Dungeon (Daglow)

Don Daglow writes that he developed a game called Dungeon for the PDP-10 in 1975. Unfortunately this appears to be a lost game.

In the mid-seventies I had a fully-functioning fantasy role-playing game on the PDP10, with both ranged and melee combat, lines of sight, auto-mapping and NPC’s with discrete Al.

Don Daglow in Computer Gaming World 50

The gameplay of Dungeon consisted of text and “printed accurate line of sight maps”, with the player controlling the movements of six adventurers in a dungeon designed by Daglow.

Don Daglow, writing on Gamasutra

This game featured a party of characters and sounds closer to a tactical RPG. Daglow went on to found the Stormfront game studio in 1988 that developed Gateway to the Savage Frontier a “gold box” title published by SSI and later Never Winter Nights (not that one) an AOL multiplayer RPG game.

Influences

Dungeons and Dragons

Don: Once I started playing D&D with friends the idea of making it my next mainframe computer project became fascinating and I started work shortly after the first time we played the paper game. Don Daglow Interview

Further Reading

Here are a selection of resources used in the article and for further reading.

• 🌍 An Interview with Don Daglow
• 🌍 Playing Catch Up: Stormfront Studios' Don Daglow