Wyvern vs Orthanc

Wyvern is an indie, multiplayer, fantasy adventure role-playing game — a vast, hand-built world that has been alive since the late 1990s, now rebuilt from the ground up for modern iPhones and iPads. It has a retro look and feel, with old-school graphics reminiscent of classic tile-based RPGs. Despite its simple appearance, Wyvern is deep, vast and exciting. FEATURES: • Eighteen player races — humans, halflings, dwarves, nagas, pixies, lupines, vampires, three kinds of elves, four giant clans and four feline rakshasa — with 45 ready-to-play character builds • Thousands of handcrafted maps to explore: cities, castles, snowbound forts, deserts, volcanoes and haunted depths — no procedural filler; every map was built by a person • A mission journal packed with quests, and new missions added all the time • Hundreds of unique monsters and enemies to challenge you • Specialized Guilds that grant large skill bonuses: Mages, Paladins, Ninjas, Rangers, Monks and more • A rich magic system with over 150 spells and powerful magical specializations • Many trainable skills to choose from • Craft weapons, armor and potions, and trade with other players • PvP combat arenas • Random dungeons for limitless content • Personal in-game homes you can furnish and share • Adventuring groups with support roles • Strong community features: chat channels, in-game messaging, mail and more • One world, every screen: your character is also playable in a desktop browser — pick up on your phone right where you left off • Actively developed: fixes and new content ship nearly every day There is a lot to learn in Wyvern, but you will never have to learn it alone: shout, and one of the friendliest long-running communities in online gaming will answer. Players run the guilds, host seasonal events and look out for newcomers — and they keep the world welcoming and family-friendly, with the tools to show trolls the door. Played Wyvern years ago? Your world is still here. Existing accounts and characters carry straight over — your hero is waiting right where you left them. Wyvern is free to play and is not pay-to-win. Optional in-app purchases exist for convenience, but power comes from playing: your skills, your gear, your friends.

This game is a faithful recreation of "Orthanc", one of the first graphic dungeon crawl role-playing games developed for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's PLATO computer in the 1970s. The original was played on a PLATO terminal with a keyboard. (The PLATO version of "Orthanc" was inspired by "pedit5", which you can learn more about in Wikipedia.) The original PLATO terminals used plasma panels only capable of displaying orange and black. There is no sound. This implementation uses the touchscreen for all gameplay. You are an adventurer gaining experience and treasure by defeating monsters. Orthanc is easy to start but hard to put down.