Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai

About Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai

The player in Temple of Apshai assumes the role of an adventurer who explores the mysterious ruins of the Temple of Apshai. The player character investigates room after room of the dungeon crawl while seeking treasure and combatting monsters. Along the way, the player discovers powerful weapons and armor with which to overcome the Temple's inhabitants. The game consists of four dungeons with over 200 rooms in total and features 30 monster types.

Temple of Apshai consists of two programs: the Innkeeper and the Dunjonmaster. The game starts with the Innkeeper and the choice to either generate a new character or input an existing one. The game uses six base values taken from Dungeons & Dragons Early tape versions of the game had no means to save progress. The player was prompted to write down all statistics when quitting the game and had to type them in when resuming play. Later floppy versions fixed this by saving the status on the disk. Weapons and armor are purchased in a shop, where it is possible to haggle with the shopkeeper for a discount. Character stats determine which items can be worn. Finally, the player chooses between four dungeons of increasing difficulty to enter the Dunjonmaster part.

In the Dunjonmaster program, the screen is divided into a bird's-eye view representation of the surroundings and a status summary for the character. Traps, treasures and secret doors are hidden inside the dungeons. Temple of Apshai uses a hybrid between a turn-based and a real time combat system. A player's turn can be used to walk up to 9 steps in the direction the character is facing, turning towards either direction, trying to talk the monster out of the fight, or executing a number of different attacks. A bow and arrows can be used to attack enemies from afar. If the player doesn't make any input for a while, the enemies continue to move and attack in set intervals regardless. All actions decrease the player character's fatigue rating, depending on stats and carrying weight. When this value sinks below zero, the character cannot act anymore before resting. The player gains experience points while adventuring, which raise a number of hidden statistics.