AD&D Tower of Mystery

Name:	AD&D Tower of Mystery
Company:	Mattel
Model #:	7175
Programmers:	Jane Terjung and Mike Sanders (Program) & Jane Terjung (Graphics)
Year:	1984
Released?	No
Notes:	Called D&D III and Revenge of the Master during development

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Tower of Mystery (which will henceforth be shortened to Tower of Mystery for the remainder of this review) was the third game Mattel developed based on the Dungeons and Dragons license (hence the WIP name D&D III).   The first AD&D game was Cloudy Mountain (originally simply called AD&D), this was followed by Treasure of Tarmin, and eventually Tower of Mystery (originally called Revenge of the Master).  While all of these games made it to the Intellivision, the Atari 2600 wasn't so lucky.  Neither Atari 2600 Tower of Mystery or Atari 2600 Treasure of Tarmin made it out the doors before Mattel closed down.  Interestingly when the Intellvision version of Tower of Mystery was finally finished and released during the INTV years it was renamed Tower of Doom in order to avoid paying for the AD&D license.  It is believed that INTV may have also been considering finishing up the Atari 2600 version in a similar manner (see the individual prototype pages for more information).

Although they were developed at the same time, the Intellivision and Atari 2600 versions of the game are rather different.  This is not only due to the less sophisticated hardware of the 2600 but also because the gameplay of the Intellivision version was still in the process of being defined when programming on the 2600 version was started.  Programmer Jane Terjung was a huge Dungeons and Dragons fan and was given free reign to make the game any way she wanted so it deviates from the Intellivision version in several ways.  However the games do share many similarities including the map screened used to move around the tower, the inventory system, scrolling text, and the close up battles when fighting monsters.

Upon starting the game you'll be asked to enter your name (up to six characters).  This is one of the few 2600 games that allows the player to enter their name to customize the game (RS Tennis also allowed name entry).  Creatures in the game will refer to your character by name as will the summary screen at the end.  This is a nice little touch and shows just how advanced the game was for the time.  Tower of Mystery was so advanced in fact that it needed a 16K board with 2K of on-board RAM  which was something almost unheard of at the time.  After entering your name the game will show your character's footsteps descending the stairs into the tower.

Unlike AD&D Treasure of Tarmin, which is a more of an adventure style game, Tower of Mystery is an action oriented game (in fact it was referred to internally as 'Arcade D&D').  Here you control the player, who must traverse the deadly Tower of Mystery in order to win the game.  There are actually three different ways to complete the game.  First, the player may successfully make their way to the bottom of the tower and escape (the number of floors varies with each game).  Second, the player may find the kidnapped princess in a locked room in the tower.  Touching the princess will instantly win the game.  Finally the player may find and kill the evil lich Aga Aga on one of the floors.  After winning the game you can start over with all your items intact by pressing the fire button (your stats will reset however).

Each floor of the tower is a 4x4 grid of up to sixteen rooms (although most floors have fewer rooms than that) which must be explored in order to find the stairs leading down to the next floor.  Some passageways are blocked by locked doors which require a Key or Special Key to open.  You can also look through the keyhole to see what might be waiting on the other side if you equip the Hat of Vision.  There can also be hidden doors in rooms that do not have items.  As the name implies these doors are invisible and can only be revealed with the the Special Key or the Hat of Vision (just bump into the wall where you think they are).  You'll know when you've found a hidden door by the special animation that plays.  Once the hidden door is revealed it can be opened with either the regular or special key like any other door.

Fun Fact: There are sixteen different level layouts that are chosen at random.  Many of the layouts form the initials of programmer Jane Terjung's friends and family (J, T, S, C, O, E, etc.)

