Author: professor6153

Odyssey #2: Treasure Island is an interactive text adventure from 1980 by Joel Mick & James Taranto and it is the second game in Joel Mick’s Odyssey series. The majority of the game does take place on an island and while there is a pirate, a ship, and treasure, the similarities between itself and Robert Louis Stevenson’s treasure island end there.

There are a few things that immediately stood out to me while playing Mick’s Treasure Island. The co-author in this second game, James Taranto, is different than Mick’s co-author in Damsel in Distress; Jeffrey M. Richter. I am making the assumption that they helped Mick with the machine coding. There are some minor nuances in the parser between the first and second games in the Odyssey series. If you wanted to move around in Damsel in Distress for example, like in most other text adventure games, you could type GO NORTH to move north. Treasure Island’s parser does not recognize this command. If you want to move around in Treasure Island you can only type in the direction you want to move in or a letter. So NORTH or N to move north. It seems such a minor detail, but after having played dozens of interactive text adventures this change in format kept throwing me off. I also felt that it impacted any feeling of continuity or consistency within the series.

The second thing that stood out to me was that I felt that Joel Mick took a step backwards in terms of plot or gameplay. In the first game in this series, Damsel in Distress, there was an actual plot and conscientious move away from the treasure hunt trope that Mick used in Burial Ground Adventure. You were attempting to rescue a kidnapped princess. Here in Treasure Island, we’ve returned to finding treasures scattered around the island and depositing them in a plane to obtain a score. It was a bit of a surprise.

The third thing to stand out was the character whose shoes you were stepping into. In Damsel in Distress I wrote that I was mortified at having to kill a royal messenger in the beginning of that game. Here in Treasure Island the game begins with a man dying who is sitting next to you in an airport diner. What do you do? You rummage through his pockets, find a key, and take it. You take that key to a nearby locker and you find a crossword puzzle, a pilot’s suit, and a shovel. Inside a pocket in the pilot’s suit is a treasure map. We then go about “stealing” a plane. There is also a newsstand within the airport where we obtain a Hustler magazine. When you type in READ MAGAZINE the response that you get is; I GET HARD. So there is an attempt at adult humor while for the second game in a row you can’t help but raise questions about the morality of the character in the game you’re portraying. In a later part of the game, while on the island, actions you take make it appear as if you’ve decapitated an individual. I am certainly no saint; but I just wanted to point out that an interesting aspect of this questionable morality is that it serves to make the game a bit more difficult for some. We hesitate to type in amoral behavior or in some cases don’t even think about doing so. This was the case in Damsel in Distress. It took me about thirty minutes into the game until I begrudgingly typed in; KILL MESSENGER.

The fourth thing to stand out is that Treasure Island is a much more difficult game than Damsel in Distress. There are a few key puzzles in the game that will take you a little while to work through. The “tall” wall of the fort, the “impassable” ravine & the crossword puzzle, making your way onto the pirate ship, and lastly finding BOTH treasures on the pirate ship. None of the puzzles violate my fair play rules and YOU WILL work your way through them. The author toys with the player a bit regarding certain objects that you find. When you discover a chair and a ladder in the game, it is not hard to deduce why those objects have been placed in the game. However WHERE you end up using those items ends up different from where I initially guessed and tried. I was even so certain about how they were to be used I spent some time experimenting with different verbs and commands because I thought it was a parser issue and not a wrong guess on my part. The ladder and how it is used a couple of different ways is reminiscent of having to get to different areas of the game as in Hassett’s Curse of the Sasquatch.

Crossing the ravine is probably the most difficult puzzle to overcome in the game. The crossword puzzle will help you in this endeavor which is itself a puzzle you need to work through. It reads:

ACROSS

1. SLEIGHT OF HAND
2. TYPE OF PUZZLE

The solution is quite clever.

Getting on board the pirate ship will also involve you having to solve two different puzzles or find two different things. I have to give a tip of the cap to Joel Mick for the puzzles and difficulty level of this game compared to his other offerings. Mick may have reintroduced the “treasure hunt trope” however the puzzles to overcome in the game were genuine.

I was able to play all the way through Treasure Island without any help but that would not be the case with Mick’s third entry in this series which I’ll cover in my next blog post. The Odyssey games by Joel Mick are hard to find but if you can do so I encourage you to try these first two games. If you’re a text adventure aficionado you’ll be glad that you did.

Odyssey #1: Damsel in Distress was an interactive text adventure programmed by Joel Mick & Jeffrey M. Richter and published in 1980. You may remember Joel Mick from 1979’s Burial Ground Adventure. Before I even began the game I was expecting a noir murder mystery based on the title so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the game involves the rescue of a princess from a medieval castle. I am a sucker for the fantasy genre and while we have seen many text adventure / CRPG hybrids I was looking forward to experiencing an all text adventure in a fantasy setting that did NOT include a treasure hunt.

