The Classic PC Gaming Era (1977-1989) - Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress
You've got to check out this 1985 Zelda-like dungeon exploration adventure RPG that not only predates Nintendo's adventure, but also debuted on the failed Coleco Adam.
RELEASE DATE: 1985
DEVELOPER / PUBLISHER: Tom Loughry and Keri Longaway / Activision
PLAYABILITY TODAY: Highly playable
BEST VERSIONS: Commodore 64, Apple II
As a child in the 1980s, I was one of the many kids who fell in love with Nintendo EAD’s highly influential 1986 adventure RPG The Legend of Zelda, and I still count it and its 1991 Super Nintendo evolution The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past among my favorite games ever made. The original Zelda games are amazingly accessible RPGs, offering all of the things everyone likes about the genre – open-world exploration, evolution of your character from weakling to monster-slayer, non-linear play, gradual progression, varied enemies, cool bosses, imaginative puzzles and loads of secrets – in a package that translates all of the stats, menus and turns of a traditional RPG into an intuitive action interface. Like many players, I’d long assumed The Legend of Zelda was a true original that sprung from a desire to do pretty much the opposite of what games like Wizardry and Ultima were doing and to broaden the genre into something so simple just about anyone could enjoy it.
Of course, I know better than that now, because one of the games that really shattered that illusion for me was the Stamper Brothers’ 1983 classic Atic Atac, and the connections between Zelda and Japanese games like The Tower of Druaga, Dragon Slayer and Hydlide are well known today. Another is the Coleco Adam game Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress, a 1985 release from Activision where you explore a series of maze-like castles in a top-down manner that would look like a blatant rip-off of The Legend of Zelda if Alcazar didn’t predate that game by a solid year. While Zelda is definitely a more polished and fully-featured experience, I was intrigued to find that Alcazar is still definitely a good game in its own right, and I’m glad it eventually got ported to the ColecoVision, Commodore 64 and Apple II, because the Adam was nearly dead as a platform by the time Alcazar arrived on shelves.
The premise of Alcazar is that you’re attempting to make your way through a series of fortresses to retrieve a stolen crown and sit on the throne in the formidable castle of Alcazar. The time period seems to be in the 20th century rather than in a medieval fantasy era, and I imagine the hero to be more along the lines of Indiana Jones than Link. You start out on an overworld strategy map that allows you to travel between fortresses by taking paths. Each fortress has at least two stories with many rooms leading to different items that are necessary for your adventure, and fortresses come in four different colors (blue, purple, black and red) to indicate what you can expect to find inside.
This color-coding doesn’t just pertain to the items, however; each fortress is also guarded by a variety of enemies and demons who take the form of things like tigers, griffins, guards, genies and the curiously named oilmoebas, each of whom require different strategies to take down. One of the coolest things about Alcazar is that there are visual and auditory clues that the demons are nearby; you may see paw prints left behind by a stalking tiger or the foul stains left behind by an oilmoeba, and you may hear raspy breathing from an encroaching griffin or even the jingling of a guard’s keys. Demons tend to lie in wait for adventurers, but they are triggered by nearby noise. You can also attack them from an adjoining room, but if your attacks don’t snuff them out, they’ll come chasing after you. Since you have limited ammunition and can only carry four items at a time (three in your pockets and one in your hands), careful planning is required before you attempt any sort of confrontation.
The replay value comes from the game’s roguelike sensibilities, as each fortress has a somewhat randomized layout every time you play that makes every demon’s location uncertain, and you can only earn a map once you defeat the fortress’s demon. The floors of some rooms also have traps like bottomless pits or enchanted Persian rugs that will whisk you off to an immediate encounter with the demon. Fortunately, these traps can also be used on enemies, and they’re a great way to overcome fast-moving demons like the tiger or griffin.
The final fortress, Alcazar, provides a challenge even on easy mode, and it’s not only populated by the toughest demons, but also at least a couple of genies, who take so many shots to take down they are best defeated with water. Even so, those who master easy mode can try out three other difficulty modes which are not only more challenging but also require the player to think quite differently about how to play due to the differences in available items, prevalence of traps and behavior of the demons.
If I have one complaint, it’s that the game was designed to make the joystick’s single action button do everything, so it’s easy to accidentally fire off an item when you were simply trying to move something out of your pocket and into your hands. Beyond the controls, however, the learning curve is slight and the action is fast and fluid. On easy mode, I managed to win my first time through, and having to remember to select a needed item before I got myself into trouble made the entire experience feel more strategic, particularly when I managed to trick the final castle’s genies into hanging around an entrance while I snuck onto the throne.
It’s amazing to me that Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress lives up to its name by being essentially unknown today. It’s a real gem of a game, and since the Coleco Adam is near-impossible to find now (and the ColecoVision port released later by Telegames is apparently scaled down), I’d recommend the Commodore 64 version if you can find it, as it plays really well and is quite responsive. The Apple II version is a little choppier, but still playable. I recommend reading the manual and the tips on this page before playing.
The MSX also received a port in Japan published by media conglomerate Pony Canyon, and I can’t help but wonder if Nintendo’s development team came across it as they were working on The Legend of Zelda and adapted some ideas from it, because the graphical similarities between this version and the Famicom classic are uncanny. But whether there’s a real connection or it’s entirely coincidental, The Legend of Zelda is still very much its own thing with a well-deserved reputation for greatness. Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress, in the meantime, is a good but largely unknown game I’d recommend to anyone who’d like a ZeldaÂ-style game where the dungeons are the focus and the bosses aren’t confined to the final room.
I’ll also note that developer Tom Loughry was credited as the programmer for two more popular adventures RPG we’ll cover in the second volume: the Intellivision’s 1982 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Cartridge: Cloudy Mountain and 1983 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Treasure of Tarmin Cartridge.
As Our Series Continues…
In the coming weeks, we’ll talk about 3D games, arcade action games, wargames, grand strategy games, RPGs, sports games, gameroom games, puzzle games and so much more.
And while you’ll definitely see some titles from prominent North American publishers like Sierra On-Line, Infocom, Activision, Electronic Arts, Brøderbund, SSI, MicroProse, Lucasfilm Games, Epyx and Sir-Tech in the mix, you’ll also see references to games from the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain and Japan.
This series will continue to cover games written by unique personalities like Chris Crawford, Roberta Williams and Danielle Bunten Berry, by great writers like Steve Meretzky, Michael Bywater, Robert Pinsky and Brian Moriarty, and based on the work of famous authors like Michael Crichton, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, William Gibson and Douglas Adams.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 1. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!