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.
