Author: professor6153

We travel back to 1980 again as I work to systematically play the rest of the text adventures from that year. Space Traveller is the fourth adventure game written by Roger M. Wilcox. It was originally written for the TRS-80 in 1980 and Mr. Wilcox managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013. He rewrote the program as a WPF .NET application as part of his “remember my past” endeavor. The program requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.

Space Traveller has a science fiction setting but at it’s core it is a “collect the treasures & deposit them” theme which ran rampant in the early era of interactive fiction. You are on Planet Q and you have the ability to travel to both Planet Earth and Planet X and explore them.

One of the trickier puzzles from Space Traveller involves finding a small hat in a hat shop on Planet Earth. The small hat appears innocuous at first glance and when you check there is nothing inside of it or special about it. However in a write up Roger M. Wilcox mentioned that he drew inspiration from Scott Adams; Ghost Town and a tiny bit from Strange Odyssey. His comments really stuck with me as I was playing the game and so when I found a small hat in a hat shop my alarm bells started to go off.

In Scott Adams’ Ghost Town one of the trickier puzzles involved the parser and a 10 gallon white hat you had been wearing for much of the game. Secretly tucked into the rim of the hat had been an extremely important note or clue which was necessary to read in order to move forward in the game. So I was relatively sure that there was more to this hat than met the eye. I tried a number of things to no avail but when I finally tried; SHAKE HAT a 6 foot shovel fell out. Seriously. Once I had the shovel and was able to dig in numerous locations the game moved right along.

There are five treasures that you need to find in the game and then deposit them back in the “score room” aboard your transport vessel. Many of the puzzles involved digging for them. Were it not for the Wilcox’s comments about being inspired by Ghost Town I am sure I would have gotten good and stuck in the game. There were not really more than 15 locations in Space Traveller and the game probably only took me 30 minutes to solve. Remember that Space Traveller was not a commercial game but among a private collection of games meant for friends and family that was finally made public in 2013.

Next up on the docket is Nuclear Sub, another Roger M. Wilcox game and my personal favorite from his collection to date.

The story of Theseus & the Minotaur is a classic tale from Greek Mythology. King Minos had a great palace for himself and inside this palace Minos built a giant labyrinth, and at the center of the maze, he kept a terrifying creature – the Minotaur. Theseus would end up overpowering the beast and stabbing him in his throat, fatally wounding him.

TSR of Dungeons & Dragons fame enters the home computer game arena with this offering. Bruce Nesmith was one of the programmers who would then stay on with TSR and write numerous modules and books for them before taking the job of senior game designer for Bethesda Softworks. He would go on to work on Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, Oblivion, Oblivion’s Expansion: Shivering Isles, Fallout 3 and then serve as lead designer for Skyrim.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this offering and was pleasantly surprised to find that it is an early dungeon crawler. The labyrinth has three floors which are 10 x 10 in size. You always begin play on the bottom floor in the corner. The dungeon presents itself as a three dimensional wireframe format much like Wizardry or Ultima. There are holes in the floor and ceiling and you will find yourself moving up and down between the three floors to access certain areas.

There are secret doors located throughout the complex and they look exactly like a normal wall. To find the secret door you have to walk into the wall. If there is a secret door there you will walk through it. Each labyrinth also has what is called a Hall of Mirrors which is a very confusing place.

Movement is through keyboard commands. L for left and R for right. The Enter key will move you forward while A will execute an about face or turn you all the way around. Combat is executed with the F command from the keyboard when encountering the Minotaur or the Minotaur variations. You begin the game without a weapon and have to resort to using your bare hands. When you defeat an enemy you can then press G for get. This command lets you search for a weapon in the space where you are standing. I found a thigh bone and was able to deal much more damage with it than with my bare hands.

In the first 150 turns of the game you can press W for wait and it lets a turn pass while you do nothing. You will heal one point of damage for every turn you wait but after turn 200 this feature turns off. If you press H from the keyboard this allows you to check your current health status. It also will display your current score, the amount of time you have spent in the maze, and the items that you have in your possession

The game ends when you leave the labyrinth through the door that you entered. The goal is to go into the maze and rescue Princess Ariadne and then make your way out. She can be virtually anywhere within the maze so you’ll want to check every square. You receive points for the following:

You can also choose how simple or complex you want the computer to generate the labyrinth. It is essential that you map the labyrinth if you do not want to become lost.

I enjoyed this offering and was surprised to uncover another early dungeon crawler. I would have enjoyed the game much more if the screen did not refresh itself each time I moved and the redraw rate was slow. If you’re playing on an emulator you can greatly increase the emulator speed to overcome this problem. TSR would publish another pseudo-RPG in 1982 of their popular board game; Dungeon! We’ll be taking a look at TSR’s other offering next.

Caverns of Freitag was developed by David Shapiro and published by MUSE Software of Castle Wolfenstein fame.

This is the first game written by David Shapiro who would later go on to work for Origin. He would contribute to Ultima V and had the moniker of Dr. Cat. He appears as an NPC innkeeper in Paws in both Ultima V and VI and the dragon Freitag’s skull is one of the exhibits in a museum in Ultima VI. He would also work on Moebius, Windwalker and Warsport for TimeSink.

The evil dragon Freitag has taken refuge in a large system of caverns on the Enchanted Islands. A Thechu warrior must explore the maze, overcome Freitag’s minions and finally slay the evil beast, so that the Islands may once again be free.

The Caverns of Freitag is an action-based RPG where the player controls the warrior on his way to kill the dragon. Action-based RPGs have been a recurring theme in 1982 as we’ve seen with Warrior of Ras Volume’s One & Two, The Valley and Sword of Fargoal.

