The Missing Ring

The Missing Ring
Title screen
Publisher(s) Datamost
Designer(s) Terry Romine[1]
Platform(s) Apple II
Release 1982
Genre(s) RPG
Mode(s) 1-5 players

The Missing Ring is a computer role-playing game written by Terry Romine for the Apple II and published in 1982 by Datamost.[1]

Premise

The Missing Ring is a fantasy adventure game with a similar premise to the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game series—a band of adventurers, which may include humans, elves, dwarves or wizards, enters an enchanted palace to seek treasure and slay enemies. The ultimate objective is to find a wizard's ancient ring.

Gameplay

Before play begins, the player selects an adventuring party to send into the map. The party may include up to five characters drawn from the following nine classes:

  1. Fighter with Sword
  2. Wizard
  3. Elf with Bow
  4. Dwarf with Ax
  5. Fighter with Ax
  6. Elf with Sword
  7. Dwarf with Hammer
  8. Fighter with Bow
  9. Cleric

The player may also visit the "merchant" and spend gold to equip the characters with such things as healing potions. Once the party is assembled, the player selects one of ten different maps to explore and play begins. Though one player can control all the characters, the game can also be played with multiple players, each controlling a single character in the party.

Characters appear as small, white silhouettes, and move through rooms rendered as perspective line drawings. A header at the top of the screen indicates the room being shown, and a footer gives details about the active character, including his level, health and experience.

The game is controlled by pressing keys on the computer's keyboard. Two complete sets of controls are arranged at either end of the keyboard, allowing two people to play simultaneously without having to trade off. The key assignments are:

A screenshot from The Missing Ring showing (from left) a fighter with sword, an elf with bow, a wizard and a treasure chest.
Action Left Right
Move forwardRO
Move backDL
Move rightFP
Move leftEK
AttackSpace bar
Healing potionH
Search for secret doorsS;
Get treasureTU
Magic item/spellVM
Pass/end player's turnY
PauseEsc
Quit/save gameQ
Open door with keyX.

Reception

In 1984 Softline readers named the game the eighth-worst Apple program of 1983.[2]

Datamost had a kid do the copy protection for this game and most of the discs failed to run. I had 7 out of 10 that I had to return to datamost due to that. The game wasn't meant to be a big game changer; it was developed as a mid range game between Ultima and Wizardry, two of the big sellers at the time.

References

  1. 1 2 "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers". dadgum.com.
  2. ↑ "The Best and the Rest". St.Game. Mar–Apr 1984. p. 49. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
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