#oneaday Day 312: Into Apshai

I won an eBay auction for The Temple of Apshai Trilogy on Atari 8-bit today. Very soon I should be the proud owner of a boxed copy of this hard-to-find and often quite expensive game, and I only had to pay £8.50 for it.

The only catch? The fact that the seller isn't sure if the disk in the box is actually The Temple of Apshai Trilogy or not. But to be honest, that actually doesn't matter to me; the main thing I wanted from this transaction was the box and, more importantly, the documentation.

You see, the Dunjonquest series, of which The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is a part, is a fascinating one; it combines elements of tabletop roleplaying and computer gaming to produce something that was entirely unique to the technological limitations of the 8-bit era.

I'll talk more about this when I cover The Temple of Apshai Trilogy on Atari A to Z — because you better believe I'm covering it if I've got an actual copy of it! — but the gist is that the Dunjonquest engine is based on Dungeons & Dragons to such a degree that you can directly "port" characters from one to the other. In other words, you can manually enter your stats from a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons campaign into The Temple of Apshai Trilogy to play your character in that game, or you can play a bit of The Temple of Apshai Trilogy and then write down all your stats and use them in a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game.

The more fascinating part for me, though, is how the "role-playing" side of things is handled. The actual computer-based side of The Temple of Apshai Trilogy handles things like moving, exploring, fatigue, inventory management and combat, while the "Book of Apshai" included in the box supports what you do with things like treasure and room descriptions.

Essentially everything in The Temple of Apshai Trilogy is numbered, so when you enter room [x] or pick up treasure [y], you refer to the book and read that relevant passage. The room descriptions in particular provide you with valuable clues that will help you track down hidden treasures and secret doors, while the treasure descriptors help you discover exactly what it is that you found in that last chest you opened.

I remember liking The Temple of Apshai Trilogy as a kid, but not really understanding it, because I didn't really "get" RPGs until Final Fantasy VII. Also we only ever had a pirate copy, so we didn't have any of the documentation to go with it. As such, I'm really looking forward to finally playing the game as it was intended to be played — and to be able to have you fine folks along for the ride!