The game begins much like any table top Dungeons & Dragons session; in a tavern. You are seated in the tavern when a royal messenger walks in. I spent quite a bit of time trying to interact with the messenger but to no avail. I even tried typing in WAIT thinking that at some point the royal messenger was going to, wait for it, deliver a message! I finally gave up trying to interact with the messenger and set about exploring the environment. I mapped out all of the surrounding area and it soon became apparent that I could go no further until I advanced the plot ahead.

This is the part of the game that threw me for a loop. I returned to the tavern, and grimacing, I cold bloodedly murdered the royal messenger. It became obvious that this is what the game wanted me to do all along as I then found a scroll upon his person containing the message that he was supposed to deliver. I also relieved him of his outfit and put it on. This allowed me access past the guards stationed at the road into the kingdom. I have to say I was very surprised the game took this turn. I felt a bit dastardly and evil smiting the poor bastard. I was equally surprised that no one seemed to care and that it was all right to deliver a fatal blow to the poor man in the middle of the tavern. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase; “Don’t shoot the messenger…”; instead just stab the guy.

Once you read the scroll found upon the messenger you realize your mission is to rescue a princess from inside a castle. The puzzles are fairly straight forward and I was able to complete the game without any kind of aid. When I have finished with a game I always then like to read reviews, blogs from other archivists, and walkthroughs to see if I missed anything or did anything differently than most.

It seems that many had a difficult time with one particular puzzle that involves trying to get into the castle. I was feeling pretty good about myself in that I actually figured out pretty quickly what I needed to do to get inside. However, much to my chagrin, I had a difficult time trying to figure out how to lower the drawbridge whereas it did not seem to be an issue for many.

Once you make your way into the castle you have to explore the castle and then find the damsel. There is a little bit of puzzling you’ll have to do in order to find the secret passage that leads to the captive damsel but it is not that difficult. Once you find the damsel you need to get her out of the castle. This involves needing to lower the drawbridge in order to escape. Why we couldn’t leave the way that I came in is beyond me. I realized that I did not have the item necessary to lower the draw bridge and I had at that point “soft locked” myself from being able to finish the game. I had to start over and make sure I brought the needed item into the castle with me. I had left it behind as a result of juggling inventory.

Once I lowered the drawbridge I was able to get the princess out of the castle. When we reached the tavern I made the mistake of dropping the damsel and this prompted Prince Charles’ guards to immediately show up and capture the damsel again thus causing me to lose the game.

Damsel in Distress take 3 – CLACK!

I realized, and I believe you will as well dear reader if you ever choose to play this game, where I then needed to safely deposit the princess. Once I had her safely out of the castle again I took her to that particular destination and dropped her.

It took me about an hour to make my way through the game. I am still a bit surprised that the game took such a dark turn in the beginning but perhaps I am making too much of it. I enjoyed the game and I feel that Joel Mick did show growth and progression from his first game to the second. Burial Ground Adventure was written in basic and Damsel in Distress was written in machine code. Burial Ground contained both early text adventure tropes featuring the obligatory treasure hunt and maze whereas Damsel in Distress had an actual plot or mission to fulfill. I found myself looking forward to Joel Mick’s next offering: Treasure Island.

Mystery Mansion was written by Gregory Hassett in 1980 for the TRS-80. It is an interactive text adventure written in machine language with a split screen format much like you’re used to seeing in the Scott Adam’s Adventure series. It is not to be confused with Bill Wolpert’s Mystery Mansion which was programmed for a mainframe.

Greg Hassett was 12 years old and in high school when he wrote his first program. He would go on to publish 10 different games and form his own publishing company to distribute these games. He was a programming wunderkind and was completing games as often as Scott Adams during that era. I would love to know what happened to Greg Hassett. He was obviously incredibly talented at such a young age and virtually fell off the face of the earth. If anyone has an inkling as to what he went on to do I would love to hear from you.

With the completion of Mystery Mansion I have now played all ten of Greg Hassett’s offerings. The list below is a chronological list according to publication date. The first three games in the list below were published in 1978, games 4-6 were published in 1979 and the remaining games were published in 1980.

1. Journey to the Center of the Earth
2. House of Seven Gables
3. King Tut’s Tomb
4. Sorcerer’s Castle Adventure
5. Journey To Atlantis
6. Enchanted Island
7. Mystery Mansion
8. World’s Edge
9. Curse of the Sasquatch
10. Devil’s Palace

It is relatively easy to find these games and play them except for Mystery Mansion. I had an incredibly hard time finding it and was pointed in the right direction by Jason Dyer of Renga in Blue fame. (If you are not familiar with the Renga in Blue website I urge you to check it out) Greg Hassett released his games into public domain and thus I was able to obtain Mystery Mansion from Ira Goldklan’g TRS-80.com site. I also wanted to thank Jason who helped me with a TRS-80 emulator and he was more than patient with my questions.

