Thursday, April 19, 2012
Speaking of Video Games ...
My recent posts about licensed D&D games in fields beyond tabletop gaming reminded me of another RPG that was going to get a licensed video game: Tunnels & Trolls. The game never came out, but I do remember seeing advertisements for it, like this one:
Tunnels & Trolls was supposed to be released for the ColecoVision system, which, at the time, was a pretty impressive machine. Two brothers in my circle of friends had it, one of whom was the first person I ever met who owned a copy of T&T. I'm pretty sure that, had the game come out, he would have gotten it.
Mythical vaporware! My first console was a Colecovision, and it came with the catalog that showed that picture.
ReplyDeleteWow, that looks even better than the AD&D game that was released. Of course nothing compares to Crypts of Chaos. ;)
ReplyDeleteThere was indeed a Tunnels & Trolls video game released in 1990. From my understanding, it was terrible. T&T was popular in Japan at the time, and a modular video game was created there using the rules and subsequently released in the US.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mobygames.com/game/tunnels-trolls-crusaders-of-khazan
That was a computer (PC) game. From New World Computing, if I remember correctly
ReplyDeleteThis was much earlier, in the early 80s, for the Colecovision. But alas, never came out.
If I recall, there was also a Tunnels & Trolls computer game made for the Texas Instruments computer or some other brand in the 1980s. I can't remember whether it was an official T&T game or a rip-off.
ReplyDeleteI desperately wanted the ColecoVision T&T game. If it had ever been released, I would have tried mightily to persuade my parents to buy a ColecoVision console.
A game called Tunnels of Doom was released for the TI 99/4A around 1982. As far as I know it didn't have anything to do with T&T other than it was an rpg.
ReplyDeleteWasteland was based on T&T, with Mike Stackpole being heavily involved in its development.
ReplyDeleteColecovision, back then that was the system of my dreams. I somewhat remember this title and I'm sure it increased my whining to my parents to get it.
ReplyDeleteTunnels of Doom! I spent a lot of time playing that with my brothers, running off a cassette tape drive on my pride and joy, the TI-99/4A.
ReplyDeleteT&T is still on the to-do list of one of the Colecovision homebrew guys. Most of them don't do digital releases so there are only ever limited quantities of a physical cartridge with retro-looking box and instructions. I'm not sure of the status but I doubt that the coding has even started.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is interested in 2nd and 3rd generation consoles, check out the Atari Age forums.
I had a Colecovision, mom spent a ton on it and the most exciting thing about it was the imminent release of T&T. I was sure it was going to blow Indiana Jones, Adventure, and Jungle Hunt(Atari titles) away! Remember how bad the controllers were? Ergonomics was definitely no concern. Bar controller with buttons on side and joystick on top. Hand would cramp up after 10 minutes!
ReplyDeleteI had ColecoVision! I only remember having a few games for it, though. There was this James Bond game, which featured levels based on specific movies. There was a Diamonds are Forever level, one for Moonraker...my good friend down the street had Intellivision, however...I remember a battle of the consoles, with Atari eventually winning out, ironically.
ReplyDeleteI had to look that up. I worked for New World in the late 90s and I'd never heard of this game. Judging by the credits it looks like it was actually done in Japan.
ReplyDeleteI had a Colecovision and remember T&T in the catalog, but I didn't realize it was never released. Based on that ad, even today, I associate T&T as a computer game--not a traditional RPG.
Crusaders of Khazan was the name of the Tunnels and Trolls computer game that eventually came out from, I believe, New World Computing. As of a few years ago, you could still get a copy from Flying Buffalo, Inc.--not sure if that's still the case. Based on T&T boards I've followed over teh years, a lot of people seemed to enjoy CoK, YMMV.
ReplyDeleteKen St. Andre was on the original design team of Interplay's Wasteland, which roughly used Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes! as its underlying system. And from all I'm reading about Brian Fargo's Wasteland sequel,
ReplyDeletehttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2, it looks like he's trying to bring the team back along with Ken St. Andre.
I think it's worth noting that all the big video game Kickstarter projects we're seeing lately are for older-style computer games that the fans want, but publishers are unwilling to support. Sounds familiar, eh?
I also had the Colecovision and I remember being eager to see this game come out. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteIt was fun system to own because if you got the Atari adapter you could also play 2600 games on it. Can't imagine the current console makers being so ballsy as to make something like that now.
That's the one. I never had a chance to play it, but it fascinated me.
ReplyDeleteTunnels of Doom was an excellent game. Ah, the old days of cassette tape drives.
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting thread! Brings back memories. Coleco paid us a nice (small) advance for the rights to the T&T game. I drove to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas one year specifically because they were going to "release" our T&T game there. Turned out, all they had was the intro screen. I talked to the guys who programmed that intro screen years later. That was the only thing that got completed before Coleco went bankrupt. Booo. I was looking forward to it even more than you guys! New World Computer later indeed do a PC game which was, yes, programmed in Japan. And you can still buy a copy of it from me for $10. It's a DOS program, so you have to have dosbox. Rick Loomis
ReplyDelete