http://www.sorcerers.net/images/news/other/article.jpgBitmob has the next entry in their Forgotten Ruins: The Roots of Computer Role-playing Games - FTL Games, who made Dungeon Master (http://bitmob.com/articles/forgotten-ruins-the-roots-of-computer-role-playing-games-ftl-games):

FTL Games doesn't have the kind of catalog that any of the other developers on this list do, but their first computer role-playing game would leave an undeniable mark. I didn't actually get to play this one until very recently (thanks only to the work of fans), but it's easy to see how it had predated efforts made by titles, such as Westwood's Eye of the Beholder (http://bitmob.com/mobfeed?tag=eye-of-the-beholder), to bring a living, real-time dungeon to life. Interplay's Stonekeep (http://bitmob.com/mobfeed?tag=stonekeep) -- years later -- may have had cutting-edge graphics and live video, but the basic gameplay can already be seen in something as early as FTL's Dungeon Master (http://bitmob.com/mobfeed?tag=dungeon-master).

Dungeon Master was released in '87 and quickly took the CRPG community by surprise. Not only did it boast strong visuals for the time, it was also a real-time dungeon crawler (although, whether it was truly the first is debatable when compared to the more obscure Dungeons of Daggorath (http://bitmob.com/mobfeed?tag=dungeons-of-daggorath) in '82 or Alternate Reality: The City (http://bitmob.com/mobfeed?tag=alternate-reality-the-city) from Datasoft in '85).