If I had to rank Greg Hassett’s games in order of enjoyment I would rearrange the list in the following manner. Remember that the enjoyment of any game is subjective not objective. There is bias and personal opinion that is involved and thus everyone’s idea of enjoyment is going to be different; but here it is.

1. Mystery Mansion
2. World’s Edge
3. Curse of the Sasquatch
4. Enchanted Island
5. House of Seven Gables
6. Devil’s Palace
7. King Tut’s Tomb
8. Sorcerer’s Castle Adventure
9. Journey to Atlantis
10. Journey to the Center of the Earth

It was clear that Greg Hassett was improving in his craft as you can see his later releases found their way to the top of my list. Devil’s Palace is arguably the largest and most difficult of all his games and there are parts of it that are absolutely great but the illogic of the puzzles and breaking of my fair play rules earned it a lower spot on my list. In my top three selections, gone are the treasure hunts and they are replaced with interesting plots and twists. Curse of the Sasquatch plays out like a Scooby Doo adventure and Mystery Mansion provides a great twist at the end as well. I am curious to hear how other readers would rank the Greg Hassett games.

Why does Mystery Mansion, the last Greg Hassett game I’ve played through, make the top of my list?

I honestly can’t quite attribute it to any one thing. I liked the plot which isn’t completely revealed until later in the game. I liked interconnectivity of the puzzles with the map and how they all flowed together so smoothly. World’s Edge would improve upon this even further with the puzzles providing color to the narrative and helping to drive the story. The puzzles in the game were not much different than previous puzzles found in Hassett’s earlier games however I appreciated them more because they frequently opened up further areas of the map to explore. The puzzles and the map were more related to one another in this way more so than in any of his other games.

I liked how the solving of a puzzle would continuously open up new sections of the map. There was a compact flow and cohesiveness to the entire thing. One of the more difficult puzzles involved finding a phaser and deciding how to use it. I believe this particular puzzle is paying homage to Scott Adams’ Strange Odyssey. This same puzzle device involving a phaser had me stumped for some time when Scott Adams first introduced it.

The phaser puzzle would ultimately lead to probably the toughest puzzle in the entire game. This puzzle can be solved by referring to a keypad and substituting the letters for a number. This phone number will then be needed later to finish the game.

The ending was pretty unique and offers a bit of a twist much like Curse of the Sasquatch did with it’s own ending. This helped propel both of these games to top spots on my list.

I did encounter a situation in Mystery Mansion where I was about a third of the way into the game and realized that I needed an object I had left behind in a different area. It was now impossible to go back to that area so I had to restart the game and begin again. I really enjoyed where Greg Hassett took his games in 1980. The puzzles remained largely the same however his game maps were more concise and we started to see how the puzzles added color to the narrative. We also started to get a glimpse of what he would do with a larger game that allowed saves in his Devil’s Palace. There were parts of that game that were brilliant but the inconsistency of the magic system and puzzles ruined it a bit for me. I would have liked to have seen more from him and I’m sure we’d continue to see him hone his craft. Remember these games were created by a young man between the ages of 12 and 14. Incredible. I certainly appreciated the chance to play these pieces of gaming history and I am thankful I was able to find a copy of Mystery Mansion. It was the hardest of them all to find and it ended up making the top of my list. This is why, as I mentioned in my previous blog post, the work of archivists and historians to preserve these older games is so incredibly important. It does not go unappreciated.

I am looking forward to hearing how you would rank the Greg Hassett games or any memories you have of playing them. If anyone has any information on where Greg Hassett is now I would also be very interested in hearing about that as well.

Mad Scientist is an interactive text adventure written by Thomas Hamlin III and presented in the November 1980 issue of Softside.

When the game begins you find yourself just outside of the gate to a huge mansion.

Once you go through the gate it clicks shut behind you and then an electric fence activates; trapping you inside. That’s not ominous. There a few locations to explore surrounding the house but eventually you’ll make your way up to the front door. Once you open and then go through the door it clicks shut behind you and now you’re trapped inside the house as well.

One of the interesting things that this game does is that it displays your possible exits in the lower left hand corner of the screen. For instance, in the screenshot above your possible exits are west and east. When you uncover a secret passage in the game, and there are many, you will see a new exit direction make itself available to you. Notice, in the lower right corner of the screen, up and down are also two exit choices in certain areas of the mansion. I find this graphic display to be refreshing and it helped to speed up gameplay.

What Mad Scientist DOESN’T do is allow you to keep track of any kind of inventory. You cannot pick up any objects nor do you use any object as a plot device. The only exception to this is the laser gun.

