Cavern of Riches is a text adventure written by John O’Hare. He would write three of them for the Commodore PET in 1980: Cavern of Riches, The Great Pyramid, and Haunted Mansion. All three were later ported to the Commodore 64.
I played the Commodore PET version of this game. You can play the game yourself at this link here. One of the huge positives in the text adventure category in 1979 and 1980 was a transition away from traditional mazes and treasure hunts towards stories with an actual plot and cohesive locations. Cavern of Riches does neither of these things. The game tasks you with collecting 12 different treasures and then dropping them off in a cabin to earn points.
What is even worse is that the game is not very original at all but instead chooses to copy, almost verbatim, the puzzles from Colossal Cave Adventure. Below you’ll see the evidence of this:
Because I so very recently played Colossal Cave Adventure within the past year; playing through Cavern of Riches felt like a speed run. I believe I finished the game in about 70 minutes. The game played smoothly and it was certainly enjoyable despite it’s lack of originality.
The 12 treasures that you are tasked with collecting are:
- a jeweled trident
- ancient coins
- a gold nugget
- an ivory elephant
- a 74 carat diamond
- a firestone
- a gold plaque
- a jadestone
- a platinum pyramid
- a pot of gems
- a gold harp
- a string of pearls
The game ran flawlessly and was enjoyable but it was certainly a step backwards in text adventure game development and rather than a homage to Colossal Cave Adventure it felt more like a theft of intellectual property rights.
Yes, there was a *lot* of blatant copying of Colossal Cave Adventure being done in the late 1970s and early 80s, mostly without any credit being given. Even some large companies were guilty of this. Microsoft Adventure was a complete port of the game to the TRS-80, Apple II and (later on) the IBM PC, yet nowhere in it is there an acknowledgement to Crowther and Woods. And the pair certainly didn’t receive any royalties from Microsoft for the use of their intellectual property!