Pool of Radiance

Pool of Radiance is a video game in the role-playing (rpg) genre developed by Strategic Simulations, Inc. and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. originally released in 1988. It is currently playable on DOS.

Located on the northern coast of the Moon Sea in the Forgotten Realms, Phlan was once a flourishing trading city. Lately, however, monsters have begun to settle there, gradually turning entire districts into ruins. Only New Phlan remains under human control, but its inhabitants are afraid to venture into the monster-infested areas. To clean up the nearby Barren River and rebuild Phlan, local authorities spread rumors of supposed riches hidden somewhere in the city. A group of adventurers, attracted by this news, sails to Phlan and accepts the quest.

Pool of Radiance is the first adaptation of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game system in computer game format. At the beginning of the game, the player can use a preset pool of six characters or create each character from scratch. Six races (human, elf, dwarf, gnome, halfling and half-elf) and four classes (fighter, cleric, mage and thief) are available. The player can adjust character attributes and assign a moral alignment to each character.

Exploration of the city and hostile areas (dungeons) is done from a first-person perspective in a pseudo-3D world. Enemy encounters are randomized and take place in separate isometric combat screens, where the player-controlled party and enemies take turns fighting each other. Experience points are awarded for defeating enemies, and characters level up after accumulating set amounts. Fighters gain more attacks, thieves become more skilled at backstabbing, while clerics and mages can memorize more spells to cast before they need to rest. Non-human characters can also 'multiclass' (learn the skills of another class) as they level up.

The NES version was substantially different from the other versions. It removed references to the Adventure Diary and some of the more complex features of the computer versions, such as the different currency units. The battles were greatly reduced, the graphics were revised and redesigned so that the game could be controlled with a controller, and music was composed for it. The randomly generated dungeons feature was also removed.

Pool of Radiance is available at a reduced price on the following websites and is no longer abandonware.