Dark Heart of Uukrul

Dark Heart of Uukrul was a CRPG for the Apple II and IBM PC, written by Digital Studios Limited and released by Brøderbund in 1988.


 * Apocalyptic Log: The manual included the diary of the previous, dismally failed, attempt to defeat Uukrul.
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The party consisted of exactly four characters - one each of the Warrior, Paladin, Cleric, and Mage classes.
 * Copy Protection: In addition to any on-disk copy protection, the feelies included a black-text-on-maroon-paper code book used to unlock the Sanctuaries (which were the only location in which you could save your game). Also, casting spells required you to type in the spell name from the user manual.
 * Crossword Puzzle: One area of the game featured one of these; the solutions were used as passwords for secret doors.
 * Dungeon Crawling: The entire game takes place in the underground city of Eriosthé.
 * Final Death: A failed attempt to resurrect a character resulted in the destruction of their body. The longer a corpse stayed dead, the more likely a resurrection attempt was to fail. In the event of a Total Party Kill, the party's corpses would remain where they fell until other (abstracted) adventurers came along and dragged them back to the "safe" part of Erisothé to be resurrected.
 * Mana Drain: The Mage's Sator and Rotas spells.
 * Plot Coupon: Uukrul's own heart, and the fossilized hearts that act as keys for its storage container.
 * With This Herring: The "we're choosing you because the Big Bad can't possibly have heard of you" variant.