Here be four bits of dragons: the Mattel D&D Computer Game and the TMS1100

I had this when I was 8! It was actually really good. Quite complicated and innovative.

You press on the square you want to go to and if there's a wall in the way it makes a noise. Really felt like creeping around in the dark. You had to really think about what was going on to not lose track of where you were. There was an advanced mode with 'doors' that were sometimes there and sometimes not.

There was a slow creepy 'you have woken the dragon noise' that really let you know you were in trouble

I recently sold my copy of this game on BGG (35$?). Before selling it, my kids and I booted it up, and played it a few times, and it was still just as fun as I remember it being (which was nostalgically great for me, but just meh for the kids).

I never bothered to open it up and see what was inside it. Cool post.

Oh man, I got this for Christmas when I was 13 and spent nearly all of the holiday playing it. It was absolutely amazing, for 13 year old me.

While my game is long gone, I still have the little metal figurines of the dragon and the treasure chest.

Is it possible to read out the mask ROM on this chip without physically decapping it?

I played the Intellivision D&D game (briefly mentioned in the article) when I was about six years old. Scared the bejeezus out of me. I’ve never forgotten the creepy synth “music”. Somehow the Dracula game, which was ostensibly scarier, didn’t bother me at all, but the D&D synths left me shook.