''Moria'' is a

dungeon crawl A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games (RPGs) in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may find. Video g ...

style

role-playing video game Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...

developed for the

PLATO system PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations), also known as Project Plato and Project PLATO, was the first generalized computer-assisted instruction system. Starting in 1960, it ran on the University of Illinois's ILLIAC I compu ...

beginning around 1975 by Kevet Duncombe and Jim Battin. In the game, up to ten players can simultaneously journey through a dynamically generated dungeon, presented to the players in first-person wireframe 3D. Some ''Moria'' players preferred to "role-play" as their fantasy personas instead of merely playing the game.

Gameplay

''Moria'' allows parties of up to ten players to travel as a group and message each other, dynamically generating dungeons (instead of pre-computing them), and featuring a wireframe first-person perspective display.

Development

''Moria'' was developed by Kevet Duncombe and Jim Battin beginning in either 1975 or 1976. The game was later given a copyright date of 1978. It was initially begun as a top-down two-dimensional dungeon crawl game, inspired by contemporary PLATO game '' dnd'', which was developed beginning in 1975, and others such as ''Orthanc'' (1978). ''Moria'' was one of several ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

''-inspired games on the PLATO network developed in the late 1970s. Although both developers had played other games based on works by

J. R. R. Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson ...

or ''Dungeons & Dragons'', Duncombe had never read or played either. During development, Battin suggested converting the game into a 3D game, inspired by other early 3D PLATO games such as '' Panther'', ''

Spasim ''Spasim'' is a 32-player 3D networked space flight simulation game and first-person space shooter developed by Jim Bowery for the PLATO computer network and released in March 1974. The game features four teams of eight players, each controll ...

'', and '' Airfight''. The name ''Moria'' was suggested by ''Dnd'' developer Dirk Pellett. An update was made to the game in 1984, with the copyright date changed to match. ''Moria'', like all other PLATO programs, was originally monochrome. In an effort to "modernize" the lessons, color was added by an intern in 1994 at University Online after the CYBIS system and its content was sold to them. CYBIS (short for CYber-Based Instruction System) was the new name for PLATO after

CDC The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is headquartered in Atlanta, ...

sold the trademark to The Roach Organization in 1989.

Notes

Sources

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite book , title=Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games , edition=2nd , first1=Matt , last1=Barton , first2=Shane , last2=Stacks , publisher=

CRC Press The CRC Press, LLC is an American publishing group that specializes in producing technical books. Many of their books relate to engineering, science and mathematics. Their scope also includes books on business, forensics and information technol ...

, date=2019 , isbn=978-1-138-57464-9 , pages=44–45 {{cite web , url=https://spillhistorie.no/kevet-duncombe-on-moria/ , title=Kevet Duncombe on Moria , website=Spillhistorie.no , date=December 30, 2016 , access-date=December 4, 2022 {{cite book , title=The Friendly Orange Glow: The Untold Story of the Rise of Cyberculture , last=Dear , first=Brian , date=2018 , publisher=

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the followin ...

, isbn=978-1-101-97363-9 , pages=288–291 {{cite book , title=Before the Crash: Early Video Game History , last=Wolf , first=Mark J. P. , date=2012 , publisher=

Wayne State University Press Wayne State University Press (or WSU Press) is a university press that is part of Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public university, public research university in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Founded in 186 ...

, isbn=978-0-8143-3722-6 , page=212 {{cite web , last1=Schuller , first1=Dan , title=Moria , url=https://howtomakeanrpg.com/r/l/g/moria.html , access-date=2022-02-16 , archive-date=2022-06-13 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220613230008/https://howtomakeanrpg.com/r/l/g/moria.html , url-status=dead
''Moria''
at cyber1.org, where the game can be played
Fun with PLATO
at Armchair Arcade Role-playing video games 1975 video games Cooperative video games PLATO (computer system) games Video games developed in the United States Multiplayer video games

Gameplay

Development

See also

Notes

Sources