PsL Monthly 1994 January

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GA-02: Text-Based Adventure Games ---------------------------- 7830/0087 Adventure Games #1 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- NOTE - Most of the games on this disk are relatively simple, but they are still interesting and serve as a good introduction to adventure games. Also, if you are interested in programming in BASIC, the fact that most of them are in BASIC will be an advantage to you. Castle (CASTLKB) Bales, Kevin $? is an adventure game with graphics. Charles Romer reports that this game will not run properly on a Leading Edge Model D. CIA You are a CIA agent with a dim-witted partner, trying to recover a ruby stolen by C.H.A.O.S. Desert You are stranded in the desert. Dogstar You are a space warrior. Hobbit You are a Hobbit thief, trying to steal the Orb of Zot from the castle of the evil wizard. King You have just been made premier of a small communist country. Your goal is to successfully complete your 8-year term of office. LostGold You search for the Dutchman's gold. Secret Snyder, Don $0 is a simple Adventure game, but the author has commented the code and shows you how to write your own adventure game. Soviet Meny, David $0 You are a government agent captured by the Russians and taken to a secret base hidden somewhere in the United States. While you are there you learn of the Soviet's plans to fire nuclear missiles from inside the US and make it look like an inside job, thus making the Soviets safe from counter attack. You must save the US from nuclear attack by getting out of your cell, finding proof about the missiles and escape the Top-Secret base. If you succeed you will be a national hero; if you fail the US is doomed. Sumer You are head of a small country that has fallen on hard times. Survival Stafford, Mike $0 You are lost on the moon. Vampire puts you in a vampire's castle, but doesn't tell you what your goal is. You have to learn that during the course of the game. Wumpus2 hunt the Wumpus in the caves. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #0087 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7830/1109 Adventure Games #2 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- Crime You solve a crime that starts in a video arcade. Forest Yim, Stephen $0 is a logic game for masochists. You are in a remote forest with both fires and floods raging around you. The only way out is to figure out the right three-digit code for using the satellite to call for help. Even if you survive long enough to do that, there is a strong probability that the rescue team will get wiped out by the flood/fire on the way in or out. Haunted You search the neighborhood for the kidnapped Pumpkin Man and rid the neighborhood of ghosts and other nasties. Island You are stranded on an island. Submarine (SUBMARI) You are a crewman on a nuclear submarine. It's up to you to make the mission a successful one. Terror The government has sent you to Antarctica where the enemy has a secret weapon hidden in an ice cavern. You must get in, steal the plans, and get back out. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1109 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7830/1608 Adventure Games #3 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- AdvComp is an adventure game compiler that lets you create your own simple adventure games. Also see Adventure Game Toolkit (disk #102 in GA-02). BASIC is required. BigRig is a well-done game in which you drive a big truck of freight across country. You decide what type of freight to carry, whether to spend money on maintenance, whether to exceed the speed limit, etc. Boris Targonski, Anthony $20 In this game you try to get all the necessary items you will need to take on a one-way trip to America without being spotted by the KGB. Combat starts as an adventure game but when you encounter monsters, it switches to graphics for the sword fighting. Unfortunately, we were not able to make much sense of the graphics, but we are not expert game players either. Crypt 2.0 (CRYPTHS) Herringbone Software $12 is an all-text adventure involving the exploration of an English church, churchyard, and underground vaults where great treasures from British history may be found. These treasures are protected by devious traps and creatures both natural and supernatural. Droganya (DROGANY) Chodes, Steve $5 is a bi-active adventure game. The course of the game is dictated by your response to the situation. The goal is to free the souls of the townspeople which have been trapped by the evil Lord Droganya. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1608 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7830/1609 Adventure Games #4 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- Enchanted Castle (EC) Wilk, Michael $10 is a very well written adventure in an old castle. No graphics required. KILLADV lets you try to survive as a tourist lost in some burnt-out, deserted buildings in New York City. BASIC required. Lovefire 1.2 (LOVEFIR) (12-93 CD) Pinnacle Software $0 is a branching story program. You get to make decisions about the way the story develops. It's a cross between a novel and an adventure game. Oh yeah, and it's for women only! Female chauvinist programmer... Lucifer is a real-time adventure game. Real-time means that unlike other adventure games where you can take your time entering commands, you have to be fast on the keyboard. An additional program lets you create your own dungeons. A CPU slow-down utility (such as on 1-UT-270) may be required. