We finally know what happened to Alessandro Castellarithe author of Adventure 1 and 2, the first two role-playing games developed in Italy. The one who succeeded in discovering his fate was the video game historian Andrea Contato, who had the opportunity to speak with people close to the developer, publishing a long article in which he roughly reconstructed his life, arriving at the gestation of his video games, until his death in 1998.
Born in Bologna in 1949, Castellari became a fan of three-dimensional wargames during his university years. Making an essential contribution to the reconstruction of his story was his friend Aldo Ghetti, currently “Curator of the Museum of the Risorgimento in Faenza and nominated Knight of Merit of the Republic by President Mattarella”, as reported in the articlewhich explained Castellari's enormous passion for wargames, so much so that he became president of the LIW (Italian Wargame League) and founded his own association in Bologna called ABW (Bologna Wargame Association).
Over time, the passion for three-dimensional wargames diminished, replaced by the growing interest in abstract and two-dimensional wargames, with more and more products available on the local market, most of which come from abroad, but some also made in Italy.
“Among them there was VII Legioby the Milanese game designer Marco Donadoni with illustrations by the Modenese artist Silvio Cadelo, and a hexagon game from America called Battle over Britain by John H. Butterfield and published in 1983 by Tactical Studies Rules (TSR).” Naturally Castellari also came into contact with Dungeons & Dragons, the historic paper role-playing game that inspired many developers.
However, in 1983 he also developed another passion, that for the Commodore 64. He bought one in a shop in Bologna and began studying BASIC, with the aim of reproducing the experience of the games that involved him so much.
“He decided to start from Dungeons & Dragons, creating what would later become Avventura 1, a mainly textual fantasy role-playing game”, recently recovered by Andrea Pachetti of the Quattro Bit newsletter.
Valerio Minnella, “political activist, IT specialist and writer, then owner of Minnella Computer”, the shop where Castellari bought his C64, tested his games and proposed selling them under the Electronic Future World EfwSpA label, a company founded together with others entrepreneurs from Bologna.
In 1984, Avventura 1 was put on sale, which was not very successful, but spread in particular in pirate channels and thanks to the bootleg versions of Systems Editoriale: Conan and Taverna delle Avventure, signed by Mantra Software, from which neither Castellari nor the publisher made a profit. In 1985, Avventura 2 was put on sale, more of a strategy game than a role-playing game, inspired by the aforementioned VII Legio. Alessandro also wrote a third game, called Battle of Britain and inspired by TSR's Battle over Britain board game.
None of the three games were successful. In fact, none of Electronic Future World's software had it. EFW closed its doors in 1986, about two years after it was founded. In any case, the closure of the publisher also put an end to Castellari's career as a developer, who in the meantime was also distancing himself from the world of wargames.
“In 1998 his numerous friends gathered in the red church of San Donnino to pay their last farewell to Alessandro. Following his will, his miniatures and his wargames were generously donated to his friends.”
What to add other than thanking Contato for having done justice to the memory of the first role-playing game developer in Italy?
For those who don't know him, Andrea Contato is the author of the splendid volumes Through the Moongate, dedicated to the history of Richard Garriott and Origin Systems, and of the work Video-Games, essentially a series of volumes that tell the history of our medium. You can find them all on its official website.
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