Author: professor6153

Kidnapped was written by Peter Kirsch and published as a type-in for Softside magazine in December of 1980.

We have played and experienced some great games that were featured in this same magazine. In Search of Dr. Livingston, Mad Scientist, Catacombs of the Phantoms, Volcano Adventure, and Dante’s Inferno were all type-in adventures featured in the same title. Softside Magazine would later feature an Adventure of the Month series and we will soon be playing and reviewing those games as well.

I really enjoyed Kidnapped and the game took me quite by surprise. I am amazed at how good these type-in adventures have been and Kidnapped does not disappoint. It has an original premise that we have not seen before. You’ve been kidnapped and you find yourself at the top of a 9 story building. You need to make your way down level by level in order to escape. Each level of the building has it’s own set of puzzles and unique problems that you need to solve. Some levels are fairly routine while other levels are much more difficult. I did map out each of the levels of the building but each level is so small that you may find mapping by hand unnecessary.

Items that you find on each of the levels are only used to solve the particular set of problems on THAT level. All items vanish from your inventory as you make your way down the building from one level to the next. The ninth level of the building, depicted above, was one of the more difficult levels to move off of. Items that prove useful on this level are a chair, flashlight, and electrical tape. You’re going to need to get the elevator operating again so that you can make your way down to the next floor. However the exposed wires providing power to the elevator are “hot” so you’re going to need to coordinate your repairs with a building blackout that occurs at midnight. It’s really some very ingenious and original puzzle creation.

The next level is a relatively short one which involves an aquarium filled with piranhas, a guard dog, and some rope. You will find that once you’ve solved the puzzle on the particular level that you’re on that getting down to the next level is done in a number of original ways.

The seventh level of the building might be the most difficult level of them all. It involves trying to wrest a dollar from a burglar that happens to be robbing a vault on this floor. Useful items on this floor include a string vending machine, a tank of helium gas, a gun, a large deflated balloon, some wood glue, and an old wooden step. The objects lend themselves to a very plausible idea of what you need to do but wrestling with the parser until you make your way off of the floor is another issue. Once again however the games originality shines through here.

Level six involves some sexy young office girls and having to fashion yourself a new suit. Knitting needles as well as a ball of yarn come into play here. You must find a way to wrest the small key from the sexy young office girls.

One of the sheer joys of this game are the nine diverse levels that you have to make your way though. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun with a text adventure because once you successfully complete one floor and make your way to the next one you just never know what it is that you’re going to find. The puzzles and levels are borderline absurd but they work quite well logically and as stand-alone mini-adventures.

There is no greater example of this than finding Mary Poppin’s Umbrella on level five. The only floor that was perhaps more absurd was the eighth floor housing the aquarium of piranhas or the very challenging second floor.

On the next floor you quite literally have to experiment and turn yourself into Mr. Hyde in order to deal with the steel door. Does it make a lot of sense? No but it was very cool anyway.

The next level involved a small plant, a trap door, a water cooler, paper cup, flute, and rope. The originality here from one floor to the next once again really stands out.

The last level involves a small book, some quicksand, rope, and a piano. It was another challenging level. The ninth, seventh, and second floors were the three hardest for me in particular compared to the other floors.

If you’re a text adventure fan, and you have not yet played Kidnapped by Peter Kirsch, I highly recommend you do so. I had a lot of fun with this one, it’s premise, originality, absurd puzzles from one floor to the next, all served to provide a lot of entertainment. A gem in the rough for me in a year of a lot of text adventures. I was able to finish this one on my own and I had a lot of fun doing so.

The next game on my list is another text adventure from 1980 entitled City Adventure. Until next time….

Drac Is Back is a computer role-playing game which was written by Ted Clawges and published by Syncro, Inc. for the Atari 800 in 1981.

The cover art for the game is actually pretty cool and in the early days of home computer games it was the box cover art that fired imaginations and enticed people to buy.

Drac Is Back is a text based game that has you set out to explore Dracula’s Castle. In all honesty the format and amount of involvement is a bit of a let down after getting fired up over the cover art from the box.

There really are not a lot of choices that you make in this particular game. There is a store in which you buy equipment and then inside the castle you choose which direction you want to go in but then your choices end there. The food you purchase in the store is automatically consumed as you play, the game uses the correct weapon for each foe as long as you have it in your inventory, combat is automatic and requires no input, and gold is automatically picked up.

