The Pit

The Pit is a video game in the action genre developed by Midas Touch Software and published by Midas Touch Software originally released in 1990. It is currently playable on DOS.

As the story goes, King Reginald Hornbluff of Regal City revives his kingdom's flagging economy and restores order to the streets torn by conflict between predatory criminals and well-meaning but dangerous vigilantes by commodifying the chaos, containing the conflict by building a huge gladiatorial arena with cash prizes for the strongest competitors and charging admission to the arena.

You play a farmer, the toughest in your village, who comes to the big city to make his fortune by outwitting the wretched human scum and strange creatures that populate the arena known as The Pit. It's a long series of fantastic top-down combat, in which you take turns trading melee, ranged and magical attacks with a variety of enemies ranging from battle slaves, clad only in loincloths, to heroes of history and legend, dragons, liches and Norse gods . . . and you stay out of their line of fire until your next counterattack is available. Use your earnings to upgrade your equipment (if you can haggle the vendor down to a fair price), or claim the weapons and armor of your fallen opponents. If you tire of your current tier of opponents (the next one is usually quite a bit tougher), you can always hone your skills against other players, controlled by the AI (or against the SysOp, in real time), and just when you think you've got the game down to a routine, the shadowy presence of the Assassin in the tavern and the Dark Avenger, a sinister doppelganger who stalks the arena's best champions, keeps you on your toes. And if you fall in the sands of the arena, you'll be back on form the next day, though your gear will have been picked over.

While its intended game context as a BBS gateway game (though it can be played locally) generally only displays text-mode menus, stat screens, and Rogue or Kroz-like symbol graphics in the upper right corner in response to your single-character keyboard input (keyboard directions reporting actions such as [A]ttack with Hand Weapon, [F]ire Range Weapon, [B]eg for Mercy), The Pit also featured an optional enhanced terminal program with EGA graphics and music.

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