You begin play at the Inn which is located on the far western part of the large map. Each time you return to the Inn your hit points will be restored to their full amount and you’ll be awarded experience and levels for the monsters that you’ve slain. The highest level you can attain is that of Lord or Level 10. Your ultimate goal here is to find the dragon located somewhere in the vast dungeon and slay the beast. You have two different kinds of weapons to choose from: sword and arrows. Your arrows are limited however and you can only purchase more at the Inn. The Inn however is really in an inconvenient location. You’ll find that you’ll be trying to explore the vast dungeon and then constantly have to make your way all the way back to the Inn on the wester edge of the map in order to heal and recuperate. The monsters respawn too so your forays into the dungeon early on can be a bit frustrating.

There ARE Healers, identified by the letter “H” in Modes 2 and 3 (more on this later) that are depicted with a square face. These Healers are your allies and can help you to regain valuable hit points when you land on them

Scattered throughout the dungeon are treasure chests that are filled with gold pieces and you’ll need the gold to purchase said arrows and you can also use the gold to purchase more hit points and increase your overall hit point total which in this game is an absolute necessity. You’ll want to be careful as some of the chests are actually Mimics or creatures that mimic a treasure chest. When you touch the chest you’ll stick to it and then have to slay the creature to escape. Chests can also contain a teleport trap and can teleport you to a random location within the vast maze. I also found a chest that contained arrows and another that awarded me with a +1 sword.

There are about a dozen different monsters that you’ll encounter in the dungeon and they are an odd bunch and depicted with a unique art style.

You have the mimics which “mimic” treasure chests which I wrote about earlier, electric moths that can attack you diagonally, griffins and flamebats that both have a lot of hit points and deliver a lot of damage. You also have Mad Robots, Burbleborts, thunderbugs, and Cold Crystals! There are also evil Wizards which are the most annoying. They constantly shoot lightning bolts at you from a distance and as you close to try and do battle they keep moving away from you while peppering you with lightning bolts all the while. Extremely irritating.

There is one magic spell you have learned to cast in your travels and that is The Charm of Sir Robin. I believe this is a homage to Monty Python & the Holy Grail from Shapiro. You might remember the bard singing in the background of the movie; “Brave Sir Robin ran away…” while the actual Sir Robin whines; “I did not!” You cast this spell by hitting the ESC key which promptly turns you into a long-legged chicken which allows you to move at twice your normal movement rate.

The most interesting aspect of the game for me was the three different Display Modes.

Display Mode 1, which is the default mode, shows a graphical display of the caverns and is depicted above. Only the most important display messages will flash on this screen such as “you’ve lost a lot of blood”

You can access Display Mode 2 by pressing the number 2 on your keyboard. This scene will give you a little window in the upper right hand corner. Each character is represented by a symbol or character. You are the asterisk, monsters are characters, walls are blocks etc. This page gives you all messages and useful information like how many hit points you have left, how many arrows you have left, how much gold you have, and so on. The last five display messages are also shown at the bottom of the screen.

You can access Display Mode 3 by hitting the 3 key on your keyboard. This lets you look at a Magical Map that the king loaned you from his treasure room. You won’t see any monsters or messages while examining the map but you WILL see a 24 x 40 display as opposed to the normal 9 x 9 display of the area of the Caverns you are in. The enchantment of the magical map will also reveal the location of any Healers within it’s range.

You can jump back and forth between the three display options quite quickly merely by pressing the 1, 2, and 3 keys on your keyboard and I certainly did this quite often.

The cavern complex is quite massive and it took me quite some time to explore most of it. Once you hit level 6 or 7 you’ll find that your forays into the complex can last much longer and go much deeper without having to flee back to the Inn to restore your hit points. The dragon’s lair is located in the far southeast part of the caves. You’ll notice as you get closer to the lair the colors of the map will change to a bright orange as depicted above.

The dragon’s lair is surrounded by a horde of enemies so the challenge is getting to the dragon with at least half of your hit points intact. The immense dragon isn’t very mobile but getting close to him is tricky because he keeps breathing fire. You’ll have to time things just right but I found I always took at least one breath weapon of damage in order to get close. It’s breath weapon usually deals 120 to 200 hit points of damage so it is quite deadly. Once you do get close to the dragon and can begin to exchange blows it doesn’t get any easier as the dragon packs a powerful wallop. It was difficult but I was finally able to defeat the dragon.

Once you defeat the dragon you have to make your way back to the Inn and any monsters remaining now chase you as you make your way back across the map. To make matters worse, there is suddenly a proliferation of more evil wizards which are the hardest and most irritating of all of the foes. In other words, once you have defeated the dragon getting back to the Inn is not easy.

I did make it back to the Inn and complete the game. You are awarded with a fireworks show at the end and then asked if you’d like to play again. Admittedly, I am not very proficient at these arcade portions and I was leery that I might not be able to beat or conquer this particular game. I persevered however and finally won out.

I played Caverns of Freitag on an Apple emulator and it took me roughly 5 hours to beat. I enjoyed my time with the game and there were two things that resonated with me that I wanted to highlight. The first was I found the three different Display Modes in the game to be very unique and highly enjoyable. Secondly I was entertained by the fact that Dave Shapiro of Ultima V and VI fame got his start with MUSE and that I got to play the first game he ever created.

Next up on my docket is Theseus & the Minotaur.