When you start at the store you want to buy as much of everything as you can. There are three different kinds of monsters that you encounter in the game. Monsters, Vampires, and Werewolves. Armor is your protection against damage while a sword is necessary in order to slay the Monsters. A cross will keep vampires away from you so that they cannot cause damage and stakes are necessary for killing the Vampires. The bullets are silver and needed for killing Werewolves.

So the above picture is what a typical room depiction in Dracula’s Castle looks like. You may encounter any one of the three creature types or all of them at the same time as shown here. You are given a room number, the amount of gold in the room, and creatures present. You are then asked for ” your decision?”

The only real choice is to Attack and once you hit A the combat is resolved quickly for you as long as you have the appropriate inventory. Each time you slay a vampire a stake is removed from your inventory and each time you slay a werewolf it costs you a bullet as well. Your sword and armor will only last so long as well and both will eventually have to be replenished. If you do not attack but try to leave the room without killing the creatures within they get a parting shot at you and you will see your life counter decrease with a successful attack. Once you kill all of your enemies if you leave the room you pick up a percentage of the gold that was listed in the description. You rarely get it all and in some cases your percentage might actually end up being 0 and you get none of it. It is imperative that you get as much gold as possible because each visit to the store you will need to replenish all of your supplies.

The food that you purchase is quite literally your hit points so you definitely do not want to run out of food. A Magic Ring has the power to teleport you to the nearest store and once you use that ability the ring disappears from your inventory and you’ll have to purchase another if you want that perk again. The Magic Ring is 500 gold pieces which is very costly.

The above screen is what a typical map in progress of the castle looks like. You have the option of going N, S, W, or E and it shows where you are on the map and how far away you are from a particular store.

There are other special events which may occur as you visit different rooms within the castle. Sometimes a demon appears to steal all of your money which is extremely irritating. It is best that if you do not spend all of your money at the store that you store it in the bank. Do not take extra money with you for this very reason. Igor will sometimes randomly appear as well and steal your cross which then makes you very vulnerable to the vampires which you encounter. You may encounter Dracula as well who cannot be killed and he will take everything you have and also cut your hit points in half!

Drac Is Back is particularly easy to play. There just isn’t much to it. It does get progressively hard to “last” in the game because of the mechanics. The problem that I have with Drac Is Back is that there is no overarching purpose or plot. Your only goal is to move through the castle to acquire gold. It is hard to amass much gold however because you need to constantly reinvest your winnings into purchasing more equipment. There isn’t a score that is kept to try and beat; there is no quest to perform; there is no real endgame. When one of these games that I encounter has a particular quest to perform I find I am obsessed with trying to complete that particular quest. For example, even Catacombs of the Phantoms had a particular quest to perform and I stuck with that game until I emerged victorious. In Drac Is Back there is no purpose other than to see how long you can last and even then there is no prior score to compare to or try to beat. I played Drac Is Back for about four hours until I felt quite saturated with the experience and that I had enough information to do an informed write up for you.

For my next game challenge I am facing a 1980 text adventure entitled Kidnapped in which I’ve been abducted and have to escape from a multi-story building. Until next time…

The House of Thirty Gables is an interactive text adventure written by Bill Miller and published by Instant Software. It appears that this is the only adventure game written by Miller who also wrote the Eliza-like “Dr. Chips” for Adventure International. It was the only adventure game published by Instant Software as well although an ex-employee, Bob Liddil, would go on to start the Programmer’s Guild.

House of Thirty Gables ended up being somewhat of a unique game. The game has a number of red herrings and sports a rather unusual and original hint system. The game’s goal is to collect a number of gold coins and other treasures while dealing with various puzzles and creatures.

The sign on the wall reads; “Please Don’t Feed The Troll” When you take the dimly lit stairs down you do indeed encounter a troll. This seems like an intentional nod to Zork however the troll is one of the game’s red herrings. You find both an ax and an apple in the house before heading down the stairs. The ax is also a red herring. If you use the ax on the troll the game responds with; ONE MIGHTY BLOW FROM YOUR AX HAS KILLED THE POOR INNOCENT TROLL.

If you then LOOK you’ll see: A POOR MURDERED TROLL LIES IN THE CORNER.

If you feed the apple to the troll it will eat the apple however you will “softlock” the game for yourself as you will need the apple later in the game. The point is that you never even need to deal with the troll at any point in the game. Both the troll and ax are a bit of misdirection.

