Development and release history

; Exploring the Dungeons of Avalon, a disassembly project

Dungeons of Avalon was a series of two computer roleplaying games released in 1992 for the Commodore Amiga.

  1. Development
  2. Publication
  3. Reception
  4. Detailed timeline
    1. 1990
    2. 1991
    3. 1992
    4. 1993 onward

Development

Work on the original Dungeons of Avalon began no later than 1991, with an early alpha build of that game completed in May of that year. The primary developers were coder/artist Hakan Akbiyik of newly-formed group A-Cron (later named Zeret) and musician/artist Rudolf “Rudi” Stember of group Cyberstyle. The duo had worked together on other games, including The Curse of Ra (Oct 1990), Commodore 64 title Cylogic (Apr 1991), and Amiga puzzle game Log!cal (May 1991).

In terms of development time, file dates place the completion of Zeret’s previous game Log!cal on 24 May 1991. Development of Dungeons of Avalon was clearly already underway at this point. An early alpha build of Dungeons of Avalon is file-dated to 8 May 1991 in the early hours of the morning. The user interface is functional, but it lacks art, dungeon layout, and audio.

Based on file dates in the completed official English release, the game’s sound, music, and most of its art were completed by 26 December 1991, 233 days later. On 28 January 1992, both English and German game text was complete, along with the end graphics (unattainable due to a bug) and final dungeon graphics.

At this point, the team Zeret had now risen to four members: Hakan, Rudi, bugtester Christian Awizio and Andre Willms, who had worked with Hakan and Rudi on The Curse of Ra. Additionally credited are Frank Matzke of CAT! for monster sketches, Klaus Ehrhardt for the monster art, and Thomas Jakowatz for the final level design, with additional thanks to Thomas Scholl (who worked with Akbiyik on Log!cal) and Michael Niedecken.

By 7 Feb 1992 the English game executable and dungeon map were finalized. The final end credits were now updated to the copyright date of “91/92” instead of 91, and a sequel is teased.

On 17 Feb 1992, 286 days or just over 9 months after the alpha, the final English release was complete. It is likely that the German build was completed on the same day.

The end credits indicate that Dungeons of Avalon was written in HiSoft Devpac Assembler, a popular choice for commercial Amiga games at the time.

The game’s title image appears to have been created with something like Vista Pro, a procedural terrain generation program. The same system was used extensively in some other Amiga games, such as Lee Bamber’s Weapon Masters.

A sequel, Dungeons of Avalon II, was already planned by the first game’s completion, and would be complete by 17 July 1992, five months later.

Publication

Contrary to popular belief in the English-speaking Amiga community, the Dungeons of Avalon games were never released into the public domain, but were distributed exclusively as coverdisks with some Amiga magazines. Pirate releases and miscommunication led to the English release being redistributed in PD channels.

The first Dungeons of Avalon was released on a coverdisk with the April-May 1992 issue of Amiga Fun, a German magazine published by CompuTec Verlag. A copyright notice in the game manual indicates that CT Verlag may have published exclusive rights to publish Dungeons of Avalon, although Zeret retained the trademark on the title.

Like many Amiga games of this era, pirate copies of Dungeons of Avalon were distributed almost immediately. Pirate group Tequila released a version on 13 Mar 1992, plausibly the same day the April issue hit newsstands.

On 2 April, prior to the official English-language release, pirate group Paradise rushed out a release of an unofficial English translation, created by patching the German pirate release. Unfortunately, decompressing the program to modify it required deleting other files to make room, leading to a bug that prevented the dungeon from loading correctly on a new game. The translation was also poorly done.

This bootleg translation found its way to the editors of UK magazine Amiga Mania, who were authorized to release the English version of Dungeons of Avalon with their July 1992 issue. However, this magazine issue displays screenshots of the bootleg translation, suggesting the magazine didn’t receive the English disk in time. At least one distributed version of Dungeons of Avalon dated 30 April 1992, perhaps the deadline for the July issue, simply strips the pirate cracktro from the bootleg.

Whether Amiga Mania #4 actually distributed the bootleg by mistake, or actually released the official English version, is uncertain. The correct English version did at some point see release.

The sequel, Dungeons of Avalon II: The Island of Darkness, was released in German as a coverdisk with the October 1992 issue. of Amiga Fun, and in English as a coverdisk with the October 1992 issue of Amiga Mania. These issues likely hit the stands in Sept 1992.

The English version of Dungeons of Avalon II was quickly pirated by group DYTEC, who released it on 4 October 1992. A trainer, or cheat program, was added by Palace on 6 October, who distributed it via dial-up BBS on 8th April.

An unofficial patched version of Dungeons of Avalon II (English) was released which corrected some bugs and minor spelling errors. This did not cause disk problems, as the original executable of this game was not compressed like its predecessor. This is made possible by Dungeons of Avalon II’s smaller levels: 32 x 32 squares instead of 50 x 50.

On 15 October 1992, author Hakan Akbiyik created a slightly updated version of the German executable which fixes one bug. This version also has six very high level starting characters, perhaps intended for testing the game. Amiga Games magazine later distributed this edition of Dungeons of Avalon II on its “Sonderausgabe 1/95” magazine CD-ROM in September 1995, and released an unknown version of DoA2 on a CD-ROM again in May 1996.

Despite being a copyrighted game, the English releases of Dungeons of Avalon and Dungeons of Avalon II were widely distributed as public domain disks. It’s possible that they were mistaken as such as the English versions did not include a manual, and as such gave no indication of their publisher. Many versions also stripped the cracktro simply by deleting it from the startup-sequence, which might otherwise have identified it as pirate commercial software.

Reception

In May 1992, Amiga Joker reviewed the original Dungeons of Avalon, giving it a score of 72%.

In November 1992, Amiga Joker reviewed Dungeons of Avalon II, giving it a score of 70%.

In 1993, in SynTax diskmagazine issue 27, Bill Commons reviewed Dungeons of Avalon, saying “I have been playing this game now for seven weeks and I am absolutely hooked on it.” The reviewer was unable to defeat the final boss.

In September 1997, P A Hardy of SynTax diskmagazine issue 51 reviewed Dungeons of Avalon II, which the group mistook for public domain. The review notes a bug regarding NPC encounters, which makes the game impossible.

In 2015, The CRPG Addict played Dungeons of Avalon, reviewing it in four parts (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4). He praised the “grotesque and beautiful” graphics, but criticized the interface. The final score was 31/100, “recommended”, the highest-scoring diskmagazine game to date and an average score overall. He was unable to defeat the final boss without cheats.

In 2020, The CRPG addict played Dungeons of Avalon II, reviewing it in 2 parts (part 1, part 2). He criticized the linear dungeon layout, but again praised the monster graphics, rating the Dungeons of Avalon series in the top 5% of monster graphics out of 360 games he has played. He rated the game 30/100 overall. Due to bugs, he was forced to switch to the German version, and was unable to pass the door which requires resurrecting the NPC thief Rahven, a feature only mentioned in the German manual.

Detailed timeline

1990

1991

1992

1993 onward

« Back to index page