Role-playing games, or known by its acronym in English RPG (Role Playing Game) started with a simple dice, a pencil, and paper until you get to what today is considered a genre within the electronic entertainment.
But as is often the case with all consecrated genres, their history delves into various stages and influences. This article attempts to outline how this evolution of the conventional role to the great productions of today took place. Who said the purpose was outdated?
Before commenting on the first video games to recreate the genre, you need to know what they were inspired by. In the 1970s, the table games market was booming, thanks to the originality and imagination it provided to play with them.
Thus the first role-playing games on paper began to emerge with relative success, such as the Australian Dragons or the American Dungeons (yes, both games were born separately). For the first time, we could play a role and overcome adventures in a board game thanks to the great encouragement provided by these games, the imagination.
Thus, the subsequent phenomenon Dragons and Dungeons began to be forged thanks to these titles, which ended up evolving in successive years and taking root in popular culture, extending the imaginary world created earlier years and improving the original game.
When the imagination of the paper passes reality on the screen?
The RPG as we know it was born from college boys Gary Gig ax and Dave Anson. Some anonymous young people who programmed in the university computers, due to the few media of the time. Thus Dragons and dungeons were born, the first role-playing video game, inspired by the highest references of the genre in board games.
Dragons and Dungeons developed a style called Dungeon Crawler, which consists of exploring dungeons to find an orb that will be protected by a dragon.
Following the predictable success of Dragons and Dungeons, he was followed by games from other companies that were renewing the new genre that was booming. This was the way to develop the unique style that two university students started and which has resulted in the massive multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPG).
However, the incessant change took place little by little, thanks to titles that revolutionized the market. Titles that arrived thanks to the success they achieved in the land of the Rising Sun.
Japan and the popularity of the JRPG
By the time of the 1980s, the RPG was already established as a form of entertainment and spread throughout the world. The discovery of the RPG in Japan was a real revolution, so much so that they began to create their role-playing games.
From this initiative emerged one of the most revered sages of the genre, Ultimo. A unique style, different from the western RPG, which led beyond the type thanks to the great importance in the arguments and a charisma that was a real sign of identity. This acquired Identity is the one that is continually called JRPG (Japanese Role-Playing Game).
However, up to that point, video games did not count on today’s inducements to immerse ourselves in the game. That is why the departure of Dragon Quest was a worldwide blow in the history of video games.
It was released for MSX (a home computer marketed during the 1980s and early 1990s) and NES (Nintendo Entertainment System, console created by Nintendo for the third generation). But it was on the Nintendo console that it achieved its greatest success, being the first game with Zenith view of the console in addition to having some pointer graphics, with a playable level in which we had five dungeons to explore and ten spells to use.