The game uses a point system and rewards you points for finding coins and treasures. This is nothing unique and was a popular text adventure trope during this time period however what WAS unique is the way in which the points were rewarded. You ultimately want to try and achieve 80 points in order to win the game. You receive 5 points for 8 different gold coins that you extract from the legendary house for a total of 40 points. You receive 10 points for a green emerald and another 10 points for a brilliant ruby for a total of 60 points. You’ll receive a final 20 points for returning these treasures to the surface where you initially started the game.

The game has a rather unique built in hint system. You can spend your gold coins in your possession for hints. The original Colossal Caves offered hints and we’ve played other games that will sometimes give you a hint however this is the first time we’ve encountered a game that lets you use your treasure items to purchase a hint. As the game progressed it felt a little bit like “cheating” because I would spend my gold coin for a hint with a puzzle I was having difficulty with and if I perished I would not spend my treasure currency in a later game. Obviously if you spend your gold coins on hints then you’re not going to be able to achieve a top score of 80.

One of the more difficult puzzles involves you trying to obtain an emerald from a giant snake. You are ultimately bitten and then have only 10 moves in which to find an antidote. Luckily the antidote that you need is close by.

How is this for unique? One of the gold coins that you find is actually another red herring. If you attempt to pick the coin up a heavy steel grate crashes down trapping you in the room. You then hear a rumbling sound as the ceiling begins to lower.

The game continues with; THE CEILING LOWERS ANOTHER FOOT. CEILING HEIGHT IS NOW 3 FEET !

YOU SEEM TO BE HAVING A BIT OF TROUBLE. I WILL GIVE YOU A HINT BUT IT WILL COST YOU A GOLD COIN. DO YOU WANT THE HINT?

If you answer YES at this point you get the following:

THE HINT IS: PMPH IS THE WORD

If you say PMPH at the prompt you’re rewarded with the following response:

CHUCKLE, CHUCKLE. MAN ARE YOU GULLIBLE

THE CEILING DROPS TO WITHIN 1 FOOT OF THE FLOOR! YOU ARE FLAT ON YOUR STOMACH.

You then are offered the following prompt from the game:

YOU SEEM TO BE HAVING A BIT OF TROUBLE. I WILL GIVE YOU A HINT BUT IT WILL COST YOU A GOLD COIN. DO YOU WANT THE HINT?

If you answer YES you receive the following:

I APPRECIATE YOUR TRUST and the game then opens the gate so that you can escape. This entire sequence however cost you two gold coins to escape with one gold coin; resulting in a net loss of a coin. If you avoid this room completely you’ll finally achieve a score of 80. You must know that it took me a couple of playthroughs and some experimentation to reach this conclusion.

A large serpent, not to be confused with the green snake guarding the emerald, guards a gold coin and this is where your apple will finally come in handy. The timing and posting sequence took me more than a few tries as you’ll discover if you play the game yourself.

I did end up reaching the high score of 80 points but not without spending some of my treasure currency in earlier game attempts. House of Thirty Gables ended up being a rather unique experience and it is the first game for home computers in 1980 whereby you can spend treasure for hints. The number of red herrings, unique puzzles, and sarcastic humor was enough to keep my interest and appreciate the game despite it being another treasure hunt.

My next gaming experience involves a CRPG from 1981 entitled Drac Is Back! Until next time…

Escape From Mars is an interactive text adventure written by Rodger Olsen and published by Aardvark. They published six games in 1980 and I’ve played four of them thus far including this one. Trek Adventure, Vampire Castle, and Deathship were the previous three. Escape From Mars was originally written for the Ohio Scientific (OSI) and then later ported to the Commodore 64/128, Sega SC-3000, TI 99/4a, Timex Sinclair, TRS-80 Coco, VIC20 and even the PC.

Escape From Mars, as the title suggests, is a game which finds you stranded on the titular planet. You have to repair your ship in order to escape. It is a rather tight game with a limited number of locations which serves the game quite well. You begin the game in the engine room of your ship and a textbook found in that location reveals that you need alcohol for fuel. A bill found in the locker describes what is needed to make a still. This information embarks you on a quest for equipment and ingredients so that you can escape.

It is imperative that you obtain what is called an oxybottle from the ship. This allows you to survive in the atmosphere of the planet as you move from location to location. You have a limited number of moves with this piece of equipment which seems to function much like an oxygen tank and each time you return to the engine room the oxybottle automatically recharges. If you do not get back in time before your oxygen runs out you perish and have to begin the game all over again. I speak from experience.

