Three times Lone Wolf from home computer days – S.1 – User article

Three times Lone Wolf from home computer days - S.1 - User article

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The weekends of the 1980s were reserved for pen and paper adventures. But how did a young RPG fan spend his afternoons from Monday to Friday?

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Before I die lone wolf-playbooks picked up again a few months ago, the thought stuck in my mind that they were always a little silly. I had long saved it as a rather poor substitute for a real pen-and-paper role-playing game. DSA was always much better. That’s what I thought. But now I’m happy to report that this is absolutely not the case.

In the beginning was the book

The Lone Wolf books are still very entertaining and playable in 2022. It might even be the best thing you’ve ever done with a paperback RPG. The book series is a real series, where the story progresses from book to book, so that you, the reader, can keep your valuable loot. Depending on how many adventures you have already completed, you will rise from book to book in the skill ranking. The story is also told relatively well.

The gameplay and combat system of the books is kept simple. All you have to do is juggle the combat ability and stamina attributes. That alone is a great USP compared to the black eye system, which has become increasingly complex. In addition, Lone Wolf has an inventory sheet listing weapons, other items, meals, and gold crowns. Everything is absolutely doable while you leaf through the book and read.

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But what I like best today, a good 34 years after my first experience with the book series, are the wonderful illustrations. Below are a few iconic images showing each weapon type.

The Lone Wolf Armory

mace 1 Axe 2 bow 3 dagger 4 scimitar 5 sword 6

is the creator of this book series, which is still worth reading and playing today Joe Dever. In 1984 he wrote the two books that formed the basis for the text-heavy adventures Flight from the Dark and Fire on the Water formed. Many more episodes followed later. The original English series consists of 32 books.

From book to game

The studio Five Ways Software started tinkering early. And publisher Arrow released the two games on cartridge for the ZX Spectrum in the same year that the first two books were released. I call that fixed. Joe Dever possibly negotiated the corresponding rights parallel to his book deal. But that’s just speculation. One thing is certain: at least the foreword in the software manuals comes from Dever.

Lone Wolf’s spiritual father: Joe Dever a few weeks before his death in November 2016.

Gary Chalk was responsible for the pictures in the Lone Wolf books. I couldn’t find out to what extent he was actually involved in the computer games. At least he officially got the credits. Fun fact: Chalk also illustrated the legendary board role-playing game a few years later HeroQuestwhich made its way onto the PC and numerous home computers in 1991.

But now back to the Lone Wolf adventures: In terms of game mechanics, there are only a few differences to the game books. You are basically dealing with a graphically enhanced text adventure, sweetened by a few combat interludes. I still find it interesting today that the numbered sections from the books are displayed on the screen. So anyone can look it up in the original. After all, the storage limits of the 1980s did not stop at the masses of text in the Lone Wolf books.

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As in the books, at the end of short passages of text, you have to decide how to proceed. Two keys are enough to play through the decision tree. Easy. You only need fast hands on the keyboard for the combat interludes. Things are much more hectic here: two buttons to move Lone Wolf left or right, three buttons for different blows, one button for the parry and one button for the mind blast. The latter magically disrupts your opponent’s concentration and ability to fight.

Another interesting bonus: while your combat stats mostly stay the same in the books, in the two ZX Spectrum games they increase slightly after each successful battle. In addition, your character has all ten Magnakai Disciplines. In the books, you must initially choose five of them. Depending on whether you have an ability or not, the book continues on different paths. In the corresponding sections in the computer games, algorithms decide, which of course you don’t notice. The dice fall behind the scenes.

Fire on the Water battle won: This Giak (black spot on a red background) did well.

Reference-www.gamersglobal.de