Pools of Darkness (1991) — Release Date, Cheats, Price & Requirements

Pools of Darkness

For ten years your glorious band has fought Evil wherever it has threatened the Realms. Lord Bane has suffered many defeats at your hands and new peace washes over the land. Now your path comes full circle -…

31 December 1991

What Pools of Darkness is

Pools of Darkness is an adventure game developed by SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.) and released in 1991. It is available on Amiga, DOS, Mac and PC-9800 Series. It runs on Gold Box.

The premise, in the publisher's words

The party's objective is to defeat Bane's lieutenants Thorne (an ancient red dragon), Kalistes (a Tanar'ri Marilith), and Tanetal (a Tanar'ri Glabrezu) and acquire the items they possess. The ultimate goal is to reach Bane's Land and face off against Bane's last and greatest lieutenant, Gothmenes (a Tanar'ri Balor). All of the lieutenants are found in other dimensions, which can be reached using portals known as Pools of Darkness. Traveling through the pools can cause many types of items the characters are holding to be permanently destroyed and lost. The party may opt to leave these items in a vault to save them. Naturally, any items from the dimensions will suffer this same fate when…

Description from the publisher · source

How it plays

It is played from a bird view / isometric perspective. Its themes are educational and fantasy. It is a single-player game with no multiplayer component.

Where it sits in the Dungeons & Dragons series

Pools of Darkness is the 16th of 140 entries we hold in the Dungeons & Dragons series. The next entry was Shadow Sorcerer in 1991.

See all 140 Dungeons & Dragons games in release order →

What it launched against

Pools of Darkness launched on 31 December 1991, within three weeks of Micro Machines, Alien Breed, Commander Keen in Keen Dreams and Baseball Stars 2.

Released around the same time: Micro Machines, Alien Breed, Commander Keen in Keen Dreams, Baseball Stars 2.

Official trailer