Pool of Radiance (game)

Pool of Radiance, released in 1988, was the first of a long series of computer role-playing games that shared a common engine that came to be known as the "Gold Box Engine" after the gold boxes in which most games of the series were sold. After the success of the original game, a book and a D&D module based on the Pool of Radiance plot were also published. It is the first in a four-part series of Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons adventure computer games published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI). In 1992, the game was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System under the name of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Pool of Radiance.

Story
The game takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting, in and around the Moonsea region and the city of Phlan, which has been overrun by forces of evil. The city had originally held off many attacks, but the forces were marshalled by a bronze dragon which was believed to be possessed by a powerful spirit named Tyranthraxus. The object of the game is to have the party clear the old city of its marauding inhabitants, so the people of Phlan can rebuild and repopulate the areas.

The party begins in the civilized section of "New Phlan" that is governed by a council. This portion of the city is a place for the party to buy equipment at the shops, rest up in the inns, listen to rumors in the pub, and contract with the clerk of the city council for various commissions. The party can also go to the hiring hall and hire an experienced adventurer to accompany the party.

Beyond this region the party enters the area of the slums, which have been overrun with low-level monsters such as goblins and orcs that the party must clear out (gaining experience in the process). Further into the slums, the going gets tougher, with ogres and trolls for opponents.

The next commission is to clear out Sokol Keep, a fortified area located on an island. This is filled with undead, among other opponents. Inside the keep is a specter who suffers under a curse. When you remove this curse, the keep is cleared and the shipping lanes to the city are finally opened.

There are a variety of other locations that are encountered as the party ventures further into the city, including Kuto's Well, catacombs filled with a bandit horde, a thieves' guild, Podol Plaza, and a buccaneer bar called The Pit. With the party making impressive progress, they are next contracted to go to the old Textile House, to recover the treasure of a council member. Pressing onward, the party can enter Mendor's Library, a temple of Bane in the wealthy section, Kovel Mansion, and the deadly Valhingen Graveyard.

Eventually the party ventures outside the city by boat, where they encounter a silver dragon. Various side treks and adventures occur, including visiting an encampment of the Zhentarim, as the party continues to build up experience and aid the city by defeating the plans of the mysterious "Boss".

Now the more difficult endgame begins. The party reveals a traitor in the city council, and is commissioned to hunt him down. At some point the party will have to assault Stojanow Gate, a difficult task against bugbears and ettins. The party then enters Valjevo Castle and its inner sanctum, descends a stairwell to encounter some guards of the impostor Tyranthaxus (who assumes the form of a bronze dragon). After defeating his guards, the party refuses his offer to join his side and engages the dragon boss in a deadly battle, emerging victorious.

Trivia
As the first game in the series, Pool of Radiance was to be surpassed in terms of features by later Gold Box games. Party characters could only be selected from among the classes of fighter, cleric, wizard, or thief, and the maximum class level was restricted to level 6 (9 for thieves, 8 for fighters).

Pool of Radiance won the Origins Award for "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988".

Differences between versions of Pool Of Radiance
Pool Of Radiance was released for several computers/game consoles, so there are differences between the versions.

Commodore 64 (C64) featured music, while the DOS version had none. The C64 also had more detailed graphics. Unfortunately, C64 had notoriously slow load times, unless the computer had a fast load cartridge installed. The game was also distributed on four double-sided floppy disks, making disk swapping a common frustration for players.

The Nintendo (NES) version was completely different from the other releases. It featured original music, different graphics, and a unique interface. It lacked many of the features of its computer counterparts, such as editing character icons. It also lacked several areas to explore, most notably the randomly generated creature lairs found on the wilderness map. Battles in the NES port were also considerally toned-down, partly because the NES had trouble with a large number of sprites and partly to lower the difficulty.

Difficulty
Pool of Radiance is considered to be very unbalanced with regard to difficulty, especially by today's standards. The frequent random encounters were often more challenging than the set-piece battles and tended to be very time consuming.

Bugs

 * Bag : The Commodore 64 version of the game had an interesting bug - if a character had a lot of arrows you could split them until all of the character's 16 inventory slots were filled, and then split them once more. The result was that the topmost item in the character's inventory would be transformed into an item called "bag" and appear as a 17th item slot. The bag was not worth anything to sell, however it virtually made the base item +57. So if you had a plate mail transformed into a bag, you could get an Armor Class of well below -50 and if you had a weapon transformed into a bag, you would easily deal 60+ points of damage with each blow at a miss chance of 5% (natural 1). Basically, the same thing also worked with all other items that had quantities (quarrels, flasks of oil, silver arrows, carpets etc.). The bonus the so created item had and its name varied. Some had minor bonuses, some had huge bonuses and some had so high bonuses that they turned negative (silver arrows made superb items with a malus of about 100).


 * Wraith : When fighting a wraith, it was possible to have a character's level drained until it reached 0 and then drained again, wrapping around the 8-bit register to level 256. If a member of your party survived, it was possible to resurrect this dead character and have a level 256 character with 256 hit points.


 * Export : Not so much a bug as an exploit, if there was a particular item you wanted more of you could give it to a character then export them at the adventure hall. Strip the item from the character then drop them from the party. Re-enter the adventure hall and add the character back in - with the original item still in their possession. This could be repeated ad infinitum.

Game credits

 * Scenario created by: TSR, Inc., Jim Ward, David Cook, Steve Winter, Mike Breault
 * Game created by: SSI Special Projects
 * Programming: Scot Bayless, Brad Myers, Russ Brown, Ted Greer
 * Original Programming: Keith Brors, Brad Myers
 * Graphic Arts: Tom Wahl, Fred Butts, Darla Marasco, Susan Halbleib
 * Project Manager: Victor Penman
 * Encounter Coding: Paul Murray, Russ Brown, Victor Penman, Dave Shelley
 * Developer: George MacDonald
 * Testing: Joel Billings, Steve Salyer, James Kucera, Robert Daly, Rick White