The first puzzle in the game which caused me some consternation was trying to discern how to remove the injector and tubing which I found in a cellar and maze below a Martian home. While exploring the inside of a Martian home I pulled aside a rug to reveal a trapdoor. You can only open the trapdoor by smashing it with the jeweled club that you find inside of a sandsled. A ramp below the trapdoor reveals a maze which contains an injector that you need and also a cellar which contains some tubing which is also essential. The problem is that when you pick these items up the game will not let you carry them back up the ramp because of their weight. I could also find no other exits out of the maze. This particular conundrum turned into a considerable time suck for me until I broke a large stand up mirror also found in the Martian home. Breaking the mirror revealed a secret passageway that leads to an observatory and a ledge where I find a coil of rope. Once I had the coil of rope in hand I took said rope to a well and tied it to a statue near the well. This allowed me to climb down the well which also leads to that same maze found beneath the Martian Home. In this way I was able to finally remove the injector and tubing. I questioned why climbing up a rope with these items was easier than walking up a ramp with them but remember it is an adventure game puzzle not real life.

The rest of the game involves you collecting the ingredients to make alcohol. You’ll have to grow some wheat, obtain water, light a fire and voila! you have alcohol.

The Aardvark writers and publisher seem to have a fascination with pockets. Once again I encountered an issue where the suit I was wearing contains a pocket. If you do not open the pocket and look inside; the harmonica and lighter contained therein will not be added to your inventory or accessible. Once you DO look inside the pocket however you can obtain or use both items. You’ll need the lighter to light the fire to make your alcohol and you’ll need the harmonica to lure a Martian to you. Yes that’s right. Whichever location you’re in, if you play the harmonica, over and over, a Martian will eventually appear (you hear a rustling sound coming closer and closer each time you type PLAY HARMONICA – which makes me wonder what a Martian looks like) which you can then capture with your NETS. Once you have captured the Martian you can then take his helmet which you’ll use to collect some water from a swamp.

Once you’ve made your alcohol it is a simple matter of getting back to the ship and then taking off. I liked this game and thought it was another fine offering from Aardvark. All of the text adventures I’ve played from the company so far have had an interesting plot, tight map locations, and a goal to accomplish. They have avoided the treasure hunt trope which was famous during this period. I still have two more text adventures from them to experience yet.

My next challenge involves another text adventure entitled the House of Thirty Gables – that’s a whole lot of gables! Until then…

Catacomb of the Phantoms was written by Tom Plassman and was featured in the June 1981 issue of SoftSide. SoftSide is a defunct computer magazine, begun in October 1978 by Roger Robitaille. Dedicated to personal computer programming, SoftSide was a unique publication with articles and line-by-line program listings that users manually keyed in. Catacombs of the Phantoms was one such program. Softside ended with it’s March 1984 issue.

A young man looking for adventure opportunities in Pettieville is pointed in the direction of a doddering old wizard. The old man mentions the Catacombs of Phantoms and that deep within these catacombs lies the Golden Goddess of Power that the Sorcerer Agalinta was rumored to have hidden. So you strike out in the hopes of finding this Golden Goddess.

Catacombs of the Phantoms is a text based game. Your player character moves deeper and deeper through numbered chambers in order to find the final prize. Each player character has two ability scores: Strength and Agility. The Strength score is a measure of health or hit points while the Agility score affects combat ability. In combat, the player’s Agility is compared with that of the monster’s which determines how much Strength is lost in the fight.

The game is made to play in a single sitting however it is quite hard to beat. Part of the strategy for beating the game involves you finding and wresting control of a fountain from the creature guarding it. If you drink from the fountain it increases your Strength score based on the number of experience points you have (which you get by defeating monsters) and increases your Agility score based on the amount of gold that you’ve acquired. The Golden Goddess of Power is guarded in the deepest level of the Catacombs by a Giant with 300 Strength. In order to even have a chance of defeating this guardian, you’re going to have to stay alive long enough to accrue many more points than that. This involves carefully mapping out the entire complex because it is imperative to know where the fountains are located so that you can backtrack and visit them several times. The fountains have a random limited usage so it is important that you have control of more than one fountain.

Each time you play Catacombs of the Phantoms the rooms and their contents are randomly generated so that each game is different. Above is an example of how I mapped out the four dungeon levels in what ended up being a winning run. The game is surprisingly addictive and while it is meant to be played in one sitting it is surprisingly very difficult. I died many, many times before finally winning the game.

