V is for Venture

Unlike many of the games I've already blogged about, Venture is one that I actually encountered in non-arcade game forms first.  My first game of Venture was actually on the Atari 2600 at a neighbor's house which was hooked up to a black and white TV.  Later on I "discovered" the arcade version of Venture when I learned about the MAME arcade game emulator and had the opportunity to play the "arcade" version on my PC.  Eventually I found an actual Venture arcade game at the California Extreme expo and got to play it for real.

Venture's graphics were fairly minimal, as per the norm for many games from the early 1980's.  The poignant role of Venture for me was that it's a fairly fast paced fun attempt at simulating the dungeon adventure (hence the name) of Dungeons and Dragons, which I used to play from upper elementary school up through college.  Getting to run around racking up treasure, shooting monsters, avoiding traps and trying desperately the dodge the hall monsters made the game exciting despite the less than gripping graphics.  It was all about the game play.

I suspect that if I had managed to find an actual Venture arcade game as a youth I would have spent quite a few quarters on it.  Fortunately we have expositions and emulators so that games like this still exist.

What Dungeons and Dragons-esque arcade games have you played?