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The day my wife got greedy

1/24/2014

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One of the first CRPGs my wife and I ever played was "Temple of Apshai" for the Commodore 64.

"Temple of Apshai" was a dungeon crawler developed and published by Automated Simulations (later renamed to Epyx). The game is considered one of the first graphical role-playing games for home computers, predating even the commercial release of Richard Garriott's "Akalabeth: World of Doom".

As I recall, the game would periodically send players to the game manual to read descriptions of the rooms, monsters, treasures, and items. Pretty cool.
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Like many games from that era, especially RPGs, you couldn't just save any time or place you wanted. After killing a bunch of monsters and gathering a backpack full of loot, players were required to backtrack through the dungeon so they could save their progress and loot in the tavern.

It was a Saturday, about lunchtime.  My wife had been playing Apshai all morning and she was on an epic run.  I've never seen so much loot and I told her (nay, begged her) to leave the dungeon and save her progress. She kept telling me, "No, I'm good. I can do this."

I couldn't watch anymore, so I ran down to the store to pick up some lunch. When I got back 30 or so minutes later she was STILL in the dungeon.

"Look what I got in the last room!!!"  (I don't remember the item, but I do remember that it was incredible.)  Then she uttered the now infamous, "I'm going to do just ONE more room, and then I'm going to save."

I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  Giant spiders... and a dragon.  She begged the game gods, she pleaded with them, tears running down her cheeks as she tried to run away.  "No, don't kill me!!  Please!  No!  You can't.  NOOOOooooooo!"

She still plays RPGs, but I think that was her last visit to the "Temple of Apshai".
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