Flip-screen cRPGs

Flip-screen Computer Role-playing Games

A flip-screen cRPG is a computer role-playing game that updates a first-person perspective drawspace in real-time as the player moves forwards, backwards, left and right or turns left and right. The player moves about in tile-based increments and turns around in 90° step-increments; that is, there is usually no seamless three-dimensional or pseudo-3D screen-updating (rendering) of the world; the objects and actors scale depending on their proximity to the player. In addition, each character in the party usually moves as one bloc (not a misspelling), though with separate attacks.

Flip-screen cRPGs are so-named because players "flip through" a series of pre-drawn drawspaces by moving and turning their character or party. The drawspaces are linked together to form the chambers and corridors that constitute maze-like dungeons. Flip-screen cRPGs are almost invariably dungeon crawlers. However, "dungeon crawler" is too broad a term since isometric cRPGs can also be focused on dungeon-crawling.

Flip-screen cRPGs feature contiguous exploration of an environment; that is, as the player moves their party about a map of the environment is formed in the mind.

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 in torch-brackets, and items are picked up and put down.

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. 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 Box 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 derivatives only feature flip-screen exploration; battles play out in dimetric perspective.

Early examples of cRPGs that unwisely eschewed flip-screen in favor of interpolated 2D or real-time 3D:

• 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 slown 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.

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