Vapourware The definitive, authoritative, and probably non-exhaustive list of non-(IBM) PC cRPGs

[rusty_shackleford]

fwiw, in fs-uae you just press the ntsc button if it's an ntsc game and you're done

 

[AgentofFury]

Something for a GBA List: Eye of the Beholder. It's a completely different game from the original EOTB. It's basically a 3rd Edition Goldbox game for GBA.

 

[Rincewind]

Hey rusty_shackleford , check your PMs.

 

[Mefi]

One I've not seen in the OP, nor on a quick scan of thread, is Bloodwych. I played it on Atari ST. It's a Dungeon Master clone which was released for ST and Amiga at the same time. Wiki

 

[Rincewind]

One I've not seen in the OP, nor on a quick scan of thread, is Bloodwych. I played it on Atari ST. It's a Dungeon Master clone which was released for ST and Amiga at the same time. Wiki

Also on the PC:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/bloodwych

 

[Mefi]

Also on the PC:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/bloodwych

Ah, of course, another dev did a conversion. Sorry.

----

Edit: As recompense for totally misunderstanding the OP, I offer the thread Dungeon (1993). So far as I can see it was only ever on ST. It's a dungeon crawler but the art style was pretty interesting for the time.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/dungeon_

 

[rusty_shackleford]

OP has been updated, formatting fixed, some references fixed. No new games added. Is the list complete? Most likely not. I've added everything I can find.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Will the following ever be open:
Intellivision
Colecovision (it has a much more complex Gateway to Apshai)
Atari 2600, 5200, 7800

I swore there were a few obscure barely qualifies as an RPG title. They are at least close when considering Apshai.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Will the following ever be open:
Intellivision
Colecovision (it has a much more complex Gateway to Apshai)
Atari 2600, 5200, 7800

I swore there were a few obscure barely qualifies as an RPG title. They are at least close when considering Apshai.

I know that I'm missing a couple platforms but they merely have games that are already listed on existing platforms which makes it feel redundant. If people think they're worth listing, I'll probably get around to adding them.

 

[Rincewind]

Just noticed the prestigious Codex seal of approval is absent from all titles. Well, I haven't played any of these (I plan to, eventually, most of the recommended ones), but there's a few more Amiga games on the list that look quite interesting to me, and I remember seeing them being recommended by a few members. So, perhaps they would warrant a second look, and you might want flag them with a '#' as well:

• Abandoned Places 2
• Black Crypt
• Crystal Dragon
• Evil's Doom
  
• Liberation: Captive 2
• Lords of Chaos

 

[Unkillable Cat]

One minor update regarding the Amstrad and Amiga-RPGs: The Amiga-version of Shadows of Sergoth was released about a month ago.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Intellivision

The D&D games + Tower of Doom were pretty interesting for the early '80s.

Abandoned Places 2

Isn't that the game with the very large fire pit you have to pixel hunt to get past?

 

[Ladonna]

A new RPG for C64. Plays more like a console RPG. "Briley Witch Chronicles"

 

[Ladonna]

Newcomer C64.

 

[Rincewind]

Newcomer C64.

Yeah, Newcomer is an incredibly cool RPG for the C64. Most of the devs were huge Wasteland fans; it was mentioned a few times in interviews that Wasteland was their main source of inspiration for the game. I used to hang out with one of the main developer guys (András Lay, aka "lay", or "Laysoft"), he's one of the iconic figures of the Hungarian C64 and Amiga scene. An interesting combination of genius and utter fanatic (he refused to use PCs for years; he didn't talk to me for a few months when I sold my Amiga 500 and bought a PC...)

rusty_shackleford you should fix that, it's definitely not an adventure game.

Newcomer is a RPG by Cinematic Intuitive Dynamix. The development time was 10 years and it is 7 disks long. Major sections of the game have lengthy animated cut scenes. The Game engine is very powerful and pushes the C64 to its limits.

Newcomer has the destinction of being the largest C64 game in terms of total disk count at the time of its release and may have had the longest development cycle of any professionally produced game.

The game is so huge that it can take weeks or even months to "beat." Even then you've only experienced one of several possible endings.

(source)

 

[Rincewind]

Excerpt from the official manual:

INTRODUCTION

Welcome, newcomer, to our futuristic RPG/Adventure game titled NEWCOMER!