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1609 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7831/1610 Adventure Games #5 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- Empire 5.0 is a simulation of a full-scale war between two emperors, the computer and you. Red Planet (REDPLAN) Button, Conrad $20 You go to Mars to secure the lost treasures of Aukbaa. Upon achieving planetary orbit you find that your fuel is depleted. Can you acquire the Lost Treasures of Aukbaa and return home? This is an advanced level game. SamSpade (SAMSPAD) is an adventure that lets you solve a mystery a la Sam Spade. SkullDuggery 3.1 (SKULL) Jewett, David $12 is a classic text adventure, set on the southeast coast of eighteenth-century England. Zoarre is an adventure game. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1610 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7831/1898 Adventure Games #6 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- Adventurer's Museum (AMUSEUM) Chapel, Lee $15-$45 requires you to search a cave for stolen museum treasures, avoiding traps and obstacles - an interesting text-only adventure. D.R.E.D. Attack (DRED) McWilliams, Wayne $? is a text adventure game where you are one of the top agents and your job is to keep peace and stop all disturbances. Sound effects are used effectively, but are optional. CGA and color monitor required. MadMaze 1.0 Soleau, William $10-$15 is another maze/adventure game. In fact, the play of the game is nearly identical to PodWares (or vice versa), but this version has clearer instructions for getting started and is less cumbersome when it comes to blasting through walls, so we found it a little more fun to play. However, it's possible that PodWars, which has more features, might have more staying power, so we think that it is worth having both in the library. MadMaze has features such as cave-in's and gas leaks, but they occur randomly, so you have no control over them. In fact, the maze is so large and supplies so limited that there appears to be much more luck involved than skill. Nevertheless, it is fun to play. PodWars 1.2 Updyke, Merwin and George, John $15 We don't know how to classify this game. It is something of a maze game plus a graphic adventure game. There is not much in the way of documentation. It took us an hour just to figure out what's going on, but then figuring that out may be part of the challenge; we're not sure. We think it is fair to at least explain the start of the game. After running PODWARS.EXE, use the Load option to load TUNL-000. This will put you in the space ship armory. After you stock up on energy cells and weapons, you will teleport down into the middle of a lot of rock. Press the space bar to bring up the weapons menu, select Laser, press Enter (the menu disappears). Notice at the top of the screen it now says "Lasr". Press an arrow key in the direction you want to fire and part of the rock is blown away. Now the top of the screen says "Move", so move into the new space. Reload the Laser and keep chipping away and moving until you get out of the rock and into clear tunnel. There is a LOT more to the game. Read the doc file carefully for what little help there is if you expect to get anywhere. The program uses the IBM character set rather than true graphics, so this will run on any video. Spectre Tower (ST) McWilliams, Wayne $? is another in a series of text adventure games in which you play a top secret agent. This adventure takes you through the Spectre Tower. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1898 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7831/3398 Adventure Games #7 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- The Strength of Nations 2.2 (NATIONS) del Rio, Israel $10 is set in the year 2019 in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust. You lead one of the rebuilding nations. Up to three people can play at once. Quest Mini-Adventure Number #1 1.0 (QUEST) Kemplin, Rick $0 is novella-type role playing game that lets the player decide the story's outcome by deciding plot turns. Quest is more short-story than game. (Text may not be suitable for children in places.) A slow-down utility may be needed. Spaceminer! (SPMINER) Nelson, Mark P. $10 is a text-based game that finds you in charge of a mining colony on a remote mining colony on Beta Crucis IV. You must make decisions concerning the sale and purchase of the individual mines, sale of ore to traders, and procurement of food and supplies for your people. Can you survive? Volcano Hunter (VOLCANO) Informative Technologies ASP $10 requires you to explore 200 screens of cities, mountains and caverns looking for gold while avoiding monsters, lava, water-filled caverns, sudden drops and time bombs. Meanwhile you have to traverse conveyor belts, moving platforms, beamers, secret doors and ladders. Requires VGA. You will need to read the documentation before trying this one. