The Land

The Land is a video game in the role-playing (rpg) genre developed by Mike Riley and published by Mike Riley originally released in 1989. It is currently playable on DOS.

The Land is an interesting and unique shareware RPG based on the fantasy trilogy 'The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant' by Stephen R. Donaldson. In typical Roguelike game fashion, you create a character, travel The Lands and dungeons in search of treasure and magic. There is a main objective that you will discover as you play.

What sets The Land apart from other RPGs despite the old-fashioned CGA graphics (in 1989!) is the judicious use of Donaldson's intriguing fantasy game world. In addition to novel classes such as 'Bloodguard', all characters have some vow or oath to follow, which is done by devoting a certain amount of time to their cause. If characters do not follow ('service') theirs, their skills will be reduced over time.

The amount of service changes from class to class and level to level. You start the game with 6 months of service per year, with an additional month every five levels. This is a nice break from the mundane 'kill monsters, get gold, upgrade equipment' routine, although much of Donaldson's imaginative monsters are present to make the game already quite unique anyway.

It's worth a look, especially if you're interested in different roguelikes.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.