This is probably as good as time as any to explain the control system.  Since the Atari 2600 controller lacks the keypad and extra buttons found on the Intellivision controller, the second joystick controller is also used to access various functions (similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark):

Left Joystick

Right Joystick

The status page shows the current value of each of the players stats as well as how many arrows and treasures they are carrying.  Each stat has a different use and can be raised or lowered by items, traps, and monsters:

As the player wanders around each floor they will encounter a number of items.  Some items can be picked up and carried in the players inventory while others are consumed immediately.   Keep in mind that you can only hold six items at any one time and must drop or use an item in order to clear room in the inventory to pick up another.  Once dropped the item will appear on the bottom wall of the room.  You can pick up a dropped item by standing above it and pressing down into the wall.  The positioning on this is a little tricky so it may take a few tries.  Also note that you may only have one of each item at a time.

Items fall into six basic categories:

List of Items

Item	Type	Icon	Description
Boots of Speed	Equipable		Makes your character move faster
Hat of Vision	Equipable		Probably the single most useful item in the game.  The Hat enables you to see traps and invisible monsters, allows the player to see the special items they've picked up on the status screen, see through the keyhole of locked doors, and even open hidden doors.  The reason for this is most likely that the Hat of Vision was being used as a debug item for testing, allowing the tester to avoid having to grab all the other items to get their powers. Fun Fact: The Hat of Vision was originally the Glasses of Seeing
Ring of Stealth	Equipable		Freezes monsters in place but makes the player invisible so it's hard to move around without running into walls.  Also increases your charisma by 1 to 3 points.
Key	Equipable		Opens doors
Special Key	Equipable		Opens doors and chests.  Also can reveal hidden doors.
Wand of Healing (yellow)	Bribe		Increases your lowest stat (stamina, charisma, or strength) by 1 to 3 points
Wand of Healing (white)	Bribe		Same name and icon as the yellow Wand of Healing but white.   Doesn't give any stat boosts when picked up.
Candle	Bribe		Unknown
Bluish Scroll	Bribe		Increases your stamina by 1 to 3 points
Vial of Stuff	Bribe		Increases your stamina by 1 to 3 points
Book	Bribe		Unknown
Potion of Invisibility	Bribe		Unknown
Bow	Weapon		Allows you to attack monsters
Crossbow	Weapon		Allows you to attack monsters
Dancing Sword	Weapon		Allows you to attack monsters
Rope	Power Up		Saves the player from spiked pit traps, but still drops you down a level.  Disappears when you change levels.
Shield	Power Up		Unknown
Bag	Power Up		Archives treasures on the status screen instead of putting them into inventory
Gauntlet	Power Up		Protects from Teleport Traps
Wings?	Power Up		Unknown
Scroll	Power Up		Allows you to view the status screen.  Not needed in Easy Mode.
Coins	Treasure		Treasure item
Necklace	Treasure		Treasure item
Chalice	Treasure		Treasure item
Candelabra	Treasure		Treasure item
Gem	Treasure		Treasure item
Cup	Consumable		Increases Stamina
Bowl	Consumable		Increases Stamina
Arrow Quiver	Consumable		Adds one arrow to your inventory
Chest	Other		Requires the Special Key to open.  Chests usually contain a random item but sometimes contain monsters or teleport traps.

In addition to items, the player will also encounter various monsters during their travels.  While the monsters may look different and have a different amount of hit points, they all do the same amount of damage.  Since the Strength stat is not checked, you will always do 1 point of damage to any monster.

All monsters except for Aga Aga can be bribed with any item at a 100% success rate making it important to have at least one item on you at all times to allow for escaping the battle screen.  It is thought that in the final version of the game that the type of item and your charisma score would play a role in the success of bribing but the stat is not checked in this prototype.  Monsters start out moving slowly but will increase with speed the deeper into the tower you get.

