The Pit

As the backstory has it, King Reginald Hornbluff of Regal City revives his realm's sagging economy and restores order to streets torn by conflicts between predatory criminals and well-meaning but dangerous vigilantes by commodifying the chaos, containing the conflict by constructing an enormous gladiatorial arena with cash prizes to the strongest competitors and charging admission to it.You play a farm boy, the toughest in your village, come to the big city to make your fortune overcoming the miserable human dregs and uncanny creatures populating the arena known as The Pit. What this amounts to is a long series of fantastical top-down combats, taking turns exchanging melee, long-ranged and magical attacks with a wide variety of enemies ranging from battle slaves, clad only in loin cloths, to heroes of history and legend, dragons, liches and Norse Gods... and keeping out of their line of fire until your next counterattack becomes available. Use your winnings to upgrade your equipment (if you can haggle the vendor down to a fair price), or claim the arms and armour of your fallen opponents! Should you tire of your current category of opponents (the next often significantly tougher) you can always hone your skills on other players, AI-controlled (or against the SysOp, in real-time!) and just when you think you've got gameplay down to a rote pattern, the shadowy presence of the Assassin in the tavern and the Dark Avenger, a sinister doppelganger stalking the top arena champions, keeps you on your toes. And should you fall in the sands of the arena, you'll be back in fighting form the following day -- though your equipment will have been picked over.While its intended play context as a BBS door game (though it can be played locally) generally output only textmode menus, stats displays and Rogue- or Kroz-like symbol-graphics in the top right corner in response to its single-character keyboard input (keypad directions informing actions such as [A]ttack with Hand Weapon, [F]ire Range Weapon, [B]eg for Mercy), the Pit also boasted an optional enhanced terminal program featuring EGA graphics and music.