I took a break from computer role playing games in 1978 and turned my attention to the first commercial text adventure. Adventureland is the first of several text adventures created by Scott Adams. He co-founded, with his ex-wife Alexis, Adventure International in 1979. The company developed and published video games for home computers. The cornerstone products of Adventure International were the Adventure series of text adventures written by Adams.
Colossal Cave was written two years earlier by Will Crowther but on a mainframe computer. Adventure International released early text adventures for most of the major home computers of the day. Scott Adams’s work was influential in adventure gaming. In 1990 Computer Gaming World published a statement by a ‘respected designer’ that “it was impossible to design new and more difficult adventure puzzles because Adams had already created them all in his early games.”
Adventureland is #1 in this series of early text adventures by Adventure International. The influence of Colossal Cave here is unmistakable. The number of locations are smaller than that of its predecessor however there is a tightly knit cohesion with each location and their respective puzzles. There is a quirky sense of humor sprinkled throughout the game as well
The goal in Adventureland is to find 13 lost treasures and deposit them in a safe location. This type of game fits into a “treasure hunt” theme which was pervasive in many early text and graphic adventures that flooded the market. The shadow of Colossal Caves would be far reaching. There is also a maze to traverse in Adventureland and this would be another staple which would be included in many future adventure games.
I remember as a youth walking into computer stores and seeing Adventure International games on most shelves. I would end up later cutting my text adventure teeth on Infocom games but as the years rolled by I had always regretted not exploring the worlds created by Scott Adams. I am glad that I finally got the chance to sit down with Adventureland.
I found most of the puzzles in Adventureland to be extremely fair and to make sense. My gripe with many early text adventures is that many break what I call “fair play” rules with their odd logic puzzles. The game runs extremely smooth and I had no technical issues running it in Dos Box. Full disclosure: I had to get a hint for the quicksand portion of the game. I did not have a problem figuring out how to get the treasure found there. My problem was how do I extricate myself from the quicksand? My issue ended up being one of syntax. I also had an issue concerning the bees. I had deduced how they MIGHT be used correctly but both times I carried out my plan the bees suffocated and died. So I naturally thought I must be missing something or doing something wrong. I ended up spending quite some time on that particular puzzle and ended up reading that the bees even when used correctly will suffocate about 50% of the time. GRRRR. I ended doing two more run throughs with those bees and they survived on the 4th take. This comes close to violating my “fair play” rules because WHO is normally going to keep trying the same action multiple times hoping for a different result by the 3rd or 4th time? I had no issues with anything else and I don’t feel too badly allowing myself a gentle nudge to finish.
You may have noticed, dear reader, that I try very hard to avoid giving you the answers to these puzzles or providing a walk through. I know this breaks the mold a bit from other bloggers and I wrestled with this decision because it seems that there is a large audience who do like a complete walk through or spoilers. It is my hope however that by drawing attention to these pieces of history (they are after all an art form and should be considered creative pieces of art) that it gives you the urge to try them out for yourself.
I would like to report that I did find all 13 treasures and completed the game. I enjoyed my time spent with this one and strongly recommend that you grab your favorite beverage, make yourself comfortable, and immerse yourself in this land of adventure. Do you think YOU have what it takes to find all 13 treasures? I look forward to playing the sequel Pirate Adventure and taking you with me on the high seas.
I will be returning to computer role-playing games with Knight’s Quest for my next game.