Dungeons of Kroz

The Good
Most people who are fans of Apogee Software would have played games such as Wolfenstein 3-D, Duke Nukem, and Rise of the Triad. There were some people who actually believed that Apogee was formed in the early Nineties, myself included. The company started life in the mid-Eighties with the help of Scott Miller, a junior programmer operating out of his parent’s house in Garland, Texas.

One of these games was Dungeons of Kroz, the third game in the Kroz trilogy (although it was later marketed as the second episode). In the game, players navigate a series of dungeons looking for the legendary staff while avoiding monsters and obstacles, and picking up items to help him. The player is equipped with a whip that not only is capable of swinging in all eight directions, but also destroys any terrain blocking his way.

Among the items, the most important ones are gems since they represent your health, and touching a monster results in the loss of one gem. The game ends when you run out of gems, and you will be taken to the high score table where you can enter your name if you get a good enough score. Dungeons of Kroz (as well as the other games in the trilogy) is one of the first Apogee games to feature a high score table. Another important item are teleports. Not only can they be used to get you from point A to B quicker (providing that you don’t end up in the wrong place), but their use is essential in some chambers, especially the chambers where you are completely surrounded by monsters.

Before the game starts, players are given the option of running the game in monochrome or color, and whether they are running it on a slow or fast computer. The game was programmed so that it can be run on any computer system, no matter what processor or speed it has, so you will have no problems running the game on an original IBM PC equipped with a monochrome card. Next, the player can choose between three difficulty levels, with the highest difficulty level giving the player a harder game, with virtually no items to start off with.

The game uses the IBM PC character set to represent graphics, which look amazing if you run the game in color mode. The smiley face represents the protagonist, while red monsters are represented by the letter A with an accented character on top, the teleports are up arrows, the white candy canes resemble whips. The monsters have different appearances and colors, which indicate their severity. The red monsters are less aggressive then the blue ones. Water and lava are represented as blue and red stylized blocks, respectively, and glow like little neon signs.

You can control the protagonist simply by using the standard four arrows, and you can also utilize the numeric keypad. The keypad is recommended since you can navigate the dungeons much quickly. You also can’t go diagonally by using the standard arrows, and diagonal directions are needed in some instances so that you can avoid hazards such as pits and lava.

The sound effects are only heard from the PC speaker, as sound cards weren’t available at the time. You hear a beep every time you move your protagonist. In my opinion, the most satisfying effect is heard when you run into a “Magic Bomb”, which destroys anything within a five-block radius.

The Bad
Again, if you use the teleports in a dungeon surrounded by monsters, it is hard to see where you end up. Also, there are different types of them in some of the dungeons (which are represented by white arches), and you have to make use of them at some point. More often than not, I end up teleporting in the same place, and it takes me five minutes just to get to where I would like to go.

The Bottom Line
Dungeons of Kroz is the same as the previous two games in the trilogy when it comes to graphics and sound. It is a lot of fun if you are into these sort of games.