Moria (1975 video game)
| Company type | Video game |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Founded | 1975 |
| Founder | Kevet Duncombe, Jim Battin |
| Products | Dungeon crawl-style role-playing video game |
Moria is a dungeon crawl-style role-playing video game created for the PLATO system around 1975 by Kevet Duncombe and Jim Battin. It allows up to ten players to simultaneously navigate a procedurally generated dungeon, displayed through a first-person wireframe 3D interface.
Gameplay
In Moria, groups of as many as ten participants can explore together and interact, featuring dungeons that are generated dynamically and rendered in a wireframe first-person view.
Development
The development of Moria began circa 1975 or 1976 by Kevet Duncombe and Jim Battin. Initially, the game was designed as a top-down 2D dungeon crawler, drawing inspiration from contemporary PLATO titles such as dnd and Orthanc (1978). It was one of multiple games on the PLATO network during the late 1970s influenced by Dungeons & Dragons. While Tolkien and D&D themes shaped the game's concept, Duncombe himself had not directly engaged with those sources. Subsequently, Battin suggested transforming the game into a 3D format, influenced by early PLATO 3D games like Panther, Spasim, and Airfight. The title Moria was proposed by Dirk Pellett, the creator of dnd.
An update was released in 1984, as indicated by its copyright date. Originally presented in monochrome consistent with all PLATO programs, color support was introduced in 1994 by a University Online intern following the sale of CYBIS—the new name for PLATO after acquisition.
See also
Sources
- Playable version of Moria at cyber1.org
- Fun with PLATO at Armchair Arcade