Secret of the Silver Blades

Secret of the Silver Blades is the third chapter in the "Gold Box" series of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games, following Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds . The game begins in the mining town of New Verdigris, where miners have unwittingly unearthed an ancient vault, releasing hordes of horrific creatures that now infest the shafts . You control a party of up to six adventurers, either imported from Curse of the Azure Bonds or created from scratch starting at level 8 . Exploration takes place in a first-person 3D perspective, while tactical combat switches to an isometric view on a hex grid . Unlike previous games, there is no overworld map—all action takes place in the 3D dungeons, with the Well of Knowledge providing teleporters to reach various locations . A difficulty setting allows adjusting enemy hit points .

DOS

Released in 1990 by SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.), programmed by Russell Brown and Ken Nicholson with composer John Halbleib . The DOS version introduced mouse support for the first time in the series, though many players still preferred keyboard controls . Two known DOS versions exist: V1.00 and V1.30, both written in Turbo Pascal 5.5 . A notable new feature is a storage vault in town where you can deposit excess wealth and items . The massive dungeon sizes—some corridors exceeding 200 tiles in length—are completely empty apart from constant random encounters, which reviewers criticized as padding . The game sold 167,214 copies across all platforms, making it the last Gold Box title to achieve six-figure sales . Fully compatible with DOSBox for modern systems .