Each room that you find may have a monster, a treasure chest, and a fountain. The fountains are rare and you may find that there are only 2 to 3 of these throughout the four dungeon levels. It is important that each time you encounter a dungeon denizen you look closely at your opponent’s Strength and Agility and compare them to yours. I found that if the scores were equal you could prove victorious but at the cost of many Strength points. If your Strength score isn’t almost double that of your adversary’s it may be best to choose to Flee; which is an option. If you do Flee, the monsters get a free attack upon you.

The game derives it’s name because quite often a sexy phantom will appear to offering you aid or assistance. You get the choice of accepting that aid with a simple Yes or No. If the phantom does indeed aid you it can provide you with clues or special codes that do special things. Sometimes however the phantom, once you answer Yes to accept her help, pulls a knife and stabs you in the stomach doing quite a bit of damage. Late in what ended up being a winning run for me, I kept choosing No to avoid aid because I couldn’t take the chance of being wounded.

The only input allowed by you as the player character is typing in which room number you want to travel to next. The other special instruction codes are as follows:

• 77 – to fight a monster
• 88 – to search a chest for gold or items
• 99 – to drink from a fountain
• 102 – to use a worm
• 200 – to leave from the natural exit

The player begins each new game with three “worms”. What a “worm” allows you to do is drill or burrow a tunnel to the next level below from wherever you are on the current map. You get to do this three times and then lose the ability. Sometimes a “worm” is necessary because there is no exit or way to continue lower based on the random generation of the Catacombs. Other times you may choose to use it strategically to help win the game.

The final battle is extremely difficult and I barely pulled it off. It was actually a nail-biter and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this game. It reminded me a little bit of Devil’s Dungeon the way it is setup however I enjoyed Catacombs of the Phantoms MUCH MORE.

Once you defeat the Giant and obtain the Golden Goddess of Power you are granted a wish which will send you home. Some of these line-by-line type in programs are fairly amazing and quite enjoyable. If you feel comfortable using an emulator and can find a copy of the game I suggest that you give it a try.

The next game on the docket in my journey through time involves me moving from these catacombs to the depths of space. I will be tackling an interactive text adventure entitled Escape from Mars. Until then…

Deathship was written by Rodger Olsen in 1980 and published by Aardvark. It was originally written for the Ohio Scientific Computer but later ported to the C16/Plus4, the Commodore 64/128, PC, TI-99/4a, Timex Sinclair, TRS-80, TRS-80 Coco, and the VIC20. I played the Commodore 64 version of Deathship.

Deathship is an interactive text adventure and it was the first of six adventures that were written for the Ohio Scientific in 1980.

We had already covered both Trek Adventure and Vampire Castle and so I was curious to see how Deathship would rate compared to the previous two games.

I had a few parser issues with Deathship but despite those issues I thought the game was well done. I found the map to be very tightly put together and the game was challenging. It reminded me a bit of Secret Mission by Scott Adams.

When the game begins you discover that there is a bomb on board the ship and that you need to find and disarm the bomb before 9:00.

The map itself is very much a large part of the game.

You can go into a lifeboat from the Aft Deck and retrieve a flashlight. You find from exploring the ship that you’ll have to scramble down an anchor chain in order to get access to a porthole. Once you’re in the room you’re going to have to turn on the flashlight and that’s when you discover that the map itself is the puzzle. The map can be tedious because you need to discover ways to get from point A to point B and because you’re trying to find and disarm a bomb you’re on a time limit.

One of the harder puzzles reminded me of Vampire Castle by a different author but released by the same company and so I wonder if there wasn’t some “bullpen banter” involved as the “crate puzzle” was the first of it’s kind that I had encountered in Vampire Castle and lo and behold the same kind of puzzle is here in Deathship.

If you break the crate up to see what is inside you’ll “softlock” yourself from being able to finish the game. You first need to take the crate to the bow of the ship and use it to stand on so that you can reach the rope found on the top of the flag pole. Once you have the rope in your possession you then tie the rope off to a railing and use the rope to access yet another porthole.

The game is diabolical this way in that you need to economize your movements because you are on a timer to find and defuse the bomb and you also have to be careful with your flashlight as well and remember to turn it on and off when entering and leaving darkened areas.

There is an odd puzzle in the game involving the radio being nailed down and once you remove the nails and lift the radio you’ll find a cutter underneath which you absolutely need to defuse the bomb. This falls into the unfair play category just a bit because there is no rational reason for a cutter to be located under a radio that is nailed down.

