# The Black Onyx - Work: Japanese RPG - Date: 1984 (NEC PC-8801, Japan) - Made by: Henk Rogers (Designer & producer) - Platforms: PC-8801, PC-9801, Sharp X1, FM-7, MSX, PC-6001mkII, MZ-2500, SG-1000, Famicom (as Super Black Onyx), Game Boy Color - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-black-onyx/ > A Dutch-born programmer in Japan built Japan an RPG from scratch: a first-person party crawl beneath Utsuro, a town under eternal night, that taught a nation what hit points were. **Why it matters:** The Black Onyx was among the earliest and most successful Japanese-language computer RPGs; it introduced the genre to a wide Japanese audience and helped inspire Hydlide and The Legend of Zelda. ## Quick answers **When was The Black Onyx first released?** The Black Onyx was first released in 1984 (NEC PC-8801, Japan). **Who created The Black Onyx?** The Black Onyx was made by Henk Rogers (designer & producer). **What kind of work is The Black Onyx?** The Black Onyx is a Japanese RPG in the Japanese RPGs (JRPG) and First-Person Dungeon Crawlers ('Blobbers') tradition, released for PC-8801, PC-9801, Sharp X1, FM-7, MSX, PC-6001mkII, MZ-2500, SG-1000, Famicom (as Super Black Onyx) and Game Boy Color. **Why is The Black Onyx important?** The Black Onyx was among the earliest and most successful Japanese-language computer RPGs; it introduced the genre to a wide Japanese audience and helped inspire Hydlide and The Legend of Zelda. ## Overview In 1983 the role-playing game was almost unknown in Japan. [*Wizardry*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/) and [*Ultima*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/ultima-i/) were American Apple II games, and the Apple II was rare there. [Henk Rogers](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/henk-rogers/), a Dutch-born programmer who finished high school in New York, studied computer science at the University of Hawaii and followed his future wife, Akemi, to Japan, set out to change that. The result, *The Black Onyx*, released for NEC's PC-8801 in January 1984 by Rogers's new company, Bullet-Proof Software, is one of the first commercially successful Japanese-language computer RPGs. By most accounts it sold around 150,000 copies, won *Login* magazine's software award, and introduced much of Japan's computer-owning public to parties, dungeons and [hit points](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/hit-points/). ## Origins Rogers was a friend of [Robert Woodhead](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/robert-woodhead/), co-author of *Wizardry*, and *The Black Onyx* is a first-person party dungeon crawl in the same mold. It was originally to be published by Koei, but Koei's president encouraged Rogers to set up his own publisher, and Bullet-Proof Software (BPS) was born. Memory limits forced a change of plan: what was conceived as one large game with four parts (*The Black Onyx*, *The Fire Crystal*, *The Moonstone* and *Arena*) was split up, with systems added gradually. *The Fire Crystal* followed in 1984 and added magic; *The Moonstone*, which would have opened the wilderness, was never released. The PC-8801 program was written in BASIC and machine code, and the team reverse-engineered parts of the machine because documentation was scarce. Rogers was designing for players who had never seen an RPG. He simplified everything he could and made information visual: a character's life appears as a horizontal bar that visibly reddens with damage, and experience is shown as a line, conventions that were new to many players. ## How it plays Players create up to five adventurers, or recruit friendly parties met in the dungeon, and seek the legendary Black Onyx, said to grant eternal life and great wealth, in the Black Tower beyond the cursed town of Utsuro, where a wizard's spell keeps the sky in perpetual night. Town and dungeon are both shown in first-person 3D. Shops sell weapons, armor, shields and helms; a hospital offers surgery, drugs and paid "examinations" that reveal a character's statistics; and a bank protects gold from Utsuro's thieves. When meeting another party, players can fight, flee or talk: invite them to join, say good luck and goodbye, or demand "your money or your life." There is no magic in the original release, and because combat has no concept of distance, there are no bows or slings. Beneath the town, the labyrinth's six floors correspond to the colors the computer could display, and they must be solved in the right order to raise the stairway to the Black Tower. ## Reception & impact The game climbed computer-magazine sales rankings, stayed there for a long time, and won *Login*'s software grand prize. A promotional flourish made it memorable: players who found the Onyx and mailed in the in-game message on the enclosed survey postcard could receive a real black onyx stone, a gesture that owed something to Rogers's father being a gem dealer. Its influence on Japanese design was direct. T&E Soft's Tokihiro Naito drew on it for [*Hydlide*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/hydlide/) (1984), borrowing its visible health bar, and [Shigeru Miyamoto](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/shigeru-miyamoto/) has said *The Black Onyx* shaped [*The Legend of Zelda*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-legend-of-zelda/) (1986), because he found the process of a character growing stronger fun. It was part of the wave of homegrown RPGs, with [*Dragon Slayer*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-slayer/), that Japanese players were enjoying when [Yuji Horii](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yuji-horii/) designed [*Dragon Quest*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-quest/). ## Legacy *The Black Onyx* was ported to many Japanese computers, to Sega's SG-1000, to the Famicom as the redesigned *Super Black Onyx* (1988), and to the Game Boy Color (2001). A planned arcade version with Irem was abandoned. Rogers went on to a far larger story: Bullet-Proof Software secured the console and handheld rights to Alexey Pajitnov's *Tetris*, bringing it to Nintendo's Game Boy, and Rogers co-founded The Tetris Company with Pajitnov. In the 2023 film *Tetris*, he is played by Taron Egerton. ## Facts - Henk Rogers founded Bullet-Proof Software on the advice of Koei's president, after the game was first slated for release by Koei. - To make an unfamiliar genre readable, it showed hit points and experience as colored bars, which turned red as characters took damage. - There is no magic in the original; combat is weapons only, and with no concept of distance there are no bows. - Early buyers who mailed in the message shown on finding the Onyx could receive a real black onyx gem; Rogers's father was a gem dealer. - Utsuro is named not for the Japanese word for 'hollow' but for a road intersection near BPS's office in Kikuna, Yokohama. - Rogers and his friend Robert Woodhead, co-author of Wizardry, announced plans to let characters travel between the two games; it never happened. - Rogers later secured the console rights to Tetris and co-founded The Tetris Company. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Onyx) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.