Wizardry 1
The Wizardry series and the Ultima series are for the CRPG genre something like The Rolling Stones and The Beatles for the music genre. The Ultimas are a little more fine-tuned in GFX, interface and story. The Wizardries deliver raw power, challenging combat and excellent character/party development.
Both series are pioneers and invented many of the CRPG elements we still love today.
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord was developed by Andrew Greenberg and Robert Woodhead.
The final version was released 1981 on multiple platforms. It is the first part of a trilogy of Wizardry games that has to be completed to continue with the next parts.
Wizardry 1 is THE prototype for a good dungeon crawl. Your quest is to find a way down in a ten level dungeon to defeat the arch enemy Werdna. This sounds a bit cliché, but this is the FIRST game that tells this story. Get experience by killing monsters to level up, find chests to enhance your equipment and explore to find hidden secrets. The game has no auto-map feature and you can't save in the dungeon! Teleport into stone and you are dead.
You can create a party with 6 characters; you can chose from 6 races (Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Hobbits), 3 alignments (Good, Neutral, Evil) and 4 basic classes Fighter, Priest, Mage, Thief. The basic classes can be upgraded later to Bishop (Priest and Mage spells); Samurai (Fighter with Mage spells); Lord (Fighter with Priest Spells) and Ninja (Fighter with Thief abilities).
When your team is exhausted, you can go back to the Castle or make a camp. Dying is very easy in this game, and the priests of the Temple of Cant have high prices for resurrection, so make sure you always carry a priest/bishop and some antidotes against deadly poison with you.
The line-CGA-GFX are great for 1981 (text-based adventures ruled back then).
Two thumbs up for the Grandfather of all dungeon crawlers and inventor of many CRPG elements!