In Search Of Dr. Livingston is an interactive text adventure written and developed by Becky Fullerton, Ralph Fullerton, Carl Russell and Karen Russell. It appeared in the September 1980 issue of Softside magazine as a type in for the TRS-80. I played it on a TRS-80 emulator and it took me roughly 2.5 hours to complete.
When the game begins you find yourself in your bedroom with the bedcovers turned down. You’ll want to explore the closet and it’s content before you climb into bed. This text adventure sports one of the most creative and unusual adventure beginnings to date. The game obviously wants you to examine the timeworn book. The book title is Land of the Unknown (Africa) by R. U. Redde (ha). The book along with the game’s title suggests that this may be loosely based on Dr. David Livingston, a British explorer who was presumed dead while exploring the African continent. If you type in HINT here, which is the only time you’ll receive any kind of help in the game, the games suggests that the answer lies within one of the book’s passages. If you type in READ PASSAGE you get this:
It took me some time here but if you type in the word DRIFT you are then magically transported to a rowboat just off the shore of what seems to be Africa. I first thought that this was a dream sequence of some sort but it seems more in line with the use of magic to teleport yourself elsewhere like we’ve seen in previous adventures. Pirate Adventure by Scott Adam’s comes to mind.
Once I was able to wrap my head around that surreal beginning and began to explore the environment I realized that this was, albeit unique, another treasure hunt game with the key focus on finding Dr. Livingston. One of the most frustrating things about this game was the creation of the map and moving about the map.
There were three big stumbling blocks for me in this game: 1) getting by the beginning sequence; 2) trying to create the map and avoid confusion; and 3) dealing with the parser and what the game wanted when finding Dr. Livingston.
The map presented me with issues because I began to notice that going in a particular direction was not static. The game would change the rules or directions as you continued play. An example of this, if you look at the map, is the Uljii Village. When you travel EAST from the Plains Village it almost always takes you right back up to the sign location; emphasis on almost always. Every once in awhile when you travel east it will then take you to the Uljii Village. This was not the only time in which the game does this. I had a terrible time mapping the cave complex as well. I was lucky in that I randomly stumbled upon the village and then realized what was happening. I believe this is the first time I encountered this. From a game play perspective I can’t understand the reason for developing the game or coding a game in this fashion. If the goal is to make it harder I think it detracts from the current goal or story and seems to violate fair play rules.
Most of the puzzles in the game are inventory based. You obtain a few of your treasures by trading in the villages. There are two different villages and a trading post where you can trade for items. I was confused where to drop or store your treasures for points and it turns out it was back in the bedroom. You can return to the bedroom through the cave complex by saying SWAMI which is the second of the two magic words in the game. You can return to the dark continent by merely climbing back into bed with your book and saying DRIFT. I never did figure out how to make it by the leopard which guards one of the cave mouths but you don’t have to. You can always circumvent the leopard by going into the caves from the opposite side. This becomes rather easy once you have the map figured out.
The last stumbling block involved finding Dr. Livingston. I typed in GET LIVINGSTON and I kept getting the response Dr. Livingston? and I felt like I was trapped in the Abbot & Costello ‘Who’s on First?’ routine for a little while. Then it finally dawned on me to type I PRESUME at the Dr. Livingston? prompt and then he joined me.
Most of the treasures were obtained through solving inventory puzzles. The blue sapphire was particularly hard. Once you’ve whittled your charming little flute you can then CHARM VIPER and add the flaccid VIPER to your inventory. When you encounter the wild dog in the jungle if you drop the viper from your inventory this occurs:
I finished with 192 points out of 250 and I suspect this had more to do with the number of turns it took me to find the items rather than missing anything large in the game. The game was frustrating enough that I really don’t feel like testing that theory and I am happy to move on. The beginning of the game was original as well as the plot to find Dr. Livingston even though other treasures were thrown in to find for good measure. I am impressed with many of these type in adventures that we’re encountering from Softside. The mapping experience however was very frustrating due to the randomization of directions within the game. I don’t like that attribute and found that it detracted greatly from the experience.