You find a laser gun when you stumble upon the Mad Scientist’s enormous laboratory. You can actually pick up the gun and once it is in your possession you can use it to shoot wandering skeletons and ghosts, which randomly appear while your exploring the mansion. The laser gun only has a few charges but they should be enough to get you through to the end of the game. If you do not have the gun in your possession, you can also run from the wandering creatures and you successfully escape 100% of the time. The downside is that the game then randomly deposits you in a different section of the house each time. It can sometimes even deposit you into hidden areas so fleeing might become a boon if you have not yet discovered one of the many hidden areas. However; fleeing can also make mapping a nightmare and this may annoy the completionist in you.

The laser gun is the only item that you can pick up and use. The things that you can manipulate will be objects in some of the rooms. You can flip a switch for example, or move a rug, climb a bookcase, etc. Since there is no inventory management there really then are no puzzles which you have to try and solve. This makes the game more of a walking simulator as you explore the many rooms of the mansion in an effort to find the Mad Scientist’s beautiful daughter.

The map of Mad Scientist is quite huge as there are many, many locations to uncover. The descriptions are brief and well written. It is possible to perish if you do not have the laser in your possession and try to fight the wandering creatures.

Once you find the beautiful daughter you have to successfully get her out of the mansion. There are two obstacles to overcome; the first is that you have to find an alternate way out of the house besides the front entrance and the second is that you have to find a way to deactivate the electrified fence surrounding the mansion. Neither one of these obstacles is too terribly hard to overcome.

I finished Mad Scientist in about an hour. Most of that time was spent carefully mapping out the many locations you’ll explore. I enjoyed the challenge and I still appreciate being able play these older games. I have a deep and abiding appreciation for those who have taken the time to preserve or archive many of these older game offerings in some way. If it were not for their work and dedication to doing so; we would never get to experience these older games and many would be likely lost forever.

World’s Edge is a text adventure that was published in 1980 and written by Gregory Hassett. The 14 year old would create and publish 10 different text adventures between the years of 1979 and 1980. We have played and reviewed them all except Mystery Mansion which I finally found a copy of and is coming up in the que soon.

I was extremely frustrated with Hassett’s Devil’s Palace however I found this offering to be rather enjoyable. The puzzles were fair and rather typical of what you’d expect to find in a Gregory Hassett game. What made the puzzles atypical for a Gregory Hassett game was their seamless integration into the narrative and how they were used to add color and enjoyment to the game (more on this later).

I was impressed with the parser and the general flow of the game but surprised at how short the game seemed. This is likely a consequence caused by the puzzles matching the narrative thus creating an orderly flow.

It is rather unfair to say that World’s Edge is an easy game. It is certainly easier than Hassett’s Devil’s Palace however the ease of play is a ripple effect of the narrative and the interesting puzzles.

There are two different pivotal points in the game and getting by both of these pivot points opens up several new locations. One pivotal point is discovering the jetpak and the second pivotal point (and probably the game’s hardest puzzle) is getting by the space amoeba. I really enjoyed the use of the different objects and the role that they played in solving the puzzles of the game. The puzzles were not difficult but they were interesting and colorful and helped to drive the narrative. It is what, in my humble opinion, made the game so enjoyable and made it also feel so fast.

It is refreshing to encounter a puzzle that helps to drive the narrative in a colorful and fun way. The difficulty level of the puzzle is irrelevant as long as it serves the narrative’s larger purpose. Too often in these early games we are subjected to a maze or two as part of the game whose sole purpose seems to be to make the games longer or we are presented with a puzzle that makes no logical sense or doesn’t serve the plot in any way but makes perfect “adventure game sense.”

When I reached the end of World’s Edge I did not feel the disappointment that I felt at the end of Devil’s Palace but instead had a fun time. It had everything to do with the parser and puzzles rolling right along in seamless fashion. Most every object had a pragmatic use that also made the game fun in a colorful way. Whether it was the puddle of the amoeba or the sickle or laser pistol or piece of plastic or the holocube they all served to drive the narrative thus creating an enjoyable experience.

It took me roughly an hour to play and finish World’s Edge. When I finally play Hassett’s Mystery Mansion; I will have played all of his games and I will likely rank all 10 of them. I believe that World’s Edge is going to find itself somewhere near the top of that list.

Halls of Death was released in 1981 for the Commodore PET and then in 1983 for the Commodore 64. It was developed by Stewart Sargaison. It is a randomly generated dungeon crawler that is comprised of six levels.