The hardest part of the game is reminiscent of the Scott Adams game. You not only need to cut the wire on the bomb with the cutter you’ve found but then you need to submerge the bomb in water to deactivate it. Every time you try to carry the bomb to the swimming pool on the ship the bomb blows up as you run out of time. The solution is to take some water from the swimming pool with a bucket you find in a janitor’s closet and carry the bucket from the Aft Deck to the hallway off the Midship’s Deck. You drop the buck of water there and you’ll find you can then carry the bomb with the wire that you’ve cut to that point and you drop the bomb in the bucket for the win. Very devious.

I thought the plotting and map to be very tight and the puzzles to be fairly tough. There were some parser issues because I knew I had to climb down the anchor chain as an example and finally found after many tries that GO ANCHOR is what I needed to type to climb down the anchor chain. I also found that after I manipulated my environment like OPEN LOCKER or BREAK CRATE as examples that my description wouldn’t refresh. I would have to type LOOK AROUND to see what my actions had uncovered. All in all I enjoyed my experience with the game and if you want to play a challenging text adventure you’ll find one right here.

For my next game I’m going back to a CRPG from 1981 called Catacombs of the Phantoms. Until next time…

Catacombs was developed and published by J.K. Greye Software and published by Melbourne House in the United States. It was released in 1981 for the ZX81 and Timex TS1000.

Catacombs involves the exploration of randomly generated dungeon levels. You are represented by an asterisk as shown above and as you move about; the current dungeon level layout is slowly revealed to you. I have always been a sucker for this overhead Fog of War view in dungeon crawl games. Though Fog of War is used in the context of the military it is also a gaming term. It simply refers to areas of the map that you have not yet discovered or explored. Areas of the map marked in black or gray are areas that the player has not yet explored. Once you explore these areas, the black parts of the map will become revealed. In recent gaming years this term is not used as much as it used to be. It became a staple for many of the early computer role-playing games.

There is not a specific quest that needs to be completed in Catacombs. The only goal is to simply stay alive. Much like Rogue which was released in 1980, Catacombs uses letters and ascii to represent creatures and treasure. Your mission on each randomly generated level is to find food represented with a capital F and food acts as literal hit points as they increase your strength as you gobble them up. A problem with this game is that your strength decreases constantly throughout the game at a speed of 1 point per second whereas in Rogue you lost strength or hit points when you moved. So you’ll find you can’t find food fast enough in these randomly generated dungeons. You are always on the clock and on the run.

When you slay a monster your strength can increase as well so this is yet another way to improve your hit points. So you increase your strength rating by finding food and by slaying adversaries. The monsters are represented by letters and they are assigned starting positions in the dungeon when the level is randomly generated. When you get close to a creature and it steps on your square combat is then initiated. Catacombs is an auto-battler, meaning the combat is automatically calculated as the character and monster trade blows each round. Damage done to each other is determined by strength values and the difference between strength values. In my play throughs I ran across Orcs, Dragons, Trolls, Minotaurs, and a Phoenix.

You also want to accumulate the treasures that you find along the way and you can see my character next to a treasure icon up above.

In each dungeon level there is an EXIT which takes you to the next dungeon level. The screen will fade to black and there will be a pause as the next dungeon level is generated.

I did encounter a trap on one of the randomly generated levels and the game had me guess a number between 1 and 5 to escape the trap. I guessed incorrectly on the first attempt, was still caught in the trap, and had to guess a second time. I died in that trap after three consecutive incorrect guesses (that is some bad luck). I did not encounter another trap in any of my other play sessions so random traps must be quite rare.

There was no way to “win” in Catacombs as there was no specific quest to complete. The “win” was getting the opportunity to play and experience this early game.

For my next gaming experience I am going back to 1980 and to the interactive text adventure format to play Deathship. “It’s a cruise ship – but not the Love Boat and survival is far from certain” said COMPUTE! magazine in the November/December 1980 issue.

The Poseidon Adventure is the eighth adventure game that Roger M. Wilcox wrote for the TRS-80 in 1980. And I’ve had the pleasure of playing them all. The seven previous games that I’ve covered already are: Misadventure, Star Cruiser, Jailbreak, Space Traveller, Nuclear Submarine, India Palace, and lastly the Vial of Doom.

Wilcox at one point renamed the game The Upside Down Adventure out of fear that 20th Century Fox might sue for trademark infringement.

