Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress is a dungeon-crawling action game, designed and coded by Tom Loughry with graphics by Keri Longaway (nee, Janssen), and first published by Activision for the Coleco Adam and ColecoVision console in 1985.

In some ways Alcazar is a progenitor of the early Zelda games, with an overhead viewpoint and traps and enemies trying to stop you from completing your task. It also looks and plays a bit like Ultimate‘s classic Atic Atac, which came out in 1983.

Alcazar begins on a World Map, and the player must make their way through various castles in order to reach the fortress on the far right-hand side of the map. Each time the game is played the route is randomised and the layout of the enemies, traps and rooms is always different.

Playing Alcazar now, the game is still reasonably playable and absorbing, although a bit limited. It’s an interesting early entry in the action adventure genre and the ColecoVision version is arguably the best one out there.

More: Alcazar: The Forgotten Fortress on Wikipedia