Wizardry-style games you can play free in your browser
You lead a party, not a hero, down into a maze. Here's where that started, and where you can still play it.
What makes a game Wizardry-like
- A party of six, each with a class and levels.
- A planned dungeon, seen in first person.
- Dozens of spells.
- A maze that fights back. In Stonequest: pits, chutes, spinners, teleporters and darkness.
Where it began: Wizardry
Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead wrote Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, and Sir-Tech published it for the Apple II. It was the first computer game to feel like a table-top RPG.
Its cousins: Moria and Akalabeth
Moria, by Robert Alan Koeneke, drew its mines in text on a VT terminal. You went down one level at a time, hunting the Balrog. This port follows VMS Moria 4.8 line by line.
Richard Garriott wrote Akalabeth in Applesoft BASIC in 1979, with the same first-person wireframe view Wizardry used. This unofficial port runs it on an emulated Apple II screen.
Stonequest: Wizardry on a VAX
Written from scratch at Clark University, without Wizardry's source, back when the terminals in Goddard Library were full of students playing it or Moria. It runs in your browser now, on a simulated VT220.