RPG historian Shannon Appelcline identifies "Telengard" as one of the first professionally produced computer role-playing games. "Gamasutra"s Barton described the game as a "pure dungeon crawler" for its lack of diversions, and noted its expansive dungeons as a "key selling point". AllGame's Earl Green remarked that the game's mechanics were very similar in practice to "Dungeons & Dragons", "The Commodore 64 Home Companion" described it to have "Dungeons-and-Dragons" style, "Computer Gaming World"s Dick McGrath also said the game "borrowed heavily" from the original such that he expected its creators to be thanked in the end credits, and Scorpia cited four specific similarities with "Dungeons & Dragons".