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #3398 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 7832/1616 Role-Playing Games Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- Dungeon Explorer 1.0 (DEXPLOR) Murphy, John $10 is a graphical role playing game in which you wander around the countryside, searching for treasures and magic, and killing monsters. You can purchase potions, weapons, armor, and healing points at special shops. (The author is no longer at the address provided in the documentation.) Evil Crypt (EVILCRP) Keisler, Curtis $5 As Willie the Wizard you have to recover your sword and spellbook from the evil lord to to save the people of Seleria. The evil lord has granted you the opportunity to explore the three levels of his evil crypt to gather your possesions. You will encounter bugs that can bite through steel, poisonous snakes, intergalactic creatures, bottomless pits and more. International Bridge Contractors (IBC) There's even something for the stuffed shirts in the group, IBC is a business strategy game... no, make that "simulation"... in which you compete against other businesses. Show your boss what you could do if he would just give you the chance (and if you could just quit playing computer games long enough to do it). Down Life's Road (LIFEROD) Von Pein, Daniel R. $0 lets up to three players compete against each other or against the computer to see who can deal with daily financial decisions and reach a preset monetary goal. Maximus 1.1 (MAXIMUS) Targonski, Anthony $20 is a combination wargame, trading game and role playing game. Limited instructions are provided when you run the program, you can't save your game, and it takes a long time to play. Brian L. Robinette, Rockville, MD: "The program is crippled. You cannot use the attempt-a-bribe option and the save feature is only available to registered users." PsL: Although the features mentioned are not included, the ability to play is not severely limited and you can still have fun playing the game. If you're so hooked on playing that you want to save the game, we think it reasonable for the author to expect you to pay the minimal registration fee of $20 to do so. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1616 -------------------------------- ------------------------------- 7832/2464 Role-Playing Games #2 Small Programs Disk ------------------------------- Frigate 1.2 Kaufman, Matt $0 is a simulation game which pits you and your ship against a Soviet fleet of vessels. The object of the game is to destroy as many Russian ships as possible while avoiding destruction. Oilwell MTK Software $5 is a game of strategy and luck for one player. As the game begins, you have just just inherited an oil company from your rich uncle. The oil company has $50,000 in cash, a single oilwell, and a mortgage. During the game you must use your skill to increase your worth to $3,000,000 in order to pay off the mortgage. You have twenty turns in which to do this. Each turn consists of unlimited moves of buying, selling, refining, searching for oil, starting wells, and drilling on wells. At the end of each turn you must pay your taxes. During the game you may have to face strikes by the union, fires, and random occurrences which may influence the cost of crude oil or your refining costs. Sounds like your average work day in Houston. Supreme Ruler Plus (SRULER) Orcus Maximus Software International $0 is a game in which you are the president of a small country trying to beat up as many as eight other countries in a race for land and wealth. It can be played by nine people or up to nine computer opponents. Tommy's Seawolf 12.18.89 (SEAWOLF) Tommy's Toys $2 puts you in control of a submarine. Features include real-time sonar display and realistic sound effects. ASCII characters are used for graphics, so it will run on any machine. WishingWell 2.5 (WISH25) Rongey, Tony $10 is a petroleum exploration game. This game was designed to be as close a possible to real petroleum prospecting. The 2D and 3D prospect maps present realistic subsurface topography similar to common geological maps. The economics and production also follow rules which insure realistic game play. Those of you who are familiar with the oil business will appreciate the inclusion of a simple production decline curve and the limits imposed on production by depth and formation characteristics. A detailed financial statement is also included. Although the simulation is complex the instructions are simple, and play is fairly intuitive. Requires CGA or EGA. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #2464 -------------------------------- Alice in Wonderland Johnson, R. C. $10 #20017/2049 is an adventure game based on Lewis Carroll's famous book. The adventures you have will be based in part on the book, but in many ways it will be very different. This is NOT an easy game. We had trouble getting started at all. McMurphy's Mansion Martin-A $10 #20017/1195 is an all-text adventure game. It features an on-screen map (no graphics required), help screens and inventory list. The author decided to market his improved IBM version as shareware, but the original game was designed for the Commodore-64 and is still sold commercially on a national basis. There is quite a bit of disk accessing with this program, so we recommend running it from a RAM disk. Sanity Clause McCauley, Mike $10 #20017/4015 is a bizarre text adventure in which you attempt to get Santa Claus around the world on Christmas Eve by jumping from time zone to time zone to stay at midnight. You