Treasure of Tarmin – The Forgotten Dungeon-Crawler That Defined Intellivision Adventure
If the early 1980s taught us anything, it’s that video game advertising didn’t just sell games—it sold imagination. And this Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ad for Mattel’s Intellivision is a perfect example.
Volume II: The Expansion of a Digital Fantasy World
Right away, the ad proudly proclaims that Treasure of Tarmin is “Volume 2” in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons series for Intellivision. The first entry, Cloudy Mountain, was already a hit among players who craved more than quick arcade thrills. By positioning Treasure of Tarmin as the next installment, the ad hinted at something bigger: episodic continuity. That was rare for console gaming in the early ’80s, and in a way, it mirrored how D&D itself unfolded in campaigns and modules.
It’s fascinating to see a home console game marketed almost like a tabletop expansion pack—an early form of franchise building.
The Artwork: A Dungeon Master’s Dream
The illustration is classic fantasy pulp: an archer facing down a ghostly wraith, a writhing hydra, and the skeletal remains of fallen adventurers all in one scene. The artwork paints a story far beyond the hardware’s capabilities, but that was the point. Just like D&D rulebooks relied on evocative art to fire the imagination, Intellivision ads leaned on bold fantasy illustrations to spark the player’s mind before they even turned on the game.
Notice the use of torches, dungeon walls, and multiple monsters at once—this visual layering sells the idea of being in a living, breathing labyrinth. It was more than a game; it was a promise of adventure.
“Over 50 Different Creatures Want You!”
This line is perhaps the most ambitious part of the ad. For 1983, the idea of encountering 50 unique monsters in a single game was staggering. Keep in mind that most arcade games of the time recycled just a handful of enemy types. For players used to blasting Space Invaders or dodging barrels in Donkey Kong, the variety implied here was revolutionary.
What’s more, this claim tapped directly into the core of the D&D experience—facing strange, unpredictable creatures around every corner. It wasn’t just about reflexes, it was about survival, strategy, and discovery.
A Glimpse of Gameplay: The “Pseudo-3D” Dungeon
In the bottom corner, the ad shows a small gameplay screenshot of Treasure of Tarmin. It may look blocky today, but at the time, its first-person “grid-based” dungeon crawling was groundbreaking. The perspective hinted at depth, drawing players into the maze-like corridors of Tarmin.
This was years before Dungeon Master or Eye of the Beholder brought the genre to PCs, making Treasure of Tarmin an early pioneer of the dungeon crawler format on consoles. Many modern RPGs owe a little debt to experiments like this.
Marketing as Adventure Storytelling
One of the cleverest tricks in this ad is how it frames the series as an ongoing narrative. “Volume 1, the Cloudy Mountain cartridge was only the beginning…”—that phrasing makes the player feel like they’re joining a saga, not just buying a game. It’s almost like TSR’s module releases for tabletop D&D, where each new volume expanded the world and tested the adventurer further.
In this way, Mattel wasn’t just selling cartridges; they were selling quests.
Why This Ad Still Resonates
Looking back, Treasure of Tarmin stands out as more than just another licensed game. It represented a time when developers and marketers were experimenting with ways to translate the magic of tabletop role-playing into pixel form. The ad captures this perfectly: the monsters, the peril, the mystery, and above all, the sense of scale.
Today, retro enthusiasts see this not only as one of Intellivision’s best titles but also as a stepping stone in RPG history. While it couldn’t fully replicate the boundless imagination of a dungeon master’s campaign, it gave players a taste of D&D adventure in their living rooms—and that was enough to make it legendary.
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