Publisher: Strategic Simulations Inc.
Designer: Chuck Kroegel
Type: Roleplaying
Platform: Various
Release Date: 1988
Rating: 
I believe that this was basically the first of the official Dungeons and Dragons games, and it certainly showed it. Mind you, I do remember when it was first released, and it was all the rage, namely because my friends and I loved Dungeons and Dragons, so when an official game was released, we all wanted a copy of it so we could not only play it but see who the first to complete it world be (spoiler – it wasn’t me).
So, the whole idea is that you create a party and then you have to go into this ruined city and clear it out of all of the monsters therein. The first level, for want of a better word, was the slums, and I remember that the final battle in the slums was really, really hard, namely because you were low-level characters and had to fight a bunch of ogres are trolls – gee, that was fun.
The interesting thing was that the next level you had to go and fight undead. Seriously, what is it with fighting undead on the second stage of the game – all of the games seemed to do that for some reason. In fact, I find undead overused, and rather boring
Pools of Radiance was a good game, and rather challenging, though of course being the first of a series certainly showed a lot. Obviously, they were still trying to tweak the game as the next ones were produced. I did manage to complete it, and it certainly did get easier one you managed to get through that really annoying battle with the trolls and the ogres (honestly, who thought that a bunch of first level characters could actually beat them). The game was also open to being mapped as well, though back in those days maps tended to be placed on pieces of papers, which meant that I had a huge graph book full of maps form the various games that I played.
Sure, this isn’t going to stand up to any of the modern games, and in hindsight, it really wasn’t all that great either, compared to the forerunners that really set the scene up. However, it was still fun, and does deserve its place in history.
Anyway, you can find out more about this game on Wikipedia, and of course it has an entry on the Forgotten Realms Fandom wiki. Oh, and you might also be looking for a walkthrough as well, and yes, there is one.
Games & Tech with the Sarkologist 