must deal with screwy elves, flying reindeer, hostile climates, and other situations which defy description. This game is suitable for all ages; you cannot die and you don't have to kill any one or thing, but if you fail in your tasks Christmas will be ruined for the entire world. Son of Stagefright McCauley, Mike $5 #20017/2485 is a text adventure game. This game was the first place winner in the third annual AGT Adventure Game Writing Contest. In it, you play the role of an actor or actress trying to get out of an old, abandoned theater. Along the way you'll run into creaky catwalks, raging rivers, mini mazes, rogues, royalty, rats and a zoo keeper. Adventure #095 is an adventure game with complete C source code. Adventure Game Toolkit 1.5 [AGT] 08-93 CD Malmberg, David R. & Welch, Mark J. ASP $20 #102 will allow you to create and play your own text adventure games. The Standard Level requires no programming experience to generate interesting games. The Professional Level makes use of a special adventure game language to create games that have the professional look and feel of commercial (eg: Infocom) adventure games. Games can have up to 200 locations, 100 inanimate objects, 100 people, animals or creatures, and up to a 400-word vocabulary. Requires 384k+. GameScape Graphic C.2 Drew, Dennis $95 #4721 helps you design adventure games. You can describe locations and rooms, objects, recognizable words, messages and occurrences that happened within the game. You can create games of any size, and include sound and music. TADS 2.0 Roberts, Michael J. $43 #4892 is a development system for creating text adventure games. It consists of a compiler for a high-level object-oriented language, a run-time system providing a sophisticated player command parser, and a set of common adventure objects such as a room or items that the player can pick up and carry around. Saving and restoring games, undoing commands, controlling the on-screen display, and several other low-level tasks are done automatically by the system. A sample game is included. "Another Lifeless Planet..." C.1 Drew, Dennis $? #20016/2625 ("...and Me with No Beer") is an adventure game in which everything you do or come in contact with has an express purpose. You are a hapless astronaut stranded on a hostile alien planet, trying to get to an alien spaceship and rig it to blast off safely. You will face perils such as deadly Slurpers, Air Squids, Bladderbeasts, and the terrible Pun Palm Tree. Prepare to die horribly and often; we couldn't get past the large, icky-looking monster. Requires 640k, and a hard disk is recommended. Humbug and Jacaranda Jim 4.5 [HUMBUG] 09-93 CD Cluley, Graham $20 #20016/3640 contains two hilarious all-text adventure games with a decidedly English twist. HUMBUG starts innocently enough as you are are sent to your Grandad's for the Christmas holidays. You must discover the significance of the time machine in the cellar, play a round of Wubble-A-Gloop with an octopus, hobnob with some peculiar Vikings, discern the intentions of the evil neighbors, and much more. Getting used to some of the English vernacular used in the story is part of the fun. In JACARANDA JIM you are rescued by an alien after crash landing on the strange world of Ibberspleen IV. In this game you will do battle with manic-depressive deckchair attendants, navigate a sinister network of dank caves, and decipher the mystery of the floating sphere. All will be revealed if you can just figure out what to do with the gin-spitting pirate, a cucumber, and a piece of gristle. These are both very well done, with many interesting situations and bizarre characters. Pork Malmberg, David $0 #20016/3735 is a parody of Infocom's Zork text adventure, as well as being an interesting adventure game. You do not need to have played Zork to enjoy this game. Requires a hard disk or high density floppy. Begin Clockwork Software $10-$15 #1458 is a non-graphic, complex, Star Trek type game. You can choose to be the Federation or one of its enemies as well as choose how many and what kind of ships accompany your ship and the enemy's ship. Then the purpose becomes to wipe out the bad guys. Bob's Game-O-Rama Maston, Robert A. $? #7475/813 contains two adventure games. Button Games Button, Conrad $15 #7475/771 contains two adventure games from ButtonWare, "Castaway" and "South America Trek". Adventure games are text-oriented and can be run on computers without graphics adapters. Button Games #2 Button, Conrad $15 #7475/1019 contains the games Nebula, Dark Continent and Red Planet. Cliff Diver Farley, Patrick $10 #20039/3369 is an adventure game in which you help Cliff Diver, a private investigator living and working in San Francisco, solve a crime. A pop-up hint file is included. FBI MicroMinded Software Co. $20 #20039/2576 is a game in which you are are the director of a team of up to eleven field agents which are located all over the United States. Your assignment is to guide these agents so that they can chase and capture crooks. Colossal Cave ImageIllusions $0 #7033/1504 is a version of the classic adventure game Original Adventure by Woods and Crowther, developed with the Adventure Game Toolkit (#7480). The object is to get into the cave, gather all the treasures and get out alive. Requires 384K. Dudley Dilemma Barrow, Lane $? #7033/1739 is the winner of the Adventure