Greg Hasset released Devil’s Palace in 1980 as well and it was the eighth game that Hasset had made. He had set out to make a game that was much harder than any of his previous adventures and he certainly accomplished that. I believe that Roger M. Wilcox set out to emulate that experience because The Poseidon Adventure is frustratingly hard.

It’s not that puzzles were obtuse or undecipherable; or that the map itself was difficult to discern or create; it’s that there are hidden expectations regarding the parser that the player is somehow supposed to be aware of. I had to resort to getting a hint not once but two different times with this game. Let me give you a couple of examples:

In this first example I actually solved what might have been an inventory dilemma quite by accident. In a medical closet you find a bottle of liquid and in an ex-stoner’s cabin you find glycerin. At any point in the game if you type in MAKE and have these two items on your person than you suddenly have a bottle of nitroglycerin in your inventory. I arrived at this solution quite by accident admittedly.

This next example is much more devious. In the cargo hold you find a metal rod and in an underwater pocket you find a metal claw. You must type CONNECT and hit enter and then you’ll suddenly have a crowbar which you’ll need later in the game.

I had to resort to a hint in this last example as well. In a tool room on the ship you discover a drill and a screwdriver. I tried using the the tools in different rooms and in that room but what the parser was looking for in the tool room was for me to type: DRILL

followed by: SCREW

which would then disassemble a wall revealing a hidden room which contains an axe you’ll need for later in the game. In these examples there are no what I would call unfair puzzles or anything that hasn’t been done in other games but it was the execution of the solution or the expectation by the parser that threw me off. You encountered situations like this in Hasset’s Devil’s Palace in a purposeful attempt to make the game harder and I believe you have the same situation here. I don’t mind cerebral puzzles or riddles but playing “guess the surprise verb” makes for a frustrating experience.

Hundreds of games have been created that revolve around licensed properties, with or without permission, and I thought the idea to create a game based on Irwin Allen’s hit movie was a novel idea. The locations in the game and the map itself makes sense and there is a sense of urgency in the game as well but a couple of the odd “parser puzzles” overshadowed the experience for me with this particular game. Overall it has been an absolute pleasure to be able to experience the eight games created by Roger M. Wilcox in 1980. While these games were not commercial games; players will discover that he was just as prolific as a Greg Hasset or Joel Mick.

For my next game I’m taking a break from the interactive text adventures from 1980 and going back into the dungeons with a role-playing game called Catacombs.

Vial of Doom is an interactive text adventure written by Roger M. Wilcox for the TRS-80. The story is based on a 25 page typewritten short story that Wilcox had written a year earlier. Wilcox admitted that his story was influenced a bit by Michael Moorcock’s multiverse.

Wilcox originally thought that the story he had written was way too complicated to turn into a computer game until he read an article about Greg Hassett’s World’s Edge adventure and then became determined to make a game out of the story.

Vial of Doom is the 7th adventure game that Roger M. Wilcox wrote for the TRS-80 in 1980. He considers Vial of Doom to be his first good adventure game, a watershed moment, and 15 more games would inevitably follow.

The interesting thing about all of the games written my Mr. Wilcox is that none of them were released commercially. He finally got around to rewriting his games as WPF .NET applications in 2012 as part of his “remember my past” endeavor. He then made the games available to the public to play whereas before they had only been available for friends and family. I have played his previous six games in the order in which they were written and some of them are better than some of the commercial fare I’ve played. I am thankful that these games are now available to the public.

This game would have been impossible for me to play or finish if I had not taken the time first to read the short story that it is based on. The events which transpire in the game are taken almost verbatim from the story. It would have also been contextually more difficult to operate and understand the “vial of doom” which you’re character is carrying around.

There are not many locations in the game however there are several puzzles to overcome. Getting into the pyramid in the beginning of the game and discovering the “treasure” within is standard adventure game fare and I am sure you can figure things out on your own. Overcoming the puzzles in the other parts of the game are going to involve you using the “vial of doom” in a myriad number of ways. The “vial of doom” is an agent of chaos and you find yourself a pawn now in a much bigger game. Many of the puzzles you’ll easily figure out if you bother to read the short story which the game is based on. There are a couple of minor parser issues where you understand what it is that you need to do but you have to find the right verb but you’ll eventually figure it out.

The next game on tap is going to be Roger M. Wilcox’s last game that he wrote in 1980. He wrote a total of seven games this year and The Poseidon Adventure based on Irwin Allen’s hit movie was the seventh and last game. So when next you hear from me I’ll likely be upside down and underwater.

