Trial by Magic

Trial by Magic is a video game in the role-playing (rpg) genre developed by Silver Lightning Software and published by Merit Studios, Inc. originally released in 1995. It is currently playable on DOS.

Trial by Magic is an above-average isometric dungeon crawler RPG that is very reminiscent of Event Horizon's classic The Summoning, except with much more emphasis on combat difficulty.

Your goal is simply to descend through a dungeon as deep as possible to defeat the mighty Trialmaster. The game features over 20 huge levels, plenty of monsters to kill, treasures to loot, secret doors to find, and all the action you'd expect from an old-school dungeon crawler.

The similarities between Trial by Magic and The Summoning go beyond the isometric aspect. As in The Summoning, you have to collect and combine runes to cast spells, watch out for traps, fight monsters in real time, and deal with realistic elements such as limited arrows for your bow, although in this game you don't have to worry about the weight of items. The rune-based spell casting system is effective, though not as easy to use as in The Summoning, and runes are much harder to come by.

The game's emphasis on combat and exploration over plot means that you'll face many difficult monsters and insidious traps in each level. Fortunately, you can jump over traps and use them judiciously to kill monsters (for example, by activating them at the right time when monsters charge at you). Although runes are not easy to find, your spell points regenerate automatically quite quickly, allowing you to cast spells more frequently, which is especially useful because you gain experience points each time you do so.

Trial by Magic strikes me as a challenging dungeon crawler, though unfortunately it's not as engaging as other classics like Wizardry or The Summoning due to the complete lack of plot development or NPC interaction. If you're in the mood for a challenging hack & slash RPG with a negligible plot, Trial by Magic contains enough difficult monsters and huge levels to occupy you for dozens of hours.

It's a decent game overall, but it's not as polished as classic dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master or Eye of Beholder. Still, considering this was Silver Lightning's first RPG, it was a commendable effort that paved the way for the superior Ancient Evil and its sequel.

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