¢THE ATARI 8-BIT BOOKSHELF¢¢ATARI ADVENTURES¢A Book Review by Kevin Cooke¢¢ The introduction to Atari Adventures describes the adventure game in detail. The author wrote regular columns for two magazines and as such is well informed.¢¢ The first chapter describes the origins of adventure games - going into just enough detail so as to get the information across and not get bogged down with the nitty-gritty.¢¢ The following chapter is devoted to "The Golden Rules of Adventuring" and the sort of vocabulary you might use.¢¢ Chapter 3 takes a look at the adventures of Scott Adams and Infocom, while Chapter 4 looks at games like Ghost Encounters and Jumpman. The author makes a very convincing argument here for why these should be given their own heading (Arcadventures) and goes into detail about why he feels they owe their origins to adventure games.¢¢ Chapter 5 looks at role-playing games while Chapter 6 looks at arcade games with a mythical and adventure-type influence. Archon receives a fairly detailed examination.¢¢ Even if you are a novice at adventuring, by the time you get to Chapter 7 you will know enough information to understand what makes an adventure game. Chapter 7 gives information about the sort of monsters and items that you might find on a typical stroll through an imaginary land. A helpful feature for those who have never played an adventure game before is a section taken from a real game. This goes through the computers' statements and the thoughts that are going through the author's head as he plays it - this is one of my favourite parts as it really helps you to realise how you SHOULD be playing!¢¢ Chapter 8 goes on to discuss the merits of both text and graphic adventures - an argument that has gone on since the very first graphic adventure.¢¢ After Chapter 8 you can do one of two things - this is because from here on, a type-in adventure game (with listing included) is given a complete breakdown. The second half of the book is taken up with this and the program itself. If you are hoping to eventually write an adventure of your own you will find this section useful. For those who aren't at all interested in writing their own games, you can simply skip all of this and type in the program.¢¢ I won't mention what my typing skills were like in the days when I attempted to enter this program. Suffice to say, it remains unfinished! I'll get it finished one day... maybe not today, maybe not tommorow... but soon! (cue evil laughter!). The book states that memory constraints prevent you from saving the adventure to disk. XL/XE 64K+ owners should ignore this.¢¢