Apventure to Atlantis was written by Robert Clardy and published by Synergistic Software which was founded by Clardy in 1978. It is the fourth game that I’ve played by the author. Dungeon Campaign was his first release in 1978 which was followed by Wilderness Campaign a year later. The 1979 sequel took role-playing games to the great outdoors. Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure‘s release in 1980 was a conglomeration of the previous two game with a lot going on. Now in 1982 Apventure to Atlantis is a direct sequel to the previous installment.

In Odyssey: The Compleat Apventure you reclaimed the High One’s lost orb, and became Lord of Lapour. This sequel begins where the last adventure left off. Now that you have the Orb and you are Lord of Lapour, it is your job to lead a band of magic-users against an Atlantean menace, and end technology’s cruel dominance.

The manual provides some backstory and does a great job of describing the Atlantean’s descent into power and corruption.

This early RPG is a hybrid containing many different systems within one game. All of the game play is through text or keyboard input. The game begins with an overland map of the Island of Lapour where you have to recruit a band of wizards to join you in your assault on Atlantis. This phase of the game is very reminiscent of Clardy’s Wilderness Campaign.

The second part of the game involves you taking control of an Atlantean airship and flying from island to island. On these islands you’ll enter castles and search them for powerful spells to take with you on your journey. This unique phase of the game plays like a graphic adventure with puzzles.

Ultimately you’ll discover and land on the island of Atlantis where you’ll have to search for the Crack of Doom so that you can hurl your Orb into it and destroy the island. The mission is not an easy one because there are several puzzles and obstacles to overcome which can only be solved with the appropriate spells. All of this probably sounds very cool and it certainly is. There is a lot here to like and to unpack. My ONLY complaint; and I want to address it now before we look more closely at each facet of the game; is that the manual does a very poor job of providing you with a keyboard layout or explaining which keys do what. It is possible that I may have been missing a key piece of documentation. I checked two different sources and all I found were a manual and a card of hints. Now I’m not sure if this was purposefully done to increase the amount of time it would take to complete the game; or if the author felt that the joys of discovery would be appreciated more by the RPG enthusiast; but more than once I found myself feeling like I was missing a key piece of documentation and I found myself experimentally pressing all of the keys which was frustrating. With that out of the way let’s unpack this little gem.

This game and the accompanying documentation does not go out of it’s way to hold your hand through this venture. I spent quite a bit of time exploring and experimenting before I discovered what was required of you to progress ahead.

It was from inside the castle on the island of Lapour that I discovered that you could summon five guards that would do your bidding. If any or all of the guards should perish while you’re exploring the island you can return to the castle and summon more guards.

You begin play on the island of Lapour. Your goal is increase your experience through random combat encounters and to recruit a team of wizards to accompany you in the search for Atlantis. This much I knew from reading through the documentation. What took me quite awhile to figure out was the actual recruiting process. When the game starts you find yourself in your study within the castle. The Orb is on a desk with you as well as a book containing five spells. It turns out that you create a team of wizards by offering them one of the spells within the book. If they accept then they become part of your team that you control as well as the spell that you gave them. There is a “wrinkle” here that can soft lock the game for you and cause you to have to begin again. A character’s alignment is represented by a numerical value between -5 and 5. Your alignment represents your morality or views of the world. If you do not assemble a party of like-minded individuals there will be dissention and a wizard or wizards may leave the group. Every spell, and I do mean EVERY SPELL in the game is necessary to reach the end, so if you have wizards leave your group you are in big trouble. If one of the spells is Magic Detect you may as well just start the game completely over. Consider pulling a party together one of the first major puzzles of the game. I warned you the game does no hand holding. Not only did you have to deduce that in order to get a wizard to join your merry band you have to offer them spells; but you need to cast Detect Aura on each prospective wizard to make sure their alignment does not clash with the current party. If the numerical values are not close together than it’s a hard pass. If the alignments are in synch then you do not have to worry about dissention later in the game.

Once your party of five wizards are assembled your next problem is figuring out how to get off of the island. There is a clue within the castle that is meant to nudge you in the right direction. It took me some time to figure this puzzle out. Monsters and enemies are transported to the island of Lapour by means of a flying contraption called an Ornithopter. A picture of the flying contraption is on the cover of the game box. The Ornithopter always drops monsters in the northwest part of the island. I had to make my way to the drop point, and at just the right moment, cast Panic Horn while the monsters are being deposited on the island. This spell, only one of two times you use it in the game, causes the monsters to go into a rage and kill the crew. You and your party can then take control of the Ornithopter which then starts the next phase of the game.

The second phase of the game involves you moving from island to island in an attempt to collect more powerful spells. You can also use the islands or castles as “refueling stations” if you’re running low on fuel. Navigating the Ornithopter was probably the most frustrating part of the game for me. You had to fiddle with the velocity, altitude and direction. You were also constantly besieged by harpies, green skulls, dark phantoms, and warlocks during your flight. It isn’t technically necessary to land on many different islands. Once you exit a castle and are back in the Ornithopter you can land on the same island again and the castle randomly generates.

Aerial combat ensues when you encounter an enemy in the air. You have the choice of using your crossbows, ship’s guns, or spells. Choosing to use the crossbows uses no fuel while choosing to use the ship’s guns depletes your fuel reserves. Aerial combat can be frustrating so save often if you’re using an emulator.

The only reason to explore the castles on the various islands is to collect powerful spells that will aid you when you reach Atlantis. There are 9 utilitarian spells and 6 offense spells.

The 9 utilitarian spells are:

• jump
• rope trick
• levitation
• teleport
• part waters
• penetration
• spider climb
• shrink
• flame sword

The 6 offensive spells are:

• invisibility
• extinguish
• reflection
• sleep
• freeze blast
• ball of fire

If you don’t have all of the spells in your possession then the island of Atlantis is not going to randomly appear. You will need every single spell listed in order to survive your time on the island of Atlantis. Once you have all of the spells then you’ll suddenly find that you see the volcanic island appear while you’re flying. I want to cover a bit more concerning exploration of the castles before we move on to the isle of Atlantis.