Monster	Icon	Description
Beholder		Not nearly as deadly as their pen and paper counterparts.  Beholders have 1 HP.
Wraith		A ghostly apparition.  Wraiths have 1 HP.
Serpent		Looks like a very large snake.  Serpents have 2 HP.
Bat		A giant bat.  Bats have 2 HP.
Mummy		Looks like a skeleton on the dungeon screen.  Normally invisible but can been seen with the Hat of Vision.  Mummies have 3 HP.
Aga Aga		The big bad guy of the game.  Aga Aga is a lich who looks like a red wizard on the dungeon screen but a giant skeleton on the combat screen.  Killing Aga Aga will automatically win the game.  He's found randomly in the tower.  Aga Aga cannot be bribed and will actually taunt you if you try.  Aga Aga has 5 HP. Fun Fact: Aga Aga is named after a glitch that occurred during programming where Jane accidentally pointed the wrong area of memory to retrieved the name entered at the beginning of the game.  The game then returned the gibberish name 'Aga Aga' which Jane decided to keep for the evil master of the tower.
The Princess		Not actually a monster, but rather a damsel in distress that is locked away somewhere in the tower.  If you find the princess you'll automatically exit the tower and win the game.

As if monsters weren't enough, the player must also contend with various traps as they explore the tower.  All traps are invisible unless you have the Hat of Vision equipped.

 

While there are no options in this prototype, the various console switches can be used to increase or decrease the difficulty of the game:

Color/B&W Switch

The Color/B&W switch turns the Debug Mode on and off.

Color - Debug Mode.  In this mode you start the game with a Hat of Vision and Boots of Speed but the game will end after only three levels (on level 4).  You can also see your status screen without the scroll.  The Princess will always found on level 2 and Aga Aga on level 3.

B&W - Normal game.  You start with no items and the number of floors is determined by the Left Difficulty switch.

Left Difficulty Switch

Being a prototype, there are a number of unimplemented features.

* Many items don't actually seem to do anything yet.  This may be because their powers were assigned to the Hat of Vision for debuging purposes.

* All the weapons seem to be the same.

* Monsters can be bribed 100% of the time

* Stats other aren't checked and therefore don't do anything yet.  However if any of them reach zero you will die.

* There is a duplicate Wand of Healing that is supposed to be another item.

There are also a number of bugs still in the game.

* At the start of the game sometimes you are shown falling down a pit instead of walking down the stairs.

* Sometimes the game doesn't end when it should it will continue to generate new tower levels.  The Level counter rolls over at 100.

* Occasionally graphical glitches such as tin black lines can be see in the walls.

* The map will sometimes fail to blink the room you're currently in.

* It's possible to get into a monster encounter without arrows or items to bribe with so you cannot escape and must restart.

* If you keep shooting a monster after it surrenders it will turn hostile again and cannot be made to surrender again so you cannot leave the screen.  You can still however bribe the monster so it will allow you to leave.

Jane continued to work on Tower of Mystery until she was swept up in Mattel's first round of layoffs in late 1983.  After Jane left Mattel programmer Mike Sanders was then tapped to finish up the game but only worked on it for short time.  The game was about a month away from completion when the final layoffs happened and Mattel closed its doors.  There are two versions of Tower of Mystery known to exist.  The first is the 1984 CES demo which was once in the possession of Keith Robinson of the Blue Sky Rangers who showed it off at the CGE in 1999.  The second is the version that was updated by Mike Sanders up until the January 1984 layoffs.  Both versions were considered lost until two copies surfaced in 2024.  The first dated 6/12/86 was posted on Facebook with pictures of both the prototype and the game being played.  Unfortunately the owner disappeared before dumping his copy.  The second copy was found in the possession of programmer Jane Terjung who graciously allowed it to be preserved and distributed.  Although Jane's version was dated 1/16/84, the checksums on the EPROMs matched the 6/12/86 prototype which indicates that they are exactly the same.  It is unknown which version of the game these prototypes represent, but the mid-January date on Jane's prototype seems to indicate that this is most likely the last version that  Mike Sanders worked on.  However until a copy of the CES Demo version surfaces this is purely speculation.

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