There is no overall plot or main quest other than to improve your stats, kill as many creatures as you can, and amass as much treasure as you can. In doing so, each time that you return to the surface your achievements are tallied up and you are assigned a ranking. The ranking system is as follows:

• Apprentice Bumpkin
• Bumpkin
• Yokel
• Peasant
• Novice
• Trainee Warrior
• Warrior
• Swashbuckler
• Apprentice Hero
• Hero
• Seasoned Adventurer
• Dragon Slayer
• Champion
• Necromancer
• Sorcerer
• Mage
• Superhero
• Guardian
• Lord
• Paladin
• Master of Power
• Master of Wisdom
• Ruler of Light

Each time you begin play you create a name for your character and each character starts with 9 strength, 15 psi points, and 9 constitution. The psi points represent magic points. When you enter combat you can choose to cast one of four spells: sleep, teleportation, lightning, and fireball. Casting a spell is a huge drain on your psi points and I found that I rarely ever resorted to casting spells. There is no equipment to purchase and no inventory to manage. Whenever one of your attributes falls below 0 you die.

The above picture represents a typical screen. Movement is executed by pressing [ ; ‘ and / on your keyboard for north, west, east, and then south respectively. The white circles up above represent the dungeon tiles that have been explored. Each time you step on a tile you may encounter a dungeon denizen, find a treasure, detect or succumb to a trap, find a staircase to a lower level, or find nothing at all. The result of each dungeon tile appears to be a random roll. The checkerboard pattern that you see is your starting point and staircase to take you back to the surface.

The dungeon denizens range from bandits, dwarves, kobolds, trolls, gargoyles and ogres to hill giants, mummies, wraiths and dragons! The touch of the mummy is fatal and can kill you with rot instantly so I always held my breath when encountering a mummy. You can choose to retreat (running away) but this doesn’t always work and each time you try and fail your opponent gets an attack in. The wraiths can only be hit with magic and the dragons are extremely tough opponents. They have a lot of hit points and their breath weapon can be devastating. The dragons are only found on the 5th and 6th levels of the dungeon and they are usually guarding quite a bit of treasure. Once you get your strength and/or constitution into the 40s you should be able to face a dragon.

The dungeon levels are randomly generated and what you may or may not encounter on each dungeon tile involves a lot of luck. You can find magic swords which instantly translate into more strength points for you. When you are struck by an opponent it is the strength points you lose not your constitution points so finding magical swords early on is a huge boon. You are limited to the number of battles you can fight with each foray into the dungeon because you lose a point of constitution for each combat whether you win or lose. You can also find Rings of Stamina and these instantly translate into constitution points. You can also find a Helm of Psionics and these translate instantly into psi or magic points. I had mentioned earlier that casting spells are a huge drain on your psi points. There are two strategies that you can employ where these psi points are concerned. The first strategy is that you can ignore the casting of spells all together. If you find that you are finding several Helm of Psionics and your psi points are plentiful the game allows you (by pressing the letter C on the keyboard) to exchange psi points for strength points or vice versa. The cost of this is 3 attribute points for every 1 attribute gain. So you can channel your psi points into your strength at a 3 to 1 cost to increase your strength rather quickly. The second strategy you can choose to employ is to hoard your psi points and do not cast any spells until you stumble upon a dragon’s lair. If you you save your psi points and then cast a fireball upon a dragon the affects can be devastating.

When the game randomly rolls for a trap; you rarely set the trap off. It has been detected and the dungeon tile is marked with a purple circle. Every once in awhile however you will set off the trap and the outcome can be disastrous. In one instance I had a granite block fall from the ceiling onto me doing 20 points of damage. I was instantly killed.

It is common to find numerous different stairways all leading to the next lowest level. In many cases there will be a staircase going lower right next to the staircase you just descended. This makes moving up and down through the levels extremely easy and very fortuitous. Why? Because you can also encounter what are called teleportation squares which will randomly teleport you into the lower levels. In most cases it is level 5 or 6 and your constitution is already low. So it then becomes a race to move back up through the levels with as little combat as possible.

You can also find yourself on a level where the staircase you need to get to seems to be surrounded by dungeon walls with no way to it. There are no secret doors to trigger in this game but there are several solutions to this problem. You can a) simply choose to ignore the problem and it is likely that the game will randomly create another staircase for you as you explore the dungeon level or b) you can simply go back up the staircase you came down, then move down a level again, allowing the game to randomly redraw the dungeon level to remove the problem or lastly c) you can use your magic to destroy the dungeon walls.

Combat is extremely interesting. Each round you have the option of (S)winging, (R)etreating, or casting a s(P)ell. Combat is in real-time not turn based so if you wait too long (more than a few seconds) to choose your option the computer will inform you that you were too slow in making your choice and then it becomes your opponents turn to attack. The combat results are reported through flavorful text. The amount of damage you inflict depends on the type of wound you deliver. A blow to the head usually results in half of your opponents hit points getting wiped out. A blow to the chest or sword arm can be quite painful as well while a blow to the leg is usually equivalent to a scratch. Once one of your attributes falls below 0 you then die. In the above picture I was touched by a mummy and killed by mummy rot.

