Dungeon Erghuck

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Dungeon Erghuck
ErghuckTitle.gif

Release type: Freeware
Release date: 1993
Levels: 4
Author: Janet L. Groth Productions
Related games: Cireneg's Rings, Dusk Rose, Explorer Jacko, Tony & Me, Dungeon Game, Sample

One of the screenshots on the Game-Maker box reminded me of the box to Deadly Towers, an NES game I had never played but often studied in the mall. As it happened, the package included no such game. Yet these images persisted; when I reached a certain comfort with the tools, I set to reconstructing RSD’s dungeon game according to my ideas of how it might have been.

Around that time I began to think better of the bawdy extras in games like Cireneg's Rings, Tony & Me, and Dusk Rose. The problem with deleting this content from the parent games is that I felt I had to put it somewhere. Somehow, then, it made sense to dump all of the crude pixelated smut into the dungeon levels. They were vacant, and a borrowed idea anyway.

In its earliest form, then, Erghuck involved wandering from room to room, each one presenting a censored piece from a different game. To make it all cohere, I adjusted the character models into fantasy archetypes. The main character became a Drow Elf, and others gained various pointy ears and mellifluous names. Where they fit, some of the names, such as Si’Nafay and Melwen, were borrowed from deceased AD&D characters.

Si'Nafay.gif

For a title screen, I turned to an EGA port of Artworx Strip Poker II. A few adjustments in Deluxe Paint, and there was little question as to the game’s contents.

Making an escape from Dungeon Erghuck

At first, that’s all there was to Erghuck; fantasy porn rooms. Gradually I refined the game. It gained a story, and as with Dusk Rose I set it in a corner of the world of Cireneg’s Rings.

Choosing to hide my identity entirely, I prepared to release the game under the “Janet L. Groth Productions” label. I never quite dared to upload it anywhere. For a while I also toyed with releasing Operation Killbot and Tony & Me under that banner, to a similar dead end.

Later I revised the game again, toned it down, and made it a coherent adventure. Whereas Erghuck began as a pile of naughty bits, I rehabilitated it into a mildly suggestive adventure along the lines of Steve Meretzky’s Leather Goddesses of Phobos, except lame and pointless. Although the content no longer bothered me, there was no real object to the game except to escape, and that’s no real challenge.

Still, in its final form it again brought life to some of my old characters, and it served to hint at further dimension to an existing world. If that’s my lowest ebb as a game designer, I guess I could be worse off. And indeed, from here things just get better.

- [Azurelore Korrigan]

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Dusk Rose Dungeon Erghuck (Overview)
Realms series

Story[edit]

Level one of Dungeon Erghuck

TIME: 1025 A.D.

PLACE: land of Faerun, in the world of Realms.

While traveling through the countryside, the Drow huntress Si'Nafay and her half Elf assistant Melwen chose to camp. A hoard of goblins overtakes the pair, and drags them to the dread Dungeon Erghuck, a pit of blood and debauchery from which no woman has left unscathed.

Si'Nafay awakes to find herself stripped, searched, and alone. Where did they take her precious Melwen? Si'Nafay wriggles from her bonds and sets out to find an escape.

Instructions[edit]

Arrow keys move Si'Nafay in those directions. A few other keys may have incidental uses, but nothing important to progress.

You will find the dungeon littered with treasures. Collect the keys and money to open the doors from one chamber to the next.

Try to find your companion, Melwen. She desperately needs your help. And this could be your chance to prove yourself to her at last! You're not as bad as everyone says you are.

Credits[edit]

This game was created by the hard-working team at Janet L. Groth Productions. Anyone who wishes to borrow gameware from this game is free to do so.

Special thanks to:

Erghuck (c) 1993 Janet L. Groth Productions.

Availability[edit]

This game was distributed on local bulletin boards (e.g., The Kobayashi Alternative), contemporary to its development.

Archive History[edit]

Erghuck was retained as part of the archive from the game's inception.

Links[edit]

Interviews / Articles[edit]

Misc. Links[edit]

Downloads[edit]