text: telengard telengard is a 1982 role - playing dungeon crawler video game developed by daniel lawrence and published by avalon hill . the player explores a dungeon , fights monsters with magic , and avoids traps in real time without any set mission other than surviving . lawrence first wrote the game as dnd , a 1976 version of dungeons & dragons for the decsystem - 10 mainframe computer . he continued to develop dnd at purdue university as a hobby , rewrote the game for the commodore pet 2001 after 1978 , and ported it to apple ii + , trs - 80 , and atari 800 platforms before avalon hill found the game at a convention and licensed it for distribution . its commodore 64 release was the most popular . reviewers noted telengard 's similarity to dungeons and dragons . rpg historian shannon appelcline noted the game as one of the first professionally produced computer role - playing games , and gamasutra 's barton considered telengard consequential in what he deemed " the silver age " of computer role - playing games preceding the golden age of the late 1980s . some of the game 's dungeon features , such as altars , fountains , teleportation cubes , and thrones , were adopted by later games such as tunnels of doom . gameplay in telengard , the player travels alone through a dungeon fraught with monsters , traps , and treasures in a manner similar to the original dungeons & dragons . the game has 50 levels with two million rooms , 20 monster types , and 36 spells . it has no missions or quests , and its only goal is to survive and improve the player character . the game is set in real time and cannot be paused , so the player must visit an " inn " to save their game progress . in the early releases ( e.g. , apple ii ) , the game world has no sound and is represented by ascii characters , such as slashes for stairs and dollar signs for treasure . unless the player enters a special cheat , they cannot resume progress upon dying . the single - player adventure begins by personalizing a player character . each character has randomly generated values for their statistical character attributes : charisma , constitution , dexterity , intelligence , strength , and wisdom . while the algorithm stays the same , the player can randomize repeatedly for new character attribute distributions until satisfied . the player begins with a sword , armor , shield , and no money , and can only see his immediate surroundings , rather than the whole level . monsters spawn randomly , and players have three options in battle : fight , use magic , or evade . magic includes combative missiles , fireballs , lightning bolts , and turning the undead , as well as health regeneration and trap navigation . the effects of the game 's most complex spells are not outlined in the instruction manual and must be learned by trial and error . like the game , the battle events are carried out in real time instead of in turns . enemies increase in difficulty as the player progresses through the dungeon . they include both living and undead monsters such as elves , dragons , mummies , and wraiths . defeating enemies awards experience points , which accrete to raise the player 's experience level and increase player stats . the player is rewarded with treasures that include magical weapons , armor items , and potions . players can code their own features into the game . development while a computer science student at purdue university , daniel lawrence wrote several hobbyist computer games for the university 's pdp - 11 / e mainframe computer , and one grew into telengard . in his 1976 and 1977 college summers at home , he worked at boces in spencerport , new york , where he wrote a dungeon crawl game called dnd ( not to be confused with dnd ) in the basic programming language for the decsystem - 10 's tops - 10 operating system . he had been influenced by the pen and paper dungeons & dragons . at college , he ported the game to purdue 's pdp - 11 / e. the game 's mechanics grew from conversations at the purdue engineering building . part of its " real - time " nature descended from the need to not have players occupy the few shared computer terminals for long . in 1978 , lawrence purchased the commodore pet 2001 and no longer needed the university 's computer . he rewrote dnd as telengard within eight kilobytes of memory . due to a lack of space , he designed the dungeon to be procedurally generated based on the player - character 's position so the maps would not have to be stored in memory . lack of memory was lawrence 's primary design obstacle . nevertheless , the final version almost completely used 32 kilobytes of memory . it was easily ported to the apple ii + and trs - 80 platforms due to their similar usage of the 8k basic programming language . the later atari 800 port required a more complicated handling of string variables . the three ports were finished before avalon hill saw the game at a gaming convention and licensed it in 1982 as one of its first computer games . the ibm pc port required a rewrite into the c programming language ; the source code for this version was later lost . the heath / zenith cp / m version requires . the game 's most popular port was for the commodore 64 . matt barton of gamasutra reported that lawrence 's dnd ( and consequently , his telengard ) was directly inspired by whisenhunt and wood 's dnd for plato , with its randomized dungeons and minimalist graphics , though lawrence recalled in an interview that he had not seen or known of their game . computer gaming world 's " resident adventure game expert " wrote that telengard was based on the earlier , public domain software castle telengard . as the game 's basic source code was available , ports and remaster exist therefore by the fan community . reception and legacy rpg historian shannon appelcline identifies telengard as one of the first professionally produced computer role - playing games . gamasutra 's barton described the game as a " pure dungeon crawler " for its lack of diversions , and noted its expansive dungeons as a " key selling point " . allgame 's earl green remarked that the game 's mechanics were very similar in practice to dungeons & dragons , and computer gaming world 's dick mcgrath also thought the game " borrowed heavily " from the original such that he expected its creators to be thanked in the end credits , and scorpia cited four specific similarities with dungeons & dragons . green described the game as both " exceedingly simple ... yet very addictive " and rated it four of five stars . mcgrath wrote that he wanted to have more control over his money , and added that a store for purchasing upgrades would have been useful . he thought that games such as and and magic handled this aspect better . mcgrath suggested that the player draw their own map in the absence of an overview mapping system . he felt that his appreciation for the game grew with time and that it had the necessary hook to make him continually return and play again . tony roberts of compute ! considered the commodore 64 version of the game best for its enhanced graphics . scorpia in 1993 stated that while telengard was " interesting for its time , the game would be pretty dated today " compared to the gold box games ; " back then , however , it was hot stuff , and a fun way of passing the time " . barton of gamasutra placed telengard alongside wizardry and the early ultima series in what he deemed " the silver age " of computer role - playing games that preceded the golden age of the late 1980s . yet in 1992 , computer gaming world 's gerald wrote that telengard and temple of apshai were " quickly overshadowed " by the wizardry and ultima series . some of the game 's dungeon features , such as altars , fountains , teleportation cubes , and thrones , were adopted by later games such as tunnels of doom . the 1982 sword of fargoal similarly shared features . barton wrote in 2007 that telengard " still enjoys considerable appreciation today " and questioned whether the diablo series was " but an updated telengard " .