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Many years ago, after the great Crash of '84 - but before the dawn of the NES era - I was very much into the Atari 2600. I recall spending many, many hours playing a lot of the early classics, such as Pitfall!, Pitfall II: Lost Caverns, Yar's Revenge and Haunted House. I would spend most of my summer vacations during those years playing the Atari and all of the various games we had, either by myself, with my siblings, or with my best friend Len (the same Len that's my collaborator on West Mansion).

I don't recall when it was exactly, but I recall going to visit Len, and he had something I'd never seen before - a Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer. He had one game at the time, and upon playing it, I became absolutely enthralled with it. The concept was simple - gather treasure and keys, then get to the next room - and possibly have to come back for more keys - while avoiding the enemies that inhabited the caves. As simple as it may seem by today's standards, at the time it was a major leap over just about anything I had ever seen before.

That game was Downland.

It became one of the games that had the greatest influence on me as a gamer, and because of that, is one of the only computer games you will ever see here at the OPCFG (I'm a console gamer, not a PC gamer - I always have been, and I probably always will be). Between Downland and Pitfall II, my taste in gaming was changed forever. No longer would simple, one-screen games be the end-all, be-all of gaming to me... now there was more. There were games that continued on beyond that one screen... games that took the player on an adventure. To me, it was a new and exciting concept - and I had more fun with Downland then I did with half of my family's Atari collection. This was the game that helped prepare me for what later systems like the NES had to offer. Downland helped build the bridge between the two eras of gaming for me, and without it, who knows how things would have gone?

Unfortunately, this is one of the only games that I loved that I was never able to get. The TRS-80 that my family had died, and shortly thereafter, we moved to another state - and Len was the one that had the game. I haven't seen it or played it since I left Connecticut, all those years ago. I have no plans to ever get a TRS-80, and I seriously doubt that Downland will ever be released for anything else. However, I'll always remember Downland, and I'll always count it as one of the games that most influenced me and helped shape my tastes as a gamer.

As a side note, I have to say that it's amazing what you can find out with a little research. It turns out Downland had a sequel, Cave Walker. I always wondered if it had a sequel, but I never knew about it until now. I just wish I could play it.