Betrayal at Krondor

Betrayal at Krondor begins with an escort mission that turns into a dangerous journey. Gorath needs to reach Krondor, Locklear goes along with him, and young Owyn ends up caught in a story that is too big for him. The three faces stay in view beneath the landscape while the road opens up among trees and mountains. A conversation can matter as much as what you find a few steps ahead.

Dynamix created this role-playing game for DOS in 1993, with Sierra On-Line as publisher. The adventure takes place in Midkemia, the world of Raymond E. Feist's novels. The presentation divides the story into chapters and combines pages of prose, scenes with characters and movement through a three-dimensional environment. The first chapter is called Into a Dark Night and tasks the party with escorting Gorath to Krondor.

A party to get to know along the way

Locklear, Owyn and Gorath share the travel screen, but each one carries his own equipment. Opening Locklear's inventory shows the sword, the armor and the items he carries. The other portraits let you check on his companions. Before moving away from the starting point, it is worth recognizing where each item is and which character carries it.

The landscape changes as you advance and the compass turns with the party. Trees, hillsides and paths serve as reference points when you look back. The overhead map helps you get your bearings among those features of the terrain. You can also open the full map of Midkemia and look up the names of its towns and regions before returning to the nearby route.

Read, explore and prepare the next step

The first scenes explain why these characters are traveling together. The space bar lets you advance through the texts, so you can read them at your own pace. After that, the arrow keys take the party through the travel view. Holding Up moves it forward and the side directions change its facing.

The game also uses the mouse to act on objects and to use the interface. The original documentation distinguishes the left button's action from the right button's examine function. The inventory, the maps, magic and rest each have their own screens. Combat is resolved in turns, with choices of movement, attack and spells that depend on the character and his situation.

It is a good idea to get familiar with those screens at the start. Open an inventory, return to the scene and check the map of the area. That small tour of the interface makes it easier to recognize the party's position and to find the controls when the adventure asks for a decision.

The copy you can play here

The online game uses a DOS copy with English text. Its notes file identifies itself as a no-cost release, version 1.02, and includes the game's documentation in Microsoft Write format. The prepared startup runs Krondor directly with the AdLib configuration that this copy keeps.

The gallery shows the title, the main menu, travel, the inventory and the maps, obtained by running the game in the browser. The background comes from the main menu. The downloads bring together the two DOS variants and keep their original ZIP files.

To start, press Space to get past the title and then N at the main menu. During the presentation, use Space to move on to the next text or scene. Once you are on the road, try a short move and open the inventory with 1. From there you can return with Esc and decide where you want to take the party.