Larn

Larn
Major Roguelike
Developer	Noah Morgan, copx
Theme	Fantasy
Influences	??
Released	1986
Updated	2007
Licensing	??
P. Language	C
Platforms	DOS, UNIX, Amiga, VMS
Interface	ASCII
Game Length	??
Official site of Larn

Larn was first released in 1986 by Noah Morgan.

Features

Larn was the first roguelike game to feature multiple dungeons with a sort of surface world (in this case, a town) to connect them. The town, which only changed layout from one game to the next, featured shops to exchange items, schools to improve skills, and a bank to store valuables. The dungeon had branch offices of the town's bank. Larn also is time-limited. Achieving main goal too late counted as lost game.

Few features are unique to Larn making it worth to play it:

• Identification is always succesful. The scroll/potion type will be always known to player character regardless whether player received any clue about usage of particular item.
• Scroll of gem perfection enchances value of carried gems.
• If a character mangaes to win Larn his succesor will have to pay taxes, which depend on gold brought to surface.
• In bank stored gold pieces earn interest over time.

Ularn

Ularn — or "Ultra-Larn" — is a descendant of Larn. Created by Phil Cordier in 1992, it added new features, like character classes.

Platforms and versions

The current stable version of Larn is v12.3.1. The source code is available, but may not build on modern platforms because it is very old. A new version of Larn which will support modern platforms is in development. DOS/Windows users can download 12.4 alpha, it already works on those platforms.

Ularn v1.6, released in 2004, is avalaible for Windows and Amiga. Source is available for other systems (v1.5 is known to compile for various UNIX systems).

Game related links

• The Larn Home Page (outdated)
• Ularn.org
• Ultralarn - Phil Cordier's (author of Ularn) page
• The ULarn 1.6 Home Page
• iLarn Homepage - Palm OS port of Ularn