I found the game to be rather addicting and enjoyable however it pales in comparison to Ultima I and Wizardry I both released in this same year. I can see where a game like this would have been a great transition piece for an arcade gamer who has not yet played any kind of role-playing game. If I had encountered this in 1981 I probably would have had hours of fun with it. I did spend more than a couple of hours with the game and managed to achieve the rank of Hero. I could have kept going and may even try to grind to the rank of Rule of Light one day but with so many games beckoning me and with no real main quest here it is doubtful.

Devil’s Palace in an interactive text adventure written by Greg Hasset for the TRS-80. This marks the eighth text adventure that we’ve played by Mr. Hasset who was somewhat of a wunderkind.

We had recently played through Curse of the Sasquatch also written by Greg Hasset and with that game I felt that perhaps the developer had turned a corner so I was eager to play Devil’s Palace. There had been an actual plot in Curse of the Sasquatch and it had been unique for the time. Unfortunately with Devil’s Palace, I never even understood what the plot was until I read the above ad. Furthermore, I wasn’t even sure what the evil was in the game and I’m going to go on record saying that the way you have to defeat the evil was just plain ridiculous.

Devil’s Palace is much harder than any of Hasset’s previous games to date. I had to play the game without any kind of save capability so I was forced to restart the game several times.

There should be (and probably are) an entire series of articles written about what makes a good puzzle in interactive fiction. Normally a puzzle is a tool used to advance movement within the game or in the overall plot. A good puzzle should be part of the game’s atmosphere. We have experienced several different kinds of puzzles in the interactive fiction that we’ve played thus far. The puzzles have involved navigating mazes, unlocking doors, manipulating objects, interacting with characters or creatures in some way, recognizing patterns and lastly guessing the verb. The last really isn’t a puzzle but becomes one in a sense because the player has the right idea but cannot type the exact verb that the author wants.

The puzzles in these adventure games are supposed to be a challenge and finding your way past that challenge is part of the enjoyment of many of these games. Until that is, when you can’t solve the puzzle. Maybe we have missed something somewhere in the game or we haven’t taken the time to really think the problem through. I get that the logic of puzzles doesn’t necessarily match the logic found in the real world. However I do believe that there DOES NEED to be a sort of logic in the puzzle itself. It probably seems that I’m babbling here and now you’re probably wondering when is logic not logical.

Many puzzles that we encounter do have a sort of common sense to them. So even though the setting may be in a fantasy or futuristic environment we may find that we apply a little real-world knowledge to solve many of these puzzles. There are other puzzles where that real world knowledge doesn’t come into play at all. I am thinking of the Scott Adams adventure Strange Odyssey where you had to fiddle with and manipulate the machine in the cavern in order to figure out how it works. It is only then through a lot of experimentation that you figure out the process and then apply that knowledge to move forward. Lastly, there are the puzzles that just make no sense. They violate what I have called “fair play rules” in the past. These are puzzles that make no sense or require you to read the developer’s mind to know what the hell is going on. These kinds of puzzles can actually lead to frustration and anguish and actually decrease enjoyment of the game.

I bring all of this up because when I mentioned that Devil’s Palace was the hardest of Greg Hasset’s games so far; I didn’t mean in a good way.

There are two different magic words that you find in the game. In and of itself I have no problem with the use of magic words in these games and I was easily able to overcome the puzzles where these words needed to be used in arbitrary locations. The magic in the game however stopped making any sense with the introduction of the magic whistle in the beginning of the game. There are six different times where you need to use the magic whistle in the game and none of the uses are consistent with each other. I would suggest that if you find yourself “stuck” in the game try blowing the whistle. Besides the magic words and whistle there are also a sceptre and magic wand to deal with.

I had to get a hint or resort to a walkthrough three different times in order to complete this game. I do not like to do that and it is an absolute last resort for me. When I reach the point where I am frustrated, no longer enjoying myself or have had a tremendous amount of time elapse then I’ll look for a hint. One of the hints involved guessing the verb. I had the right idea I just couldn’t find the appropriate verb that Hasset had in mind. The second time I had to resort to a hint involved the crystalline figure and the ruby in the game. This comes very close to violating my “fair play rules” simply because we just never clearly defined the magic powers of the magic whistle. The third time I needed a hint involved dealing with the “evil” in the palace tower. This is what ultimately ruined the game for me. The way in which the “evil” is dealt with is just plain silly. It doesn’t make any sense at all, comes off as ludicrous, and further illustrates the poor context of the “evil” present in the game.

I beat Devil’s Palace but I don’t feel very good about it. I had to resort to using a walkthrough on three different occasions and all three were actually justified as no amount of time would have allowed me to solve the aforementioned puzzles.

Now there are some good puzzles in this game. It is also the largest of the games created by Mr. Hasset sporting many map locations. However the poor plot and the puzzles that make no sense make Devil’s Palace pale in comparison to Hasset’s previous Curse of the Sasquatch.

