Halls of the Things

In 1983 the British scene was still working out what an action game with exploration should look like, and Halls of the Things is one of the answers from that formative period. You move through a connected system of corridors and rooms, searching for the way onward while creatures roam the same space on their own schedules rather than waiting for you to arrive.

The important part is that everything happens in real time. This is not a turn-based dungeon crawl worked out on graph paper; you watch your surroundings, manage what you are carrying and make decisions immediately. That combination of exploration and reflex was relatively fresh at the time and points forward to the whole later current of action dungeon games.

The Commodore 64 supported the idea well. An 8-bit machine with the SID sound chip and hardware sprite handling could move several objects smoothly at once, which matters when multiple enemies share the screen. The graphics are sparse by modern standards, and that sparseness is exactly what keeps the play readable.

On OldGame.cz the game starts straight in your browser — no emulator configuration, no hunting for a disk image. For a forty-year-old title that removes the only real obstacle between curiosity and actually playing. Be prepared, though, for 1983 conventions: nothing is explained, there is no tutorial, and the first few minutes go on discovering which keys do what and which things kill you. If the origins of the action dungeon genre interest you, that is time well spent.