巫术:
Wizardry:
疯狂领主的试验场
Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord

Sir-Tech, 1981
Apple II, MS-DOS, C64, Mac, NES, SNES, 等*

Sir-Tech, 1981
Apple II, MS-DOS, C64, Mac, NES, SNES, etc*

早在 1978 年, 两名大学生:安德鲁・格林伯格和罗伯特・伍德黑德就开始在计算机上开发自己的 RPG 游戏。他们从柏拉图(PLATO)游戏中得到了很多启发(尤其是《奥布里特 Oubliette》), 但也增加了一些革命性的想法,这让他们的朋友们整晚整晚的沉迷其中。

这将是第一部交给玩家控制一队角色,而不仅仅是一个孤独的英雄的游戏。让他们去探索一个设计巧妙的、充满了危险和秘密的地牢。这就是这个彻底影响了地牢迷宫探索模式的游戏:《巫术》。

然而, 他们的游戏使用 Pascal 语言写的代码。在苹果支持该语言之前,他们不得不等了好几个月,才能让游戏在 Apple II 上运行。在那段时间,他们不断对其技术层面进行改进,并调整游戏的平衡性,创造出了当时世界上最复杂且精致的家庭电脑游戏。它甚至还有一个介绍动画!

《巫术》迅速成为 80 年代最畅销的电脑游戏——一个真正的现象级作品,多年来一直占据着销量和评分榜的前茅,并导致了非官方游戏指南、训练器以及编辑工具的诞生。

Back in 1978, two university undergraduates, Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead, started to develop their own computer RPG. They took a lot from the PLATO games (especially Oubliette), but also added some revolutionary ideas, which kept their friends playing for nights on end.

This would be the first game to give players control over a party of characters instead of just a lone hero, sending them to explore an expertly crafted dungeon full of perils and secrets. It was the birth of the most influential dungeon crawler of all time: Wizardry.

However, they coded the game using Pascal and had to wait months for Apple to actually support the language before the game could run on any Apple II. In the meantime, they kept improving its technical aspects, as well as balancing the gameplay, creating the most complex and polished home computer game released so far. It even had an animated intro!

Wizardry quickly became one of the best-selling computer games of the 80s – a true phenomenon that topped sales and rating charts for years and led to the birth of unofficial game guides, trainers and edit tools.

*直到 1984 年,《巫术》一直都是 Apple II 的独占游戏。但从那以后,巫术被移植或改造成数十个版本,如 SNES 、PS1 、Saturn 、手机等。令人遗憾的是,许多版本都只在日本出现。

Wizardry was exclusive to the Apple II until 1984, but has since been ported or remade for dozens of systems, such as the SNES, PS1, Saturn, mobile phones, etc. Sadly, many of these versions only came out in Japan.

角色可以成为战士、法师、牧师或盗贼,这取决于他们的属性。那些拥有高属性的角色可以变成精英阶层:主教、武士、领主和忍者。

Characters can be Fighters, Mages, Priests or Thieves depending on their stats. Those with high stats can change into elite classes: Bishop, Samurai, Lord and Ninja.

《巫术:疯狂领主的试验场》是一个纯粹的迷宫探索游戏。不像魔法门或创世纪,它没有创造一个详细的、具有丰富历史的设定。它甚至没有描述任何地牢之外的世界——利加敏镇(Llylgamyn)是只是一个菜单, 在那里你可以访问像是商店、旅店、酒馆和寺庙等选项。

当然,游戏中有一个你应该完成的任务:击败恶魔大法师——瓦德纳,并取回他的护身符。但游戏的最终目的是探索一个巨大的地牢,在艰难的战斗中生存下来,并不断强大你的队伍。这就是《巫术》成功的秘密所在:使玩家专注于看似简单,但极具上瘾性和可重玩性的游戏玩法。

《巫术》可以给人一种压抑且恐怖的体验,它利用其难度来现了这一点。这个游戏没有保存功能——如果一个队伍成员死了,你必须找到寺庙并把他带过去进行复活,使用罕见的复活法术会降低角色的体质,或者干脆重新创建新角色。如果整个队伍的成员都死了也是一样的。

因此,《巫术》是一个综合了危险评估和资源管理的游戏,获胜能力和避免多少伤害决定了你能在地牢中走多深。这使得每场战斗都至关重要。如果你在非重要战斗中损失了血量或浪费了法术,这些消耗会迅速累加起来,迫使你中途返回城镇——不是通过传送门,而是走回去。

除了战斗,地牢本身也被证明是一个很大的挑战。自动地图当然是没有的,每一层都充满了假墙、旋转机关、传送点、滑道和其他有趣的惊喜。这个巨大的地下城被向下分成了十层,玩家的主要任务是找到楼梯或电梯进入更深一层。所有这些可能听起来更令人望而却步而不是让人觉得有意思,但是请相信我,两者兼而有之。

Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a pure dungeon crawler. Unlike Might and Magic or Ultima, it makes no attempt at creating a detailed setting with a rich history. It doesn't even provide a world outside its dungeon – the town of Llylgamyn is nothing more than a menu from where you can access services like a shop, an inn, a tavern and a temple.

There is, of course, a quest you're supposed to accomplish: defeating the evil arch-wizard Werdna and retrieving his amulet. But the game is ultimately about exploring a massive dungeon, surviving tough battles and power-building your party. This is where Wizardry's secret lies: a focus on a seemingly simple, yet highly addictive and replayable gameplay.

Wizardry is a claustrophobic experience, and it uses difficulty to enforce this concept. There's no save feature – if a party member dies you have to find and drag his body to the temple for a chance at bringing him back, use rare resurrection spells that would reduce the character's Constitution, or just re-roll a new character. The same applies if the entire party dies, obviously.

Thus, Wizardry is a game of danger assessment and resource management, in which your ability to win encounters unscathed decides how deep you'll be able to go. This makes every fight relevant; if you lose hit points or waste spells in non-lethal encounters, they'll quickly add up and force you to return to town – not via a handy Town Portal, but by walking back.

Besides the battles, the dungeon itself proves to be a big challenge. There's no auto-map, of course, and each level is full with false walls, spinners, teleporters, chutes and other nice surprises. The huge dungeon is divided into ten descending levels, and your primary task in each of them is to find the stairs or elevator that allows you to go deeper. All of this may sound more frustrating than fun, but believe me, it's both.

《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。

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