limited in space, however; you can only hold eight items in total, including the one you’re wielding in your hand. As such, immediately cashing treasures is generally the easiest option — particularly as it also nets you experience — but if you really want to get the highest scores, you might want to think a bit more strategically about what you’re lugging around with you. Do you really need four axes? Probably not. Why aren’t you wearing that cloak? It might be cursed, sure, but at least it won’t be filling up your bag if you equip it.
Tower of Doom’s interface is simple, a little clunky but surprisingly effective. It eschews the numeric keypad of the Intellivision controller completely in favour of an icon-driven interface. Pressing a button switches between controlling your character on the map screen and moving a hand-shaped cursor around your pack. The top row of icons in your pack represent various ways of interacting with the game — including checking your stats and scores, opening doors and descending stairs — while the other two rows represent items you’re carrying.
Most items can be put in your hand with a tap of a button, or dropped on the ground if there’s room to do so. For the most part, you’ll want a weapon in your hand ready for combat, but equipping wands or ranged weapons allows you to blast enemies from afar rather than engaging in melee combat, and holding an appropriately coloured key makes you immune to certain types of trap.
If all this isn’t enough to worry about, you also have to make sure you don’t starve to death while exploring. The game is accompanied by a constant, ominous “heartbeat” sound that reflects your ever-diminishing Life Force, and when this reaches zero your hit points will begin ticking down instead. Thankfully, eating a piece of food will immediately replenish your Life Force to maximum, so guzzle it down when the game informs you you’re running on empty — assuming you have some, of course.
As you might expect, some classes start with some rations already in their pack, while others do not; trying to find some food should therefore be something of a priority during your early explorations of the dungeon!
Tower of Doom is an excellent game. While it might initially seem complex, particularly while you’re learning to use the clunky interface, once you get your head around how it all works it’s a well-paced, enjoyable dungeon crawler with a satisfying range of challenges to take on.
Sure, by 1988 the Famicom was already up to its third Dragon Quest game, which is considerably more complex than Tower of Doom, and there are plenty of excellent home computer role-playing games from earlier in the ’80s too. But when the Intellivision first launched in 1979, I suspect no-one expected that one day there would be a solid real-time dungeon-crawling RPG on it — and one with a decent amount of depth, replayability and longevity, too.
As such, Tower of Doom is well worth playing — not only because it’s an enjoyable game in its own right, but because it feels like a game running on a system that wasn’t really designed to play host to games of this nature!
As always for Intellivision games, you can find out some intriguing additional insights by checking the Blue Sky Rangers’ website!