Game Toolkit Contest. In this game, you play the role of a Harvard student living in Dudley House in his/her quest for knowledge, adventure and a diploma. This award winning game is a very clever, humorous and challenging adventure in the classic style of Infocom. Deep Space Awakening Stanley, Declan $10 #7833/2958 is a text-based adventure game for advanced players. You awaken in space in your deep sleep capsule only to find most of your fellow crew members have been devoured by an unknown orange mold. You try to maneuver around the damaged spaceship, seeking survivors, and trying not to be killed. Deep Space Drifter High Energy Software $15 #7833/3230 you are adrift in your spaceship, nearly out of fuel and in the middle of nowhere. The process of getting rescued is where the adventure begins. In this text-only adventure you must live by your wits, and try to survive the dangers of a hostile universe. There are several interesting features that set this game apart from other text adventures including a "review mode" that lets you go back and look at text that is no longer visible on the screen, and a "Script" command that writes everything you see on the screen (your commands and the game's responses) to a disk file. Ditch Day Drifter Roberts, Michael J. $? #7833/2708 is a text adventure game that takes place on the campus of Caltech. You play the main character: an undergraduate at Caltech. As the story opens, you find that today is Ditch Day, the Caltech tradition in which seniors leave campus for the day, but not before barring the doors to their rooms with all sorts of complex puzzles and devices called "stacks." Your job is to defeat the stack left by the senior who lives across the hall from you, in order to get into his room and claim whatever treasures await you. Crusade and Quest #7833/1505 are two more ready-to-play adventures that were created using AGT. Humongous Cave Softworks ASP $15 #7456/3095 [2 disks] is a complex text adventure game based on the 550 point version of Colossal Cave (#1504). It encompasses 300 different locations and over 200 creatures, treasures, and puzzles totaling 1000 points. There is an ingenious help system that can be invoked at any time, producing a topic menu. The clues are revealed one at a time, so you can stop looking if you don't want to cheat too much. This is a vast, professionally produced game which requires 512K of memory and 1.2 meg of disk space. DND Knight, Bill $? #7456/098 is a computerized version of a popular role-playing game known as Dungeons and Dragons. Squynch Malmberg, David $0 #7834/1460 is an adventure game in which you try to save a nation of very odd creatures by finding the crown jewels. Easy to moderate difficulty. T-Zero Cunningham, Dennis M. ASP $15 #7834/3234 is a text-based adventure game that mixes elements of fantasy and science fiction, while exploring the nature of time. Your task is to locate six objects scattered across eras and landscapes, and manipulate them in a fashion that will right the troubled times. The prose featured in this game is beautifully descriptive, although a bit on the cryptic side. This is one of the most unusual adventures you'll ever go on. UnnKulian Adventures High Energy Software $10 #7834/4423 is a pair of richly complex, well-written, text-based adventure games, Unnkulian Unventure II: The Secret of ACME and Unnkulian Underworld: The Unknown Unventure. The trend these days is towards graphical adventure games, and the feeling we got in testing these Infocom-like, text-only games was like listening to an old radio drama instead of watching TV. However, as with all adventure games, graphical or text based, what you are really doing is trying to solve a series of puzzles in order to reach the game's goal. For that purpose, graphics are pretty, but not as important as the quality of the game and of the puzzles, which are very good in these programs. Deadly Labyrinth West, Frank $0 #7634/4007 is a text adventure game inspired by a series of books from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman called the Death Gate Cycle. Multi-Dimensional Thief Finch, Joel $0 #7634/4008 is a humorous text adventure game from Australia. Pop-up hints are included. Requires 512K memory and 720K of disk space. Lost Gold 1.02 Johnson, Ray $12 #4916 is a detailed text adventure that takes you back to search for the Lost Duchman Mine. There are lots of obstacles and hazards to overcome, puzzles to solve, and assorted treasure mines to explore. Shades of Gray Steve Bauman and others $0 #12158 is a psychological thriller in the form of a text adventure game.You awaken in a dark room with three vampires discussing your fate. After you burst through the door and scramble into the desolate woods, you must discover your purpose in this nightmare. You will meet and talk with friends and foes on your quest, and there are many thought- provoking puzzles to be solved. This game is not for beginners, and should provide enough challenge for the most jaded adventurers. Requires 560k RAM. Sir Guy Gallant [GALLANT] Wright, Eddie R. $10 #12735 (12-93 CD) ("... & The Deadly Warning") is a mystery adventure game. It is set in mid-17th century England on the property of Gallant Hall. You, as Sir Guy Gallant, a cavalier knight of that era, must discover clues as to who killed your father, the late Sir James. ]]]]]]]]]]