There are two kinds of traps that you can encounter while exploring the castle. You can be caught in a cave in or you can fall into a pit trap. If one of your warriors is pinned under rubble due to the cave in then you’re going to need to find the shovel in order to dig him out. If one of your warriors should fall into a pit trap then you’re going to need to find the rope in order to rescue that individual.

Besides a shovel and rope, you will find many different kinds of objects within the castle. They are all hidden from your view. They may be in a corner, under rubbish, near another object in the room, or underneath an object. You can find a vial, a charm, an amulet, a staff, a scroll, etc. When you find an item you need to cast MAGIC DETECT on that item. If it is magical it will transform itself into a spell and it will ask you which of your wizards wants this spell. For example, find a cloak in the castle and casting MAGIC DETECT will always result in the cloak turning into an invisibility spell. You will need to keep landing and exploring castles until you have all 15 spells. A word of caution: be sure that your wizard who has the MAGIC DETECT spell doesn’t run out of uses for that spell. If that happened it would be most unfortunate for you.

The other unique feature of this game is that you may randomly encounter another wizard while exploring the castles. When you do the wizard will not let you go anywhere or do anything so you are forced into a wizard’s duel! When you’re dueling you each choose a spell to fling and the results are as follows:

The castle consists of roughly 18 rooms. This portion of the game looks much like playing a graphic adventure. Each room is labeled and decorated with furniture. Once you have entered the castle you cannot leave until you find the power source necessary to refuel your ship. The power source can always be found by finding three different secret doors. Each of these secret doors will only be revealed after saying a magical word. The magical words are the answers to riddles that you find on hidden notes throughout the castle. You’re going to need some prior knowledge on Greek myths or you’re going to have to resort to looking the answers up. I thought this was another interesting and unique feature of the game. I never thought that any of the riddles were too difficult. My favorite was: Sea God weapon or chewing gum. Other examples were ‘she opened a box of evils’ or ‘abode of the Greek Gods’ or ‘mighty before his haircut’. I had fun finding and solving the various riddles. The riddles are also all in the form of cryptograms that are solved by using letter substitution.

Once you have all 15 spells in your possession it is time to find and land on the volcanic island of Atlantis.

The island of Atlantis was much more difficult than I imagined. It is actually much like traversing a maze. There are no obvious paths to take so you’re going to have to begin to explore the island. You’re looking for the Crack of Doom so that you can hurl the Orb you’re carrying into it. Clardy is obviously paying homage to Tolkien as the Crack of Doom was literally a crevice within Mount Doom. Tolkien pointed out in his translations that he took the phrase from Shakespeare’s Macbeth Act 4, scene 1: ‘What, will the line stretch out to the crack of doom?’

You will come across many different obstacles as your traversing the island and looking for the Crack of Doom. This is where all of the spells that you collected are going to come in handy.

You come across patrols of the Atlantean guard numerous times and they represent one of the many obstacles I talked about. You can use your Sleep, Freeze Blast, or Ball of Fire spells to deal with them successfully.

In this particular obstacle a Shrink spell will come in handy.

The Rope Trick spell is the ticket to get over this wet stone wall.

There are many other obstacles to deal with on the island and you will find that you will use every spell you have at your disposal. The Crack of Doom was located on the northeastern side of the volcano and it was not easy to reach. I hurled the Orb into the Crack and then was told I had better run for my life. I was able to get to the Ornithopter before the volcano erupted. There is a cool animated sequence in which you then watch a river of molten lava engulf the city of Atlantis.

This was a very unique CRPG offering from Clardy and in my opinion is the crown jewel of the four games we’ve played from him. The different phases of the game made it seem like you were playing three different games. The use of wizards and specific spells to deal with specific puzzles was very unique for it’s time; especially the introduction of a Wizard’s Duel. It took me over 11 hours to complete the game which I played on an Apple II emulator.

We’re not ready to close the book on Robert Clardy and Synergistic Software just yet. If I live long enough and we make it that far down the list; I believe Robert Clardy and his company were responsible for War in Middle Earth from 1988.

Next up will be Caverns of Freitag

Jailbreak is the third game I’ve played from Roger M. Wilcox’s collection of games that he wrote from 1980 to 1983. You begin the game in a jail cell with your only exit a locked door with a guard standing outside. You have nothing on you for inventory nor is there anything in the room to aid you in any way.

I had no difficulty at all with the puzzles in Wilcox’s previous two games: Misadventure and Star Cruiser. However with Jailbreak I was absolutely stymied from the get go. I tried to interact with the guard and I tried various ways to even kill the guard; all to no affect. I finally had to head to the internet hoping to find a hint or a solution as to how to exit the jail cell.

I am glad that I did decide to look for a hint. I may never have left the opening screen and this blog could have ground to a halt for weeks on end. The solution was to type in Throw Voice (yes I’m not kidding) . If you type in Throw Voice the guard reacts by running down the hall and dropping his set of keys in the process. So we went from two games where the puzzles were fairly straight forward to a game where the opening sequence was almost impossible to solve.

The rest of the puzzles in the game posed no problem and I found the game to be shorter than the previous two games in the collection. You have to deal with a second security guard and you do so by shooting him with a loaded pistol that you find in a secret room off of an office.