Will ‘O the Wisp is an interactive text adventure which originally appeared as a type-in in Nibble, Vol. 1, No. 8. (December 1980)

It was later reprinted in Nibble Express and a VIC-20 version was published in Commodore Computing International Vol. 1, No. 11 (March 1983). A C64 version was published in the book CBM 64 Programs – Volume 1, Duckworth Home Computing, 1984. A version for Commodore PET also exists and the game was also later ported to the TI-99/4A and the TRS-80.

The game was written by Mark Capella and it appears to be his only adventure game. He is credited with another, World of Odyssey, which also sold commercially but presumably only a few copies were sold and it is not listed in any Apple II archives nor in any biographies of Mark Capella. The rumor is that a couple of text errors on the back side of data files rendered the game unplayable.

The plot of Will ‘O the Wisp is that you’re a poor country boy who is destined to marry the beautiful Brunhilde the very next day. So you decide to embark on a little adventure before the nuptials. The writing and descriptions throughout the game by Capella are humorous and quite clever. The game has a Princess Bride meets Shrek feel to it.

The game itself is a bit deceptive as there are not many puzzles and seems more a walking simulator much like Dante’s Inferno. Unlike Dante’s Inferno, Will ‘O the Wisp DOES have a parser and the ability to interact with the environment. There are a few puzzles and things that can get you into trouble as you play through the game. The pared down parser however allows for a great deal of text throughout the game and the author makes good use of it.

Some of my favorite passages are those describing the land of the evil witch; Prudence. The dirty, sneaky, little path descriptions had me laughing out loud.

Successfully playing through Will ‘O the Wisp is going to require you to map out the locations by hand. There are four major areas to explore and the size of the game is actually quite large. It will likely take you a few hours to successfully navigate through the game environment.

The cave complex and the land of the evil witch are especially challenging to map out and navigate your way through. I had to resort to mapping by hand and I used four sides of paper before I successfully made my way through to the end.

As I stated earlier there are four major areas within the game: 1) the forest area just outside of your old farmhouse 2) the cave complex 3) Ralph’s castle and then lastly 4) the lands of the evil witch; Prudence. The forested area and Ralph’s Castle are relatively minor mapping chores. Navigating through the cave complex and lands of the evil witch however is a dastardly affair. I was surprised at the amount of time I spent with the game. I cleaned up the forested area and provided you, dear reader with a clear map to get you to the cave complex. The rest is up to you as the heart of the game is a mapping exercise.

There are a couple of puzzles in the game. You’ll encounter a banana peel that you’ll keep slipping and sliding on until you pick it up at which point you can continue on. (in the C64 version I played but in a run through on the PET version I never had this problem with the peel – it was just simply there to take ) You’ll find a discarded bottle in the forested area that you’ll want to pick up as this bottle becomes extremely important late in the game.

Once you make your way through the castle area and encounter said owner of the castle an actual quest makes itself apparent:

Once you realize you’re being tasked with stealing a broomstick from an evil witch the game begins to channel a bit of The Wizard of Oz.

Finding the land of the evil witch is not easily done but once you find it you also discover a puddle of water. I used the bottle in my possession to collect some water.

Once again the humor and tone of the game stand out as you rid yourself of the evil witch. “I’m smelting….!” LOL The broom now in your possession, you have to make your way all the way back to the castle complex and present it to Ralph.

Ralph rewards you by sending you back to your farmhouse but not empty-handed.

I really enjoyed Will ‘O the Wisp. It was engaging and more challenging to map then I’d have thought. The game gets it’s title because as you’re getting close to the end of a particular map section a Will ‘O the Wisp will appear in an attempt to get you to follow it. This is certainly true for the forested area in the version that I played but was of little help in the cavern complex or in the land of the evil witch.

What’s even more amazing to me is that this program, which I rather enjoyed, was a type-in from various magazines Type-in magazines were very popular in the 80s. They were great places to learn to write programs and the published listings were well commented. Tricks used by programmers who wrote their articles were available for all to see and learn. Utilities and games were published in this way and disk were also usually made available containing all of the programs from a single issue for those who didn’t want to enter the programs by hand. We have covered a few of these type-in programs already.

I will be stepping away from commercial products in my next blog post and returning to the Roger M. Wilcox collection with his Vial of Doom; an interactive text adventure.