Wizard's Crown

• Title — Wizard's Crown • Developer — Strategic Simulations • Publisher — Strategic Simulations • Designer — Paul Murray Keith Brors • Released — 1986 • Genre — Role-playing • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS

• Illustration — Atari 8-bit screenshot Academic Matt Barton describes Wizard's Crown as "probably the most hardcore RPG of its time" and "one of the most sophisticated tactical CRPGs ever designed". The object of the game is to rescue a magical crown from Tarmon, a wizard who sealed himself and the crown in his laboratory 500 years previous. The video game design and programming was done by Paul Murray and Keith Brors, game development by Chuck Kroegel and Jeff Johnson, and the rulebook created by Leona Billings. Wizard's Crown was the first RPG designed in-house by SSI, previously known as a wargame company. Its detailed tactical combat system came from Murray and Brors's background in wargaming, and they brought the complexity of those games to Wizard's Crowns tactical combat. For instance, shields block attacks only from the front and left (shielded) side, and not from the rear and right (unshielded side). Spears can attack two squares away, flails ignore the defender's shields, and axes have a chance of breaking shields. There is an option for "quick combat", and regular combat can take as long as 40 minutes per encounter. This combat system influenced SSI's later Gold Box series of RPGs, but it was streamlined and simplified. The class system is based on a point buy system, possibly influenced by the tabletop role-playing games RuneQuest and Traveller. Characters buy classes and skills using Intelligence points. The classes are thief, ranger, fighter, priest and sorcerer, each possessing a distinct set of skills. Characters can have any number of classes, but mixing classes slows advancement. Up to eight characters can be created in a single party. Experience is spent directly on skills, attributes and life points. When a skill level is very low, gains are quick and easy, but they become slow and difficult to raise after reaching high levels. The magic system works like other skills and features a chance of failure based on skill level. The game is also memorable for its magic weapons, for example, the Storm Longsword or Doom Battleaxe. There are three special series of weapons which can be enchanted to become progressively more powerful: • The 'Magic' series of weapons does pure magical damage ("injuries") and progresses under the names of 'Magic, Frost, Flaming, Lightning and Storm'. • The 'Plus' series of weapons cause extra bleeding, which would cause an opponent to pass out ("The opponent lies unmoving") but not die outright. For example, if all player characters pass out from excessive bleeding in a battle, you lose the battle, but are given a chance to heal them up in camp afterwards. These weapons are designated with "+1, +2, +3, +4, +5". • The 'Life Blast' series of weapons are the most powerful in the game. They do direct damage to life points, and a character who is taken out by these weapons is killed; you cannot revive them except with a resurrection spell. These weapons progress with the names 'Dark, Doom, Soul, Demon and Death'.