You’ll also find a means by which you can sneak by the warden and leave the prison. Once you’re outside the prison you’ll buy a shovel and then dig up evidence in a nearby field which was extremely convenient. The courthouse is right next door to the prison so once you have the uncovered evidence you present it to a judge who then overturns your sentence and finds you innocent.

Never mind the fact that you shot a guard in cold blood and killed him while escaping from prison. I’m not clear how the evidence you needed to exonerate yourself was conveniently buried in a field next to the prison either. This was the weakest of the three games I’ve experienced from Mr. Wilcox. When you’re exploring a dungeon or an alien vessel that’s landed in your hometown there is an automatic suspension of disbelief because you’re dealing with the fantastical. With a game like Jailbreak you’re looking for the plot to make some practical sort of sense and unfortunately in this game it just doesn’t.

The second problem I had was the locked room puzzle in the opening sequence. I view it almost as a parser issue because I never would have thought to type in Throw Voice on my own. This was a problem with some of the text adventures in the early 80’s. The authors, in an attempt to ratchet up the difficulty level in a game, would include a puzzle that was almost impossible to solve. I spent probably a good 45 minutes trying just about everything I could think of to escape the jail cell before having to resort to looking for a solution. I did like the originality of how the game begins and I also liked how you had to figure out how to get past the warden.

Despite some problems with this particular offering I am looking forward to the next game in Roger M. Wilcox’s collection. I am going to take a break from the text adventures in 1980 and move forward again in time to 1982 and play the next three CRPG’s on my list from that year.

Star Cruiser is an interactive text adventure which was originally written for the TRS-80 in 1980. It is the second adventure game I’ve played from Roger M. Wilcox’s collection of games that he wrote between 1980 and 1983.

These games were never released commercially but were written by the author for his own enjoyment or for a close group of family and friends. Roger M. Wilcox as part of a “remembering my past” endeavor rewrote his old games as a WPF .NET application. Mr. Wilcox also provides the complete Visual C# source code for the game on his website. You’ll have to install the full .NET 4.0 framework if you want to enjoy this collection of games.

The premise of this adventure is that an alien space ship has landed in your hometown. Several people have managed to enter the ship to investigate it but only one ever managed to make it out. Now it’s your turn to enter and explore the alien vessel.

There are 23 different locations to explore in Star Cruiser with many of them blocked by an opponent or locked door or gate. The solutions to bypass the obstacles are not surprising and make practical sense. One of the puzzles which might have presented some difficulty to players even has it’s solution hidden in descriptive text. All of the puzzles require that you find a particular item or key to get past said obstacle.

One of the more difficult puzzles involved a menacing black sphere at one of the security checkpoints that blocks your progress and can even kill you. It took some trial and error but one of the items that you find on the ship is a silver ball. When you throw the silver ball at the black sphere it creates a “hole” in the entity which causes it to wink out of existence. This solution was a bit obtuse, however, simple trial and error with the items in your inventory would have gotten you through this puzzle.

Once you are in the control room of the alien vessel you are presented with a panel of 3 buttons. Pressing button number 1 begins an automatic self destruct countdown. Pressing button number 2 ends the self destruct sequence if you first pressed button 1 otherwise nothing seems to happen. If you press button number 3 the above message is displayed; ending the adventure.

Star Cruiser was a short game that took me about 20 to 25 minutes to beat. It was just as enjoyable as Misadventure and again I felt like I was playing an entry short for an interactive adventure Game Jam. I am glad that Roger M. Wilcox decided to make his private game collection available to the public. If you’re a historian it presents yet another “category” of games that we’re being introduced to and if you enjoy playing interactive fiction Mr. Wilcox presents you with a lot of choices.

We travel back to 1980 for this interactive text adventure written by Roger M. Wilcox. Thus far we’ve played games that were written specifically on mainframes, we’ve played games that were commercially released for the home computer, and then lastly we’ve played games that originally had source code printed in magazines. Misadventure does not fall into ANY of these previous categories but instead represents a fourth: private games. These are games that are written by the author and meant to be for just themselves or a small audience of friends and family. Games that are private are never really written about or studied because they are just that: private. In the case of Roger M. Wilcox he decided to go back and resurrect his collection of 21 adventure games that were written between 1980 and 1983. You can find his collection of games right here. He considers Vial of Doom to be his first really good adventure game but we’re going to have to work our way there. The first three games that I played are very short but they are worth spending time with.

I like the use of humor in the game’s setup. Your character ends up being transported into a “dungeon-like” complex that you have to explore and make your way out of. Misadventure is a fairly standard “find the treasure” dungeon crawler. The puzzles are of the “find an item in order to get by an opponent blocking your progress” variety.

For example insect repellent will take care of a large spider, a phaser will dispatch a hostile alien, a snake venom kit will help with a huge snake and so on. I didn’t really have any issues at all with the game however I did spend a little bit of time with the parser in trying to figure out how the game wanted me to use the snake venom kit.

The map consists of only fifteen locations and the game was relatively short. It took me probably 20 minutes to complete but I felt it was time well spent. I felt like I was playing a short entry for an interactive fiction game jam. It’s a privilege to get to experience and study an artist exploring his craft. I look forward to Mr. Wilcox’s next adventure installment.

Tunnels of Doom was written by Kevin Kenney and published by Texas Instruments for TI-99 computers.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from this offering. I had never heard of it and it involved installing and becoming familiar with yet another new emulator in order to run the program. What I discovered was a game that has an addictive quality to it and was a very pleasant surprise.

When the game begins you choose how many you would like in your party. You can have up to four characters in your party and the character classes you get to choose from are fighter, wizard, and rogue.

I chose to play the game with only one character in my party and chose the class of fighter. My thought process was that I would feel my way around the game a bit and then can elect to play with a larger group later.

