Dark Chambers (From Matty Matt Show #MAMA0110)
1988 (7800)

Dark Chambers was released for the Atari 7800 in 1988.
It’s a dungeon crawling game where you make
your way through the maze of horrors finding
weapons and keys, and fighting zombies,
skeletons, wraiths, wizards, and a few grim reapers.
Every time you hit one of these ghouls,
they’ll devolve into one lower frightening form.
You can collect items for big points and collect
potion and food to refuel your energy.
Which is useful because every eight seconds,
you lose energy.
This game was originally developed for the 8-bit
line of Atari computers by John Palevich,
an MIT graduate and released as Dandy through
Atari’s APX, The Atari Program Exchange, in 1983.
Mr. Palevich designed his original game Dandy as
a thesis for his bachelor’s degree.
He then worked at Atari for a moment before working
at Hewlett Packard. It was there that it was brought
to his attention that Atari’s arcade division had
utilized elements of his game in their game Gauntlet
all without him knowing anything about it. Atari Games
did grant Mr. Palevich permission to work on and profit
from his original Dandy concept while Gauntlet and
its successors were on the market, including its
7800 and 2600 cousin Dark Chambers.
While Gauntlet is the superior form of this game,
if all you have is a 7800, you’ll still get a good
fright out of this game. Dark Chambers is available
on the Atari 50th Anniversary Collection for modern
platforms and Steam.