It was a great deal of work to create this software, but the result - we are certain - is worth those efforts. Maybe you could hardly imagine that developing the original Hungarian version took four and a half years on the Commodore-64 computer (May 1990 - Nov.1994). Have a look at the graphics, the fastloader, the storyline etc. We got some gray hair until we managed to compress everything into such a limited memory. This enhanced version took us from Sept.1997 to May 2001. More than eight years in total...

We intend this game to be closer to real role-playing than other computer `RPGs' you may have played - You decide! Either way, entertainment is guaranteed. Even if you sink deep into this game, you can only reach the endsequence after several weeks (months?) of intensive playing - we wish you success and perseverance for that.


INSPIRATION

There were three games that caught the attention of all RPG and adventure fans in the late 80's: Wasteland, Neuromancer and Dragon Wars, all by Interplay. We, the creators of Newcomer, had much the same interests having played all these games.

WASTELAND was a post-holocaust drama; small communities of scattered survivors battling unintelligent monsters and radioactive mutants, exploring forgotten relics of the old world... barely more than that. -Oh, yes, and those lovely paragraphs! The world was quite static, the characters unresponsive and uninteractive, YET WE LIKED THEM!

NEUROMANCER featured a brilliant new setting, a very communicative cast of characters and interesting conversations with them, event following event along the gameplay, yet it lacked the long, progressive gameplay and the plenty of areas WASTELAND offers, not to mention Hack`n'Slash. This is at least how we felt when we leased our body parts at Chin's Body Shop.

DRAGON WARS was also great, having combat after combat, bright animated graphics, automapping, the possibility of using skills, attributes and items in any order to solve the problems - for the same task even multiple solutions existed(!), but there was no LIFE, an absolute lack of conversation and interaction with characters.

It is an old story now, but these things accumulated and led us to start making our very own game, with every feature in mind we so sadly missed in those great cult-games.

NOTE: Interplay published two more games of particular interest to Newcomer players - Fallout I-II for the PC.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

looks like an RPG to me, I'll add it

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

It is like Wasteland x Dragon wars in away. Nice!

 

[Ladonna]

Yeah, Newcomer is an incredibly cool RPG for the C64. Most of the devs were huge Wasteland fans; it was mentioned a few times in interviews that Wasteland was their main source of inspiration for the game. I used to hang out with one of the main developer guys (András Lay, aka "lay", or "Laysoft"), he's one of the iconic figures of the Hungarian C64 and Amiga scene. An interesting combination of genius and utter fanatic (he refused to use PCs for years; he didn't talk to me for a few months when I sold my Amiga 500 and bought a PC...)

I was hoping Ultimate Newcomer would finally surface, but the devs seemed to have vanished. Have you heard anything about that lately?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Nope...
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/newcomer-the-ultimate-rpg-took-20-years-to-make.51911/page-3

I did see MOCAGH has the manual and disk images and a few sites have the original and the enhanced but NO ultimate.

dang.

Witch Chronicles on itchio for $9.99

 

[Rincewind]

I was hoping Ultimate Newcomer would finally surface, but the devs seemed to have vanished. Have you heard anything about that lately?

Nope, I'm not in contact with them anymore. Your best bet is to just play the enhanced version in VICE.

This is the last "official" status update from them from the end of 2016:

The roleplaying adventure “Ultimate Newcomer” is still in production.

We have a couple of copies of the older version “Enhanced Newcomer” available in our webshop again for those who don’t want to wait.

Please note that Enhanced Newcomer has bugs, which may prevent you from finishing the game under certain circumstances. Of course these bugs will be fixed in the Ultimate version plus it will be compatible to NTSC and multiple devices.

(source)

 

[Rincewind]

Some old interview with one of the guys from the Newcomer dev team, if you want to run it through Google Translate (I've just done so, it's quite entertaining; you can get the gist of it overall):

https://iddqd.blog.hu/2010/11/17/szerdai_retro_newcomer#c20609838

 

[Tweed]

I've tried to play Newcomer several times over the years and I find it difficult to approach.

 

[getter77]

Still some misc Newcomer activity on their FB page, though primarily around other projects in a bid to thread various needles. Maybe a tad more optimistic than Darghul territory on the whole.

 

[Ladonna]

Still some misc Newcomer activity on their FB page, though primarily around other projects in a bid to thread various needles. Maybe a tad more optimistic than Darghul territory on the whole.

I forgot all about Darghul. Wolf Mittag still too busy making millions I guess.