Black Crypt is the first game developed by Raven Software. It’s an Amiga exclusive, initially published by Electronic Arts in 1992. It could be argued that it’s also an unashamed clone of FTL’s Dungeon Master, but it is at least an exceptional one.

At the beginning of the game you create your characters from scratch, although these must be a Fighter, a Priest, a Magic-User, and a Druid. You can name your characters, choose their profile picture, and give them a boost with some extra skill points, but you can’t change their class.

Movement is tile-based and combat is real-time, and from the very first level you’ll encounter hostile creatures lurking in the maze that will attack you without warning. Thankfully, though, the first creatures you encounter (these weird floating eye things with protective lids), aren’t too difficult to defeat – as long as your characters are properly equipped and firing on all cylinders. The same can’t be said for the monster you encounter on the second floor… A giant, two-headed ogre that is acting as the gate-keeper to the third level. The only way to kill the ogre, you discover, is to find a sword called “The Ogre Blade” and use that on him. Finding the sword, however, is no easy task.

When you finally manage to get past the dastardly ogre, what awaits you on level three is much worse… So bad, in fact, that you’re supposed to skip them and return to them later. They’re called “The Unseen“, and as the name implies, you can’t see or kill them – at least not until you’ve found a special artefact that renders them visible and killable.

Your problems really begin to stack up when you reach level four and you encounter thieves for the first time… They don’t much look like thieves (they look more like vicious, squat, grey gargoyles), but they will steal your character’s weapons out of their hands and disappear instantly – unless you manage to kill them quickly. They are a gigantic pain in the arse, and dealing with one is a monumental task. And there are five or six of them on level four… Which is why I advocate using quicksaves, and trying again and again to kill them before they run off. Because if you don’t, then you’re going to have problems going forward… If you kill one, though, they will at least drop whatever they stole from you, so you can at least get your items back from them. Tip: prepare before taking one on. Get some offensive spells ready and give the damn thing everything you’ve got, as quickly as you can. If it teleports away with one of your weapons: reload and try again. And don’t forget to upgrade your spells by dropping the found spellbooks on the open books in your inventory! It took me a while to figure that out…

I will say, though, that it does get a little bit easier once you’ve dealt with most of level four. If you’ve been careful and have successfully dealt with the thieves and ceiling-scuttlers (my name for them); and have upgraded your weapons, armour and spells as you’ve progressed, then you should be gaining a foothold. After level four, it’s then back upstairs to deal with “The Unseen”, and thankfully they’re not too difficult to kill, and they at least don’t steal stuff from you…

Black Crypt is tough. Maybe even as difficult as Chaos Strikes Back, but (just like CSB) it is still worth playing because it is atmospheric, scary and exceptionally well-designed. Personally, I don’t think it’s quite as good as Dungeon Master (or Eye of the Beholder 1 & 2), because the interface is a little clunky and the puzzles are not quite as clever, but overall Black Crypt is an excellent game.

The game’s manual actually has a full set of maps for all 28 levels of the game, which must’ve been a blessing for players of the original. Black Crypt is so challenging that playing it blind is an almost impossible task. Thankfully, there are maps on the internet that replicate the originals, and if you’re going to play the game now, I highly recommend studying them. Otherwise, you’ll be in for a world of hurt!

A number of other tips: each character’s Armour Class (AC) is shown on the panel at the bottom of the screen – the higher that number is, the better (which is contrary to AD&D ‘THAC0’ rules, where the opposite is true); to choose a party leader, click on the small box to the right of the AC number (this is important when using special items, like The Mask of True Sight or The Gauntlets of Temin); most monsters cannot pass through door openings, so use this to your advantage, but watch out for special cases where monsters are so strong that they can break down closed doors; later in the game, when you learn the spell Sustenance, you no longer need to eat food or drink water, so you can free up inventory space by reducing the number of water skins you’re carrying; use the spell Wizard Sight all the time, and remember that when this spell is not active, the game’s automap isn’t working; you also need Wizard Sight active to use the Teleport spell; cast a Light spell when in dark areas; use tablets to upgrade your characters’ abilities (left-click them on a character’s symbol on the inventory panel).

More: Black Crypt on Wikipedia