Once you choose a character class and name; you then get to equip your character. There are various choices to suit each class. A rogue can listen at doors and is more successful at negotiating with enemies. A wizard can use various scrolls that are found throughout the dungeon. So once equipped I realized my mission was two-fold: find and rescue the king and also retrieve his orb of power.

The game sports a variety of screen views and I found that I liked them all. This overhead view of the room and it’s exits takes place when you enter a room or when combat ensues.

While you’re exploring the dungeon you navigate the corridors in a wire grid view reminiscent of Ultima or Wizardry however the dungeon is in color. The first three levels of the dungeon sport relatively bright colors but the colors become more drab and darker the lower you go creating a tense experience.

I really enjoyed the way the game handles combat. You’re allowed to move towards your opponent and then can attack once your adjacent to your enemy. If you have a ranged weapon like a crossbow, shortbow, or sling you can press the F key to fire and a “crosshairs” appears and you can then use your keyboard keys to position the “crosshairs” over your target. Once you are satisfied with your aim you then hit the space bar to fire. You can also press W to switch weapons during combat from melee weapon to ranged weapon or vice versa. You can elect to press the U key to use a magic item as well. The game is turn-based and thus each of the party members you control gets a turn. Each character gets a movement action and then an attack action.

Characters gain experience points by defeating creatures and level progression is slow. Your character gains 5 hit points for each new level. There are magical fountains that can heal you and if you purchased rations back at the Guild they will slowly heal you as you eat them. Once I became used to the nuances of the game I would make my way back to the Guild and pay 100 gold pieces to be healed then enter the dungeon again.

The game actually has an automapping feature and this is the third view of the game that I alluded to. You can press M on the keyboard to pull up a map of the dungeon. The areas in black represent areas that I had explored already and the areas in light purple had yet to be explored. There is usually a fog of war in play and the map reveals itself to you as you explore; however in one of the rooms I found a map of the level which reveals the areas you have not yet explored.

I found the gameplay to be genuinely engaging. I loved the overhead combat view and tactics involved. I fell in love with the automapping feature and fog of war associated with exploring the dungeon. I enjoyed the 3-D first person view of the corridors as well. Listening at the doors was a cool gimmick because each creature elicited different sound effects from the other side of the door. There was another unusual gimmick the game employed to open vaults that you find. The game tells you that the combination of the vault consists of three digits between 1 and 4 and then you have to guess the combination. With each guess the computer will tell you if you are too high or too low and each wrong answer saps 3 hit points from the character doing the guessing. I was first charmed by this mechanism and soon found it to be an irritating feature of the game. To be clear, it was the ONLY irritating feature.

I played two games on Easy mode with one character and then a game with three characters on Medium mode which consisted of three dungeon levels. It ended up being a real treat discovering this little gem and I can see how TI-99 owners could have become addicted to the game in 1982. If you want to try to play the game yourself you can get the Classic99 Emulator by clicking on the link and it comes with the Tunnels of Doom game. There is no way to save the game so be prepared to spend a good afternoon or evening exploring the dungeon. Supposedly there is a Tunnels of Doom Editor and further modules or adventures that were available but I could not find any. I believe this was the only RPG that was created for the TI-99. I really enjoyed playing this piece of gaming history. There were a lot of moving pieces and unique features and I found myself taken by surprise by all that was here. The keyboard layout and function keys took a little bit of getting used but the documentation for the game is excellent. If you get a chance be sure to give this little gem a try.

Volcanic Dungeon was designed by Roy Carnell and Stuart A. Galloway and released by Carnell Software for the ZX Spectrum in 1982. It is a follow up to the Black Crystal and is the second game in the Third Continent Trilogy. The third game in the series is entitled The Wrath of Magra. I tried to play Black Crystal, the first game in the series, and I kept encountering errors and getting dumped into source code.

The plot is an interesting one. A war between the forces of good and evil has been won by the light and the dark goddess Methzar and the evil Snow Queen were both defeated. But the witch Magra has managed to escape with some of her army into the titular volcanic dungeon, taking with her a captive elf princess named Edora. The task of the hero known as the Knight of the Star Jewel is to hunt down and kill Magra, and to rescue Edora from her glass coffin.

The war between good and evil destroyed the elves, dwarves, and animals as well as the seeds of the mother of all trees. Edora is the only one who knows where to find the seeds, without which nothing will grow. So finding and rescuing the princess is paramount to the future survival of all mankind.

Volcanic Dungeon has the same basic gameplay as a Rogue-like dungeon crawler but with a text adventure interface. The game is extremely difficult. You must find your way around the dungeon using the map provided in the manual. There are over 300 tunnels and rooms to explore and the dungeon is a veritable maze. You can get lost quite easily unless you carefully keep track of where you are on the map.

I found it necessary to photoshop the map from the manual and then print out several copies. You will die quite often so if you have to begin again you have a map to mark on to help you keep track of where you are in this labyrinth. The F on the map represent rooms of fire or lava which cause instant death if you stumble into them. The W on the map represents rooms with pools of water and the “ladder-like” symbol represents bridges traversing deep chasms.

There are wandering monsters throughout the tunnels and rooms that need to be dealt with. While you’re playing the game there are two statistics that you need to pay careful attention to. You lose hit points with every action that you take. Each step that you take, each item that you pick up, constantly subtracts 2 hit points from your total. The only way to replenish these hit points is through the experience gained by vanquishing foes. Each time you slay a monster in the dungeon you are awarded more hit points. So you need to be sure that you’re slaying enough creatures to stay alive.

