Avatar (1979 video game)
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Avatar is a text-based role-playing computer game, with a minimal graphical display to help navigate through a dungeon. It has existed since 1979 and can be played online or between a Cyber1 or NovaNET system.
Basic gameplay
The user interface includes icons of monsters, statistic displays, information about the character's status, the status of the current encounter, and items being carried, worn and used. Maps show the character's current direction. The player starts the game by choosing a character which involves choosing a race, gender, guild, weapons and general abilities.
The movement keys in Avatar are A,W,D and S. F is used to fight, and S for spells. It often takes three or more hits to kill a monster. It takes from two to five seconds for a turn to finish. The O key is used to open boxes. Choosing a number key casts the spell, potion, or scroll loaded there.
Gold is used as a currency to buy items and weapons in stores located in the city. Gold can be banked or carried.
There are several ways to die in Avatar, including being injured by a monster, being poisoned, suffering from a spell and teleporting into solid rock. Monsters can poison, paralyze, blind, and attack characters. When a character dies, it can be resurrected by another character at the city. Potions and items can be used to aid in this task, but all resurrections cost a character age and stats.
There are several secret places in the dungeon. Rotators turn the character. TP rooms teleport characters to specific or random places. Anti-magic rooms make your spells and magic items ineffective, and some rooms render you blind.
Being a member of a guild means that you can be quested, to achieve higher levels and be able to use better items, spells, etc. One can be quested for items, to kill monsters, or for gold. Having to find a monster for a quest ranges from simple to very difficult. A common request of other players is to "S/R Golem", for example. The sender asks that someone who has found a Golem save and restrain it so a quested character can come and kill it, satisfying their quest. Asking for items is usually seen as begging and beneath the dignity of real players, but asking for an item to satisfy a quest is acceptable and it is considered noble to offer such an item. As a character rises in a guild the items and monsters quested become more difficult and costly. Eventually, one may need help to satisfy a quest, and this leads to the most remarkable feature of Avatar; teams and cooperative play.
One important aspect of Avatar is developing a group of other players one can count on to help out. Whether for a quest, more gold or experience, or just the thrill of killing monsters you would never see otherwise, joining parties is the height of Avatar.
Characters
Parties of characters are created by 'tracking' a leader. All the characters follow a leader wherever they travel. A party of Ninja, Seeker, Healer, and Sorcerer enabled you to fight most any monster, open most any box, and heal up your companions. Monsters that were immune to weapons could be overcome with spells. Other combinations could be more successful depending on the situation. Parties allowed you to carry other characters with you, letting them share in experience and treasure. Nice for beginners to get quick character growth. Some objectives were impossible for a single player, so parties were required. Level 15 of the dungeon was unsafe for all but a few characters alone, and even they might succumb to an encounter where the monsters were just too powerful.
The only way a player could harm another was to be in the back of a party and cast a spell that damaged players ahead of them. This happened most when beginners got over anxious. The advice was to hold your damaging spells if you were in the back, and cast healing forward after the encounter was over.