ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® TOWER OF MYSTERY Cartridge

ATARI 2600 CARTRIDGE [UNRELEASED #7175]

AKA D&D III

Trademarks owned by and used under license from TSR Hobbies, Inc.

Program: Jane Terjung & Mike Sanders

Graphics: Jane Terjung


CATALOG DESCRIPTION (January, 1984, Consumer Electronics Show)

Stuck on top of the Tower of Mystery, you must preserve your strength and protect the treasure as you attempt to escape.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY

D&D III began development while Daniel Bass, designer of the Intellivision version, was still in the early stages of defining the game. Still. both versions shared a number of features: a map view for exploration, close-ups for battles, and, most distinctively, a scrolling line of text that imparted information and commentary from on-screen characters.

Jane Terjung put together an impressive game - this was one of the 16K Super Cartridges with 2K of on- board RAM (see Comments) - with eight different types of screens. (Jane says she was proudest of her graphics for the game -- "On an Atari 2600, flickering candles are part science and part art!") Unfortunately, this was late 1983 and Mattel Electtronics was losing hundreds of millions of dollars and making drastic cuts. Jane was laid off and Mike Sanders picked up to continue the development. He worked on the game briefly until Mattel Electronics closed in January 1984 - one month before the scheduled completion of the game. The game was one of only six Atari titles officially still in development at the time of the closing. All that survives is the demo shown at the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The Intellivision version was also left unfinished by the closing of Mattel Electronics, but it was later rescued. The game was completed and released several years later as Tower of Doom from INTV Corporation.

FUN FACT: The capitalization and inclusion of the word "cartridge" are contractually part of the title of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS TOWER OF MYSTERY Cartridge at TSR's insistence.

FUN FACT: The 1984 demo of Tower of Mystery for Atari returned to Las Vegas in August 1999, where it was publicly shown for the first time in 15 years at the Classic Gaming Expo. Atari fans were able to play the cartridge in the Intellivision Productions booth.