During my sophomore year in August, 1981, our high school was gifted a black (Darth Vader) Bell & Howell Apple computer. These were given to select secondary educational institutions around the country. Additionally, our school purchased three or four more of the commercial beige Apples. Since PC’s such as these were a totally new concept, a few of us took the plunge and tried to learn everything we could about them and what they could do.
About six months after learning what the Apple was capable of, I happened into a computer store and saw, on the shelf, a box with some nice and brilliant artwork. Upon inspecting said box, I realized this was a game like no other. The front was adorned with the name “Wizardry” and a nice graphic of a dragon while the bottom of the box showed screenshots of the game in action. I knew then and there I had to have it. With all the money earned from mowing lawns, birthdays and other sources, I purchased the game and a box of Elephant floppy disks.
Since I didn’t own an Apple, I went back to the school and fired up the game. After making the scenario disk, I loaded it and created my characters. After all these years, I still remember the character names I created. My introduction, after I got through the Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, was to explore the first level of the dungeon. Being weak (due to being new to the game), and the monsters having no mercy, it took a few false starts and a lot of character recreations after the previous ones were killed. Finally, I got the characters to sufficient experience levels so they could survive a lot longer.
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