The other statistic to monitor is your water. Remember that you’re exploring a volcanic dungeon. Each step you take further dehydrates you and so your water meter also ticks down with each step much like your hit points. The only way to replenish your water total is to make your way back to one of the rooms which contains a pool of water. When you enter the room your water level resets back to 100. If there is a wandering monster that generates in the water room than you must slay that monster in order to get to the water.

The monsters are the next level of difficulty. Each monster type can only be affected by a particular weapon or combat style and the way in which you defend against the attacks by each of these creatures is specific as well. If you choose the wrong weapon or the wrong defense you will find yourself instantly slain. In my short experience with the first game in the series, the Black Crystal, combat was handled this way as well. So much of my first hours with the game was that of experimentation. I had to discover which weapons or objects worked against each creature type as well as learning how to defend against each creature type’s attack.

I discovered that goblins die from swords, clubs, silver swords, knives, staves, etc. So just about anything except spears, torches, or stakes. Vampires were affected by stakes and the only way to defend against a vampire attack was with a cross. Wraiths were only affected by saintly staves and the only way to defend yourself from a Wraith is with a pentacle charm. Hydras were difficult to beat as well. The only way to defeat a hydra was with a sword and torch combination (slice off one of the many heads and then burn the stump so that a new head can’t grow back). When you defeat a Hydra you can pick up one of the game’s special items known as Hydra Teeth. You can use Hydra Teeth only one time in combat and then they are used up. Using the Hydra’s Teeth summons forth an army of ghostly warriors that will do your bidding and vanquish your enemy and once that is accomplished they disappear. The Gorgon could only be vanquished by a silver sword and shield combination and that same combination had to be your defense as well. Once you have slain a Gorgon you can elect to take the Gorgon’s Head but only if you have in your possession a magic sack to place the head in. Using a Gorgon’s Head against living enemies turns them instantly to stone. The dragon in the game can only be destroyed with a spear or sword and shield combination. Slaying a dragon also results in obtaining one of the game’s special items and that’s the Dragon’s Tears. You will need the Dragon’s Tears as part of the sequence that frees the princess.

The most difficult combat in the game is your confrontation with the evil witch Magra.

The evil witch Magra resides in one of the rooms in the dungeon. This location is different each time you begin a new game because the dungeon is procedurally generated. Once you encounter Magra she uses her spells to continue to conjure creatures for you to do battle with. Each time you encounter Magra the types of creatures she calls forth are randomly generated and different. You have to vanquish these waves of enemies before you can even do battle with her. The difficulty factor resides in the fact that you have to hope that you have the right combination of weapons and defenses against whatever she might throw against you. You can only carry 12 items at any one time so inventory management in this game is critical. If you do not have the right combination of items you will have to retreat and hope that the next time you do battle with her you DO have the right combination of items. Once you do finally reach the witch herself most of your weapons will wound her but it is the torch that finally does her in and affects her the most. When you defeat Magra she drops the Star Jewel which is another special item that you will need to help you free the princess.

The items that are guarded by creatures or that you find in tunnels and rooms are randomly generated. So you’re going to need to keep exploring until you find the right mix of offensive and defensive items that you need. You may find then that you need to retreat from combat often because you know you don’t have the right items you need to deal with the creature and that you need to find them. To compound this dilemma even further is that many of these items break during combat or are used up and then you have to find a replacement for them. Remember too that while your searching for these items you have your Hit Point Meter that is counting down against you and so you have to keep winning combats in order to survive. You also need to keep returning to rooms that have water so that you can replenish your water levels.

So keeping your Hit Point Meter and Water Meter in positive territory, not becoming lost in the dungeon, and finding the right combinations of items to deal with your foes all makes for a difficult experience.

Once you do find the princess encased in her glass coffin you’ll find that the coffin is surrounded by a magical wall of flame. The only way to deal with the flame is to use the Dragon’s Tears that then extinguish the magical flame.

The only way to open the glass coffin is to have the Star Jewel in your possession that you won from vanquishing the evil witch Magra. Beware however that opening up the coffin with the Star Jewel will cost you 100 Hit Points from your Hit Point meter so make sure your hit point total is high before you attempt to open the coffin.

Once you have the princess in your possession you now need to make your way out of the dungeon through the secret tunnel that you used to enter the dungeon. While you are moving with the princess in tow it subtracts DOUBLE the amount of water from your Water Meter. A pack of wolves was in the last chamber and blocking the exit that I needed to leave. My Hit Point Meter and Water Meter were almost depleted but luckily I had held back Hydra’s Teeth in my inventory. I called forth ghostly warriors which luckily vanquished the wolf pack and then I made my way out.

I played Volcanic Dungeon on a ZX Spectrum emulator and I spent about 12 hours and several pieces of printed maps ( I died often ) until I finally won out in the end. This game may not have the graphics to rival Wizardry II or Ultima II which were released in the same year but I found the game to be very enjoyable and highly original in terms of story and in the “gimmicks” that it used to make itself unique; and there were many. A rogue-like dungeon sporting a text adventure interface, a unique map consisting of over 300 rooms that was easy to become lost in, and monsters that had to be attacked and defended against with unique items and fighting styles. The encounter with the witch was exciting and rescuing the princess from a glass coffin using a correct sequence of events was highly evocative and original as well. The game was very difficult because there are a myriad number of ways to die and it is easy to die. Succeeding required a lot of experimentation and persistence. I enjoyed my time in the Volcanic Dungeon and I look forward to the sequel; The Wrath of Magra in the 1983 list.

