隧道与巨魔:
Tunnels & Trolls:
卡赞十字军
Crusaders of Khazan

New World Computing, 1990
MS-DOS, PC-98, PC-88 和 FM-Towns

New World Computing, 1990
MS-DOS, PC-98, PC-88 and FM-Towns

隧道与巨魔(Tunnels & Trolls)改编自肯・圣安德烈(Ken St. Andre)于 1975 年创作的同名 TRPG(桌上角色扮演游戏)T&T,当时这款桌游的设计初衷就是要做得比同时期发售的《龙与地下城(D&D)》更简单、门槛更低和更易上手。

1987 年,《隧道与巨魔》桌游在日本发行并风靡一时。发行过日版《巫术(Wizardry)》和《魔法门(Might & Magic)》的 StarCraft 看到了商机,便邀请 New World Computing 共同开发一款《隧道与巨魔》桌游授权的 CRPG。

Tunnels & Trolls is based on the tabletop RPG of the same name, designed by Ken St. Andre in 1975 as a light-hearted and accessible alternative to the recently released Dungeons & Dragons.

When Tunnels & Trolls was released in Japan in 1987, it became extremely popular. And so Starcraft, the company who published the Japanese versions of Wizardry and Might and Magic, asked New World Computing to co-design a licensed T&T CRPG.

《隧道与巨魔:卡赞十字军》最早在日本发行,后来发行英文版时,其文字内容几乎全部由尼尔・哈尔福德(Neal Hallford)(《叛变克朗多》的编剧)进行了重新创作。

Tunnels & Trolls was first released in Japan, and then almost entirely re-written by Neal Hallford (writer of Betrayal at Krondor) to be released in English.

本作采用了回合制战斗,并且拥有自动战斗功能。虽然游戏中的大多数战斗都能轻松解决,但还是存在一些无法取胜的“剧情杀”。

Combat is turn-based and can be automatically fought by the AI. While most battles are simple, some are practically unwinnable.

地图上遍布着随机事件,但不会有明显标识。你永远猜不到何时会面临一个生死攸关的选择,你能做的就是时刻存档!

Events are spread all over the maps, but are invisible. You never know when you'll come across a life-and-death choice, so save often!

于是,《隧道与巨魔:卡赞十字军》首先由美方完成了设计,然后交由日方进行开发:这一点可以通过游戏里不寻常的鼠标驱动界面反映出来——它看上去跟日本早期的图形操作系统十分相似。

这款游戏总体上就像是《创世纪(Ultima)》的翻版,本作同样拥有着多样的城市、巨大的开放世界、回合制战斗和可自定义的四人小队等要素。但真正让本作与众不同的是游戏里无数个能让玩家自由选择的冒险类事件,而且它们大多数都直接取材于《隧道与巨魔》的单人冒险游戏书。

值得一提的是,游戏内没有可互动的 NPC,而是充满了数不胜数的、文本量庞大的遭遇和事件,玩家可以在众多的应对选项中自行判断,从丰盛的奖励到直接死亡——每一个选项都将导致截然不同的后果,有些结果甚至会根据玩家的种族、等级、角色状态或已习得的语言产生变化!

尽管本作中的遭遇事件有着出色的情节,并给玩家提供了许多体验角色扮演的机会,但导致玩家团灭的选项实在太多,玩家一不小心选错将招来灭顶之灾——例如:无视一个被遗弃之人的求助,可能会匪夷所思地将玩家卷入一场与愤怒的水元素部落的战斗。

雪上加霜的是,游戏中的敌人难度会根据玩家的等级进行不公平的调整:假如有一条巨龙挡住了你的去路,而你决定去多刷几级再来对付它——但你下一次遇见它的时候,来的很可能就是三条龙了。

为了在游戏里生存下来,玩家每走一步都得存档,因为周遭任何看起来人畜无害的空旷区域都可能暗藏着致命的陷阱、埋伏或随机事件——它们每一样都能让玩家送命。

令人遗憾,上述这些恼人的设计最终葬送了这款原本应该十分有趣的游戏,但本作出色的“玩家自选冒险(CYOA)”般的事件设计使得它在当时(甚至是现代)的 CRPG 游戏中做到了独树一帜,但只有那些愿意忍受本作令人沮丧的难度和勇于无数次读档的玩家才能从中感受到乐趣。

As such, Tunnel & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan's design was done in the US, then sent to Japan, where the game was programmed. This can be immediately noticed in the unusual mouse-driven interface, similar to early Japanese graphical operational systems.

Overall the game plays mostly like an Ultima clone, with various cities, a large overworld, turnbased combat and a customisable four-character party. What truly sets it apart is the presence of countless Choose Your Own Adventure-like events, most taken directly from T&T's solo adventure game books.

Instead of having interactive NPCs, the game is filled with countless text-heavy encounters and events where you can pick one of many options, leading to vastly different outcomes; from a nice reward to instant death – some may even change depending on your race, class, stats and/or known languages!

However, while events are well-written and offer many role-playing opportunities, far too often a blind choice will wipe your party – for example, ignoring a castaway's plea for help can lead to an impossible battle against a horde of angry water elementals.

To make matters worse, enemies scale to your level in an unfair way. If there's a dragon blocking your way and you decide to grind a few more levels, chances are next time you'll face three dragons instead.

To survive you'll have to save after almost every step, because any harmless-looking empty square nearby may actually contain a deadly trap, ambush or event that can take you to the Game Over screen.

It's a shame, but these annoying issues ended up dooming what's otherwise an intriguing game. The excellent CYOA-like events set it apart from any other CRPG of the time (and even of today), but only those willing to endure a frustrating difficulty and many, many reloads will get to enjoy them.

《电脑 RPG 游戏史(The CRPG Book Project)》原书信息

英文原版主编:Felipe Pepe
原项目网址:https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/
授权协议:知识共享 署名-非商业性使用 4.0 国际许可协议 (CC BY-NC 4.0)

这本书历时四年,由 119 名志愿者共同完成。

《电脑 RPG 游戏史(The CRPG Book Project)》中文翻译版版权说明

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