''Beneath Apple Manor'' is a

roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing game, role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedural generation, procedurally generated level (video gaming), levels, Turns, rounds and time- ...

game written by Don Worth for the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

and published by The Software Factory in 1978. Higher resolution "Special Editions" were released in 1982 and 1983, through

Quality Software Quality Software is a defunct American software developer and publisher which created games, business software, and development tools for the Exidy Sorcerer, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit family in the late 1970s and early 1980s. ''Asteroids in Space ...

, for the Apple II and

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE ...

. It was one of the first video games to use

procedural generation In computing, procedural generation is a method of creating data algorithmically as opposed to manually, typically through a combination of human-generated assets and algorithms coupled with computer-generated randomness and processing power. In ...

Gameplay

The goal is to obtain a Golden Apple on the bottom floor of the dungeon. There are 10 rooms per level in the low-res version, and 5 in the high-res version. The high-res versions may be played in low-res/text mode, thereby gaining this increase in level size. It is notable for being the first commercial role playing game developed and released for a home computer as opposed to a

mainframe A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...

computer. Despite being included in the "roguelike" genre, ''Beneath Apple Manor'' actually predates ''Rogue'' (created in 1980) by two years.Don Worth's Personal Home Page
/ref> The creator claims that neither he nor the implementors of ''Rogue'' knew about the other game.Blog comment t
Psittacine Labs: Beneath Apple Manor
by Don Worth

Reception

Alan Isabelle reviewed ''Beneath Apple Manor'' in ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'' No. 35, commenting that "All in all, strengths by far outnumber weaknesses. The game is highly recommended." '' Softline'' in 1983 said of ''Beneath Apple Manor—Special Edition'' that "now it's back, and it's better", including improved graphics, varying difficulty levels, and the ability to save progress. The magazine concluded that "''BAM'' is not a game that you will tire of easily ... tis for any adventurer, beginner to expert". ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through t ...

''s

Scorpia ''Alex Rider'' is a series of spy novels written by British author Anthony Horowitz. The novels revolve around a teenage spy named Alex Rider and is primarily aimed towards young adults. The series currently comprises thirteen novels, as w ...

stated in 1991 and 1993 that ''Beneath Apple Manor'' was "terribly slow even by the standards of the day, but it was fun nonetheless" and "not bad for a game" designed for a 16K Apple II.

References

External links

* {{Internet Archive game, id=msdos_Beneath_Apple_Manor_1978 1978 video games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family games Roguelike video games Role-playing video games Video games developed in the United States