The valley was originally published as a “type in” adventure in the April 1982 Computing Today. The game was later commercialized for a number of platforms by Argus Press Software. I played the Commodore 64 version using the VICE emulator. The April 1982 article contains a terrific and well written backstory for the game which you will not find in the commercial documentation. The short story also provides you with several “clues” about completing your quest in the game.

When the game begins you get to choose whether to play as a wizard, thinker, barbarian, warrior, or cleric class.

I cycled through the different choices to see what the impact would be upon my character. Your choice impacts the strength and psi-power attributes. You will encounter Wraiths, Burrow Wraiths, and Ring Wraiths which are not affected by physical weapons. Only psi-power (spells) can hurt these Wraith types. They will fling Lightening Bolt after Lightening Bolt at you until their own psi-power reaches zero and then they will fade away.

Combat is a frequent affair so I chose the barbarian class and named my character Niall of the Far Travels after Gardner Francis Fox’s excellent sword & sorcery short stories. These short stories are classics detailing the adventures of a what is essentially a Conan clone. All 10 of the short stories were originally published in Dragon magazine however you can read them now in a collected volume which you can purchase from Amazon.

You start play by leaving the castle at the far left of the world map. The route from castle to castle is considered to be safe and thus you will experience no encounters. Once you step foot off of the path however you are subject to random encounters which are quite frequent. Combat is very deadly and I would suggest saving often.

The various creatures that you encounter include: Orc, Hobgoblin, Harpy, Fire-Imp, Fire Giant, Minotaur, Wolfen, Wight, Ring Wight, Burrow Wight, Centaur, Kraken, and Dragon. Each time you slay a foe or find treasure it increases your overall rating or experience level. One of the highlights of this game is it’s prose and naming of places. One of the first things you have to do in the game is locate the Temple of Y’Nagioth, found in the swamp, and search the temple until you find the Amulet of Alarin. You then have to make your way to the Black Tower of Zaexon and search it’s multiple levels for the six stones which power the amulet (Infinity Stones anyone?). Once you have the amulet and the stones you then travel to Vounim’s Lair, found in the forest, to find the Helm of Evanna. This is great stuff! The author gets an A+ from me for the classic sword & sorcery labels and excellent backstory.

What I also found to be highly entertaining was that each time you gain an experience level you acquire a new label or description for that level. You can view your experience level progression by hitting the letter E on your keyboard. Doing so will tell you how many stones you have acquired so far and your current level. Here is a partial listing of the level descriptions:

• Level 11 – Assassin
• Level 12 – Giant Killer
• Level 13 – Hero
• Level 14 – Champion
• Level 15 – Necromancer
• Level 16 – Loremaster
• Level 17 – Paladin
• Level 18 – Superhero
• Level 19 – Dragon Slayer
• Level 20 – Knight of the Valley
• Level 21 – Master of Combat
• Level 22 – Dominator
• Level 23 – Prince of the Valley
• Level 24 – Guardian
• Level 25 – Warlord
• Level 26 – Demon Killer

I found it enjoyable to discover what my new moniker would be when I attained a new level. The labels evoked memories from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition.

Combat seems an entirely random affair. You can choose to strike at head, body, or legs. When you choose to strike the head you can deal more damage in a single blow but you also supposedly leave yourself more vulnerable to attack. When I first began play I experimented with choosing different body parts to attack and the results all seemed quite random to me so I merely elected to strike at the head each time going forward. I never really had to resort to spells either because the Wights consume their own psi-points when they fling Lightning Bolts at you so as long as you can “outlast” them, they will fade away.

The first time I entered the Temple of Y’Nagioth I did not find the Amulet of Alarin. The treasures are randomly generated when you first enter a level or lair so it is possible that you may not find what you’re looking for and have to leave and then enter the level multiple times until you do find what you’re looking for. This is exacerbated when you are looking for the six stones within the Black Tower of Zaexon. It is possible that through random generation that you find a stone that you already possess. So you may have to explore the levels of the tower multiple times until acquire all six stones.

Up to this point; I found the game to be extremely enjoyable. It does not have incredible graphics or gameplay in 1982 compared to other games published in that year; but it has the classic sword & sorcery schtick nailed down. From the backstory to the location descriptions, the mission requirements, and even the rating labels check a lot of boxes for the classic sword & sorcery fanboys. I had uncovered the Amulet of Alarin, found all six stones, had maxed out most of my attributes and was genuinely having a good time up through level 10.

Here is where the game runs into a problem. You will discover that when you travel to Vounim’s Lair that the game will not randomly generate the Helm of Evanna for you to find until you achieve the experience level of Demon Killer. This equates to a rating of 26. You will discover that you have everything you need to win the game and proceed further by levels 10-12. So I had to travel back to the Black Tower of Zaexon and grind and grind and grind until I achieved the rating of Demon Killer. This involved a lot of repetitive combat. It took approximately 45 minutes of straight play to achieve each new level. So in summary I spent probably 3 hours acquiring all I needed; and then another 12 hours of grinding to get to level 26.

Once you’ve reached a rating of Demon Killer then the game will randomly generate the Helm of Evanna for you to find within Vounim’s Lair. Once I had the Helm in hand then it was a simple matter to travel to the Castle. There is no win screen or any kind of fanfare when you return which was a little disappointing. You have the option to continue to play as well. The highest level you can achieve is supposedly level 28: Master of Destiny but I chose to take a hard pass.

It took roughly 15-18 hours to finish The Valley and much of that was spent grinding from a rating of 10 to the necessary rating of 26. I believe the grinding requirement will chase away everyone but the most diehard player. I don’t regret my time spent with the game but the most excellent backstory and original item and location descriptions were not enough to balance out the grinding mechanic