Forgotten Island was published by Crystalware in 1981 and was programmed by Marc Benioff. We had just recently covered Quest For Power which was also written by Marc.

This game plays much like Quest For Power except that this time your character begins the game shipwrecked on a “forgotten” and mysterious island from which he must escape. When you take a quick inventory you’ll discover that you have 5 gold pieces and a power rating of 102. There are treasure chests scattered all about the small island so it is very easy to obtain gold.

You will need the gold to trade it for supplies in the Forgotten Village which you’ll stumble across. You will want to purchase a lamp and also a boat. You will need the lamp to light your way in the underground caverns and you will need the boat to cross an underground river late in the game.

One of the first things you’ll uncover in the game is Alcemon’s Diary which is found in a cave complex on the island. “Try the other side” is a big clue to help you near the very end of the game.

There really are no puzzles in the game beyond the lock and key variety. Items that you find allow you to continue further into the game. The game is more of a metrodvania than it is a role-playing game. If you become stuck and are unable to move forward you can backtrack and pick up what you need to continue. The game warns you about nearby enemies, like it did in Quest For Power, and you will find yourself in combat quite often. The enemies, like the game itself, are very easy. Each time a day passes you gain 2 power and the days pass rapidly on the island. Each time you win combat you also gain power. Combat is resolved by random numbers between 0 and 20 which flash across the bottom of the screen. When you press a button on your joystick the numbers stop. You can occasionally get “walloped” pretty good (Stuart Smith would be proud of me there) but most of the time your enemies take more damage.

Once you have the diary you are then able to enter the volcano on the island and the Cavern of the Satyrs.

Behold the mighty volcano!

The enemies now change to Satyrs but they seem to have the same statistics as the “Harrises” you encounter all over the island. In the Cavern of the Satyrs you can’t help but stumble upon the Tomb of Pan.

Here you will find Pan’s Flute which will allow you to enter the next area: The Forgotten Gardens of the Shirrah Shirrith. In the Forgotten Gardens your enemies are now Med Flies.

You will soon find the Forgotten Tombs of Safron and it is here that I may have encountered a “glitch” in my version of the game. I believe that I was supposed to find a cloak in this portion of the game however whoever used it last forgot to hang it back up because this area was empty to me.

The tombs will eventually lead you back out to the other side of the island and this is where the clue in the diary, “try the other side” now makes sense. When you choose to enter the exit to take you back to the island if you walk in the front of it you will find that it leads to a dead end. If you backtrack and then walk around the exit and enter it from the other side it takes you to a completely different location on the island.

The last area of the game is called Alcemnon’s Home. Inside this area you will find a flare gun. Once you come in contact with the flare gun you are shown a screen that says you fired the gun and Welcome Back to San Francisco.

I played Forgotten Island on an Atari emulator and the game took me about 45 minutes to complete. Many of these early quasi-RPGs were meant to be played in one sitting of one to two hours in length. The game was published in 1981 but in 1982 it would be taken over by Epyx which would rename the title: Escape From Vulcan’s Isle. The republished version has better packaging and production values but it is still the same game.

One of the other games I am playing right now is Greg Hassett’s Devil’s Palace which is a text adventure for the TRS-80. Like Hassett, Benioff wrote this game while in high school. To put things in perspective, when I look at Hassett’s work with interactive fiction and compare Benioff’s work on both Quest For Power and Forgotten Island, it is very impressive. I think most folks reviewing this like I am now in this day and age fail to recognize this was coded by a teenager in high school and was probably a very impressive game by 1981’s standards.

Quest For Power was developed and published by Crystalware. The game was written by Marc Benioff who was 15 and still in high school at the time. Epyx would later publish his games (more on this later) and by 16, Benioff was earning royalties of $1,500 a month, enough to pay for his college. Marc is also the second cousin of David Benioff who was the television showrunner and writer of Game of Thrones. Marc would later go on to become the founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce and has an estimated net worth of 9.53 billion, making him the 266th wealthiest person in the world. Quest For Power; oh the irony…

In Quest For Power you play the role of Sir Galahad and you have been summoned to appear before King Arthur.

Quest For Power is more of an arcade game than it is a role-playing game. It has RPG elements but it barely qualifies as a role-playing game. There are nine key locations in the game: The Caves of Somerset, Hastings Mountain, Sunderland, Essex, The Castle of Skenfrith, The Black Forest, The Eagle Stone, Canterbury and lastly Camelot.

Camelot marks both the beginning and end of your quest to find the Scroll of Truth. There are other magical items to find within the game as well. Anselm’s Staff, Solomon’s Ring, and Moses’ Rod are three powerful instruments of magic sought out by all magicians. There is also the Key of Essex which will grant you entrance to, wait for it, the city of Essex. Lastly there is the fabled Ark of Power known to contain the most powerful magic known to man.

