Flip-screen cRPGs

Flip-screen Computer Role-playing Games

Flip-screen cRPGs are computer role-playing games that update first-person perspective drawspaces in real-time as players move their character or party forwards, backwards, left and right or turn left and right.

Players move characters or parties about in discrete tile-based increments and turn them around in 90° step-increments; that is, there is usually no 3D screen-updating (rendering) of the world; the object and actor sprites scale depending on their proximity to the player-controlled unit.

In most flip-screen cRPGs players move parties about in one bloc or as one unit, but each party member attacks separately.

Flip-screen cRPGs are so-named because players "flip through" a series of pre-drawn drawspaces by moving and turning around. The drawspaces are linked together to form the chambers and corridors that constitute maze-like dungeons.

Flip-screen cRPGs are almost invariably dungeon crawlers.

Flip-screen cRPGs feature contiguous exploration of dungeons; that is, as players move parties about the dungeon a map of the dungeon is formed in the mind, which players can transfer to physical graph paper aka grid paper, thereby drawing a plan-view map of the dungeon for reference purposes, which they usually annotate as well.

In flip-screen cRPGs the party is controlled via arrow-keys, numeric keypad or, if using a mouse, via an icon cluster.

Captive of 1990 is the best flip-screen cRPG ever made:

In flip-screen cRPGs the mouse-cursor is seamlessly moved between the icon cluster and the active drawspace. In the drawspace interactable objects are manipulated with mouse-clicks and mouse-movements. For example, doors are opened and closed, keys are inserted into locks, switches are toggled, torches are removed from and placed back into torch-brackets, and items are picked up, put down and thrown.

An item that has been clicked on in the drawspace auto-attaches itself to the mouse-cursor and can be placed into the inventory with another click, and vice versa.

As a rule, flip-screen cRPGs are easy to get into due to their intuitive interfaces and logical drawspace presentation, but they are usually not as easy to beat due to their maze-like dungeons that are packed with puzzles, traps and monsters.

Flip-screen cRPGs were popular on Atari ST, Amiga and IBM PC, but it was the native hardware mouse-cursor and icon-presentation capabilities of the ST/Amiga that ushered in what became the modern flip-screen cRPG with the advent of Dungeon Master of 1987.

Chronological List of Flip-screen cRPGs

This is a chronological list of flip-screen cRPGs with on-screen colors and active first-person drawspace size appended. This shows how pathetically small the Gold Pox aka Gold Slop drawspace was for half a decade.

• Dungeon Master Atari ST FTL 1987: 16-color 224x136
• Pool of Radiance IBM PC MS-DOS SSI 1988: 16-color EGA 88x88
• Bloodwych Amiga Anthony Taglione 1989: 16-color 2x 128x76
• Chaos Strikes Back Atari ST FTL 1989: 16-color 224x136
• Captive Amiga Tony Crowther 1990: 32-color 144x112
• Legend of Faerghail Amiga Electronic Design 1990: 32-color 120x120
• Buck Rogers IBM PC MS-DOS 1990: 16-color EGA 88x88
• Crystals of Arborea IBM PC MS-DOS Silmarils 1990: 16-color EGA 320x152
• Eye of the Beholder IBM PC MS-DOS Westwood 1991: 256-color VGA 176x120
• Fate Gates of Dawn Amiga reLINE 1991: 32-color 176x107
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier IBM PC MS-DOS SSI 1991: 16-color EGA 88x88
• Neverwinter Nights IBM PC MS-DOS SSI 1991: 16-color EGA 88x88
• Black Crypt Amiga Raven Software 1992: 64-color 208x140
• Dark Queen of Krynn IBM PC MS-DOS SSI 1992: 256-color VGA 88x88
• Ishar IBM PC MS-DOS Silmarils 1992: 256-color VGA 256x126
• Ishar 2 IBM PC MS-DOS Silmarils 1993: 256-color VGA 256x113
• Dungeon Hack IBM PC MS-DOS Dreamforge 1993: 256-color VGA 176x120
• Unlimited Adventures IBM PC MS-DOS SSI 1993: 256-color VGA 88x88
• Lands of Lore IBM PC MS-DOS 1993: 256-color VGA 176x120
• Hired Guns IBM PC MS-DOS Visual Sciences 1993: 256-color VGA 4x 140x82
• Perihelion The Prophecy Amiga Morbid Visions 1993: 32-color 176x120
• Ishar 3 IBM PC MS-DOS Silmarils 1994: 256-color VGA 256x113
• Dungeon Master 2 IBM PC MS-DOS FTL 1995: 256-color VGA 224x136

It should also be noted that Pool of Radiance and its inferior derivatives only feature flip-screen exploration; battles play out in dimetric perspective.

Here are early examples of cRPGs that unwisely eschewed flip-screen drawspaces in favor of imprecise 2D drawspace interpolation or real-time 3D render-fields:

• Ultima Underworld IBM PC MS-DOS Origin Systems 1992: 256-color VGA 172x112
• Legends of Valor IBM PC MS-DOS Synthetic 1992: 256-color VGA 192x100
• Betrayal at Krondor IBM PC MS-DOS Dynamix 1993: 256-color VGA 294x100
• Space Hulk IBM PC MS-DOS EA 1993: 256-color VGA 1x 160x80 + 4x 76x40
• Liberation Captive 2 Amiga Byte Engineers 1993: 256-color AGA 192x100
• Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession IBM PC MS-DOS 1994: 256-color SVGA 512x256
• Elder Scrolls: Arena IBM PC MS-DOS Bethesda 1994: 256-color VGA 320x146

Some of the above employed up/down looks which only served to slow down gameplay. The above are no better than flip-screen cRPGs. Indeed, their gameplay is worse. And not only is their gameplay worse their system requirements are much higher. None of the above have aged well in terms of gameplay yet Dungeon Master is as playable in 2024 as it was 37 years ago.

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