Gaming blogger The CRPG Addict insists on keeping me in suspense for his inevitable playthrough of Ultima 6 a while longer, and has instead stepped back to take another look at Akalabeth, Richard Garriott’s first published game and the progenitor of the Ultima series.

He goes into a lengthy history of the game’s development and publication, most of which should be known to those who frequent this site, so I’ll just post his concluding notes concerning the game:

1. Akalabeth is sometimes called the first commercial CRPG. While this isn’t technically true–we’ve seen other examples here on the blog–it is one of the first commercial games that is unquestionably a CRPG, with the types of statistics, weapons, combat, hit points, gold, and other trappings that we’ve come to expect. The other commercial games we’ve seen from the 1970s almost all have little quirks that better characterize them as proto-CRPGs. Only Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai clearly precedes Akalabeth in the commercial CRPG market.

2. This is also the first CRPG that offers a quest for something greater than just “collect treasure.” It is the first game in which your goal is to become a hero, and solve a problem, and not just get rich.

3. Akalabeth is the clear beginning of a line. Aside from the maze game that inspired Garriott to create the 3D maze, there is no obvious forerunner to Akalabeth. It is one of the earliest commercial franchises that doesn’t owe its lineage to the mainframe PLATO games.

4. Many of the trappings established in Akalabeth have carried forward into the Ultima series, including Lord British, the reference to Mondain, and all of the creatures encountered in the dungeons with the exception of the carrion crawler. All the way through Ultima V, the approach to the dungeons remains the same: small, no shared walls, multiple ladders and pits up and down, secret doors, pit traps, and random chests.

This reminds me…I need to speak to someone about getting Akalabeth released on GOG.