Moria and Umoria
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ASCII illustration
A town above the long descent.
1981: BASIC prototype; 1983: Pascal Moria.
By Robert Alan Koeneke, Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr.; James E. Wilson’s Unix port.
Robert Koeneke started a Rogue-inspired game on university VAX hardware in 1981. The Moria usually meant in histories took shape when he rewrote it in VMS Pascal in 1983. Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr. contributed character creation, saving and other systems. James E. Wilson later brought the game to Unix as Umoria.
Moria put a town over its dungeon. You could return to shops, replace supplies and prepare for another trip below. Character race, class and equipment made preparation a substantial part of play. The distant objective was the Balrog, rather than Rogue’s amulet.
That arrangement gave the descent a different rhythm. A retreat could be sensible progress. You learned what a depth demanded, went back upstairs, and returned with a better chance of surviving it. The town was part of the game’s structure, not merely an opening scene.
Umoria also became a foundation other programmers could build upon. Angband grew from its code. The Moria family here is unrelated to the earlier multiplayer PLATO game of the same name.
Sources
Umoria project’s history, including Koeneke’s recollections