Dangerous Dave

Dangerous Dave is a platform game created by John Romero. Its first version, subtitled Dangerous Dave in the Deserted Pirate’s Hideout, appeared for the Apple II in 1988 as a demonstration accompanying Romero’s article about GraBASIC, his extension to Applesoft BASIC, in the UpTime disk magazine. The better-known MS-DOS edition hosted here was published by Softdisk in 1990 and rebuilt the same basic adventure with colourful PC graphics. Although modest in size, it became one of the most widely remembered shareware-era platform games on IBM-compatible computers.

Dave enters the deserted hideout of his rival Clyde to recover ten stolen trophies. Each of the game’s ten levels contains one golden cup that must be collected before the exit door becomes usable. Reaching it requires running and jumping across platforms, navigating the scenery and avoiding fire, water and other lethal hazards. Gems, crowns, rings and sceptres are optional, but collecting them increases the score and encourages players to explore dangerous corners rather than head directly for the exit.

Later levels introduce creatures with different movement and attack patterns. Dave can defend himself after finding a pistol and ammunition, while a jetpack allows him to fly for a limited time and reach areas that would otherwise remain inaccessible. Both pieces of equipment must usually be collected again in the next level, preventing them from becoming permanent solutions to every obstacle. Careful use of the jetpack is particularly important, as running out of fuel above flames or water often means losing a life.

The early stages teach the rules gently, but the difficulty rises sharply as jumps become more precise and enemies guard increasingly confined passages. Losing all lives sends the player back to the beginning because the game provides neither passwords nor a conventional save system. Four hidden Warp Zones can be reached from levels 5, 8, 9 and 10 by travelling beyond the apparent boundaries of the map. These secret sections contain additional treasure and turn knowledge of the level layouts into an important part of mastering the game.

Romero openly drew inspiration from Super Mario Bros., particularly its jumping, secrets and compact level design. In 1990, John Carmack and Tom Hall used Dave as the protagonist of Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement, a technical demonstration that recreated the first stage of Super Mario Bros. 3 with smooth scrolling on a PC. The experiment was never commercially released, but the technology and ideas behind it contributed directly to the creation of Commander Keen and therefore occupy an important place in the early history of id Software.

The principal DOS sequence consists of four games: