Oubliette

The Good
I like the fact that I can have up to 16 characters in the tavern and select which of them (up to 6) to take on my next dungeon romp. I like the spellcasting (having to type the spell words like "KOMINATOK" instead of pointing and clicking in a spellbook). The list of items in this game is impressive. And the game's concept of having the characters age (and yes, it's very easy for a character to age enough to die of old age) is interesting. I think that the author of Mordor: Depths of Dejenol got some of his ideas from Oubliette.

The Bad
The interface is somewhat lacking. For example, if the user presses an invalid key during a battle, the game just skips the combat options for the current character and goes to the next. In addition, the game does not update the screen after a character casts a spell or is wounded (you have to press a certain key to refresh unless you wait until the end of the battle).

The Bottom Line
This game is really fun if you don't require flashy graphics (the game has two executables, one that draws the dungeon in a first-person view using early Wizardry-style monochrome graphics and one, my preference, that draws the dungeon from a bird's-eye view and facilitates mapmaking). If you like a good old-fashioned dungeon romp with the only story being a couple of pages of the manual, and especially if you are a fan of Mordor: Depths of Dejenol or roguelike games, then you will love Oubliette.

The Good
I loved this game when it first came out in 1983. I spent a few years and never won the game. I loved watching my various characters grow stronger and stronger that allowed me to move to the next dungeon levels. I did not get past the 3rd level because I keep having to go back and heal my characters.

The interface is simple and easy to use. This is a plus!

I was recently (Aug 2001) searching for this game and did not know what the name was. I found site after 30 hours of searching and luckily it is here. This is a rare game that was the starting point of all other RPG games back in the 1980's. This game is satisfying when it comes to watching your characters grow and utilizing new or different weapons, and spells.

AWESOME GAME!!

The Bad
Compare to other Games, it is not very graphical. The game play outweighs the graphical issue.

The Bottom Line
This game allows you to create 16 different characters varying Fighters, Paladins, Mage, Priests, Ninja, Samauri, and Thiefs coming from different kinds of beings such as humans, ogre, dwarfs, elves and many others.

You can only take with you 1 to 6 characters into the dungeon.

The characters grow and increase levels and hitpoints and decrease AC as you grow. Lots of spells, weapons, shields, jewlery and such to be found and used within the dungeons.

When I played this back in the 1980's, I did not get very far because the game was harder to kill when moving to the next level, and the characters had to be strong to match the enemies. The most difficult was finding the portals to the next level. I literally made a map of the rooms and what had been touched or not. This way so I wont forget. Well, that was back then, now I just enjoy watching the characters grow and fight. it is a cool Dungeons and Dragons game.

Must run in win95/98 or off of ms-dos 6.22 and lower. (I have the game on a ms-dos 6.22 dos disk that I use. I power off my win2000 computer and put the disk in, then power up and start the game from the dos disk)

EXCELLENT GAME!! I wouldn't trade it for anything else.