Pool of Radiance

Pool of Radiance was the first computer game built directly on an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license, and it set the template SSI would follow for its Gold Box titles for several more years. A party of newcomers arrives in the ravaged town of Phlan on the shore of Moonsea and clears it of monsters district by district in order to return it to its people. What starts as ordinary cleanup gradually turns into an investigation pointing toward a far greater threat in the background. The player builds the party from scratch, including races, classes, and attribute distribution, so the first hours are mostly about bare survival.

The game combines three layers. Moving through the town and wilderness happens in first-person, grid-based view; combat unfolds turn-based on an isometric grid where each character has its own movement and action; and part of the story is carried by long texts printed in an accompanying booklet, which the game references by paragraph number. The turn-based battles are its greatest strength: positioning the party, sleep spells, precisely dosed magic, and using chokepoints turn every larger clash into a small tactical puzzle. AD&D's rules are transferred faithfully, including initiative, brutally low starting hit points, and the need to rest to recover spells. Experience is also divided by class, and advancing a level requires a visit to a training hall, not just accumulating points.

Technically the game was modest, with simple scenery and monster portraits; the atmosphere is carried by well-written texts and the feeling that Phlan is genuinely being cleared street by street. At the time it was received excellently and kicked off a whole series of sequels on the same engine, which carried the D&D license through the rest of the eighties and beyond. Today it demands patience with the interface and the pace, but its tactical combat remains enjoyable, and many later games under the same license draw directly from it. A saved party could be carried over into the other Gold Box games, creating an unusually long continuity across the individual titles.