I have to admit, as I write this, this all sounds terribly enticing. I was preparing myself for the game by reading through the documentation and it definitely had captured my interest. It seemed to have all of the trappings for an entertaining experience.

This is probably the appropriate time to digress from a specific look at Quest For Power and talk about CrystalWare and it’s offerings. Below you’ll find a copy of the Crystalware catalog from 1982.

This period of computer gaming was given the moniker the “dark age” by Matt Barton and rightfully so. Crystalware was founded by John and Patty Bell and each of their offerings seemed highly original at the time. They would always advertise their game as a mystery that needed to be solved and they offered a cash prize to anyone who could solve the mystery. John Bell must have been quite a character because the literature printed with each game or the ad associated with each game exudes excitement. Each game may offer a unique setting and the documentation comes off as highly original but the games, in my experience, never live up to the hype. I have largely avoided the Crystalware titles to this point because of emulation problems but if we’re being honest I have always found their gameplay to be sorely lacking. I realize however that this blog is not meant to be arbitrary in it’s selection process and now that I have sufficiently gained a level of experience in emulation mastery I will be sure to backtrack and cover any titles I’ve missed.

Let’s return to our regularly scheduled programming…

I played Quest For Power on an Atari emulator and the game took me about 45 minutes to complete – and that’s being generous. To be fair however, this game was published in 1981 and many commercial games sold during that period had game lengths meant to be completed in one sitting – one to two hours. The commercial definition of game length would change as the years rolled on.

There is combat in the game which involves a set of random rolls flashing on your screen at the bottom. You press a key to get the rolling numbers to stop and each combatant deals 1-9 damage to each other. Every other round each combatant gets to add 10 to the amount of damage they inflict. It’s as simple as that. You’ll encounter the Black Wizard, Gogmagog (in the Black Forest) and you’ll have to fight the Devil in Skenfrith Castle as well as the Dragon on Hastings Mountain.

There are random gold chests scattered throughout the multiple screen locations and accruing gold will allow you to buy a few items that you’ll need to win the game. You’ll need to purchase the lamp to light your way through the caves and you’ll need to purchase a boat in order to cross a body of water.

Once you have the three artifacts in hand and have pummeled the Black Wizard, Devil, and Dragon you can then make your way past Oberion and into Cantebury where you will discover the Ark of Power. If you try to open the Ark without the three powerful artifacts in your possession it will melt your face off. If you have the three artifacts in your possession then you will discover that Merlin hid the Scroll of Truth inside the Ark of Power. Once you have the Scroll of Truth you can then return to Camelot.

The main mission here is to play all of the CRPGs ever made and that’s what I aim to do. I’m not sure that I’d recommend this game unless you’re on a similar quest as myself. I do appreciate the originality and writing that went into the documentation that came with the game. The locations, items, and adversaries come off as extremely interesting. One interesting fact is that Marc Benioff’s titles (Crystalware’s catalog would get bought up when it folded) that he programmed for Crystalware were later bought and repackaged by Epyx under their label. Quest For Power would be renamed King Arthur’s Heir and the game would stay exactly the same.

The Sword of Zedek was published by Krell Software for the Apple II, Commodore PET/CBM and TRS-80. It is another text adventure / RPG hybrid. There was no author attached to the title. The player’s goal is to gather armies and magical items so that you can defeat the forces of Ra, The Master of Evil (que an orchestral crescendo). Yes you heard that correctly; Ra, The Master of Evil! (once again que the orchestral crescendo). The “wrinkle” that the game throws in is that the player must accomplish this in 55 turns. Once 55 turns have elapsed the game automatically forces you into a confrontation with Ra and his army of demons.

The overworld takes place on a 10 x 9 grid and contains a variety of terrains including villages, valleys, rivers, bridges, oceans and more. You can access this map grid as often as you like by hitting the letter M on your keyboard but each time you access the map it costs you a turn. Your goal is to economize your 55 turns.

Each time you move on the map grid you then have a number of choices that you can make each turn.

You can choose to take any visible treasure that you see but most of the time you will have to search for treasure. Treasure consists of either gold, torches, or powerful magical items. The gold is extremely important because you use it to recruit banes and kings which improves your overall combat power. Torches light the way in darkened areas such as caves, halls, temples and dungeons. You are more likely to find gold and magic in these places than in any other. There are a variety of magical items available to you in the game each of them with their own unique boon or power.

The different creatures that you encounter in this game include: trolls, orcs, bats, centaurs, wolves, elves, tygers, and dwarves among others. Each of these different creatures has a “king” which represents them as well as a “bane”. The bane prevents the particular creature group from joining your party but it also neutralizes any that the opposing army has as well. You can also encounter a powerful dragon, Demonsbane, who will join