Pool of Radiance

"Pool of Radiance," (PoR) released in 1990, was the first in the Gold Box series of games from Strategic Simulations', Inc. (SSI). The Gold Box line was the inaugural effort to bring TSR-licensed Dungeons & Dragons action to the personal computer. PoR was followed by "Curse of the Azure Bonds" and "Secret of the Silver Blades," each of which used essentially the same gameplay mechanics to allow players to move a party of characters through adventures in the Forgotten Realms D&D setting. The popularity of the PoR campaign was highlighted by the 2001 release of "Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor," an attempt to update the essential Gold Box experience with new 3D graphics and animation. Although technologically enhanced, this updated game lacked the same atmosphere as the original game, and failed to create the same level of loyalty and nostalgia in its players.

Storyline

Pool of Radiance introduced players to the port city of Phlan, on the New Sea of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Phlan was a frontier town hoping to carve a space for itself in this rugged and monster-infested region. In order to do this, the city council had decided to advertise in other cities in the Realms in an effort to attract adventurers who could clean out the monster menace and then act as settlers or pioneers in the founding of the city. The game begins with your party standing on the docks of the city, having responded to one such advertisement.

To progress through the game, your party was expected to cleanse the city of its unsavory inhabitants, block by block. This began with the lowly slums to the west of the docks (inhabited by mere hobgoblins and kobolds,) to the eventual showdown with Tyranthraxus, master of the powerful Pool of Radiance. In later Realms lore, the Pool would be revealed as a Mythal, a type of magical depository/security system first developed by the elves of Myth Drannor in their efforts to survive the demonic incursions into their homeland.

Gameplay

Hopelessly primitive by today's standards, PoR was an instant classic for the legions of D&D fans who had longed for the opportunity to practice their obsession on the emerging PC platform. Although other fantasy worlds had already made their way to the computer (notably "The Bard's Tale" series), the marriage of "high tech" with D&D credentials was a sure-fire success. PoR essentially allowed the player to experience something similar to tabletop miniature gaming while ridding him of troublesome baggage such as dice, rule books, and Dungeon Masters. The use of the computer's rule-crunching efficiency was much-appreciated in those days when real gamers played ADVANCED Dungeons & Dragons. This was First Edition at a time when no one knew there was going to be a Second Edition, let alone the dumbed-down, now-any-idiot-can-play simplicity of something like 3.5 Edition. By transferring the game to computer, an individual gamer could play any time they wanted and did not need to find a group of like-minded individuals to "play" with. While this was great for lonely role-playing addicts, it must have been lean times for pizza delivery and Mountain Dew sales.

Summary

If you can still find a computer slow enough to run it, track down PoR and give it a try. There is something satisfyingly "unflashy" about it that speaks to the gamer's soul. The satisfaction one gets from clearing out a block of the city of Phlan and then returning to the docks area for that reward is hard to explain - and maybe impossible to understand if you have been raised on high-tech computer gaming and never spent a long night with a group of "friends" trying to decide what toppings to get on the pizza while the thief (there were no "rogues" back then) is rolling his percentile dice to check every door, floor, wall, and ceiling for traps. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, quit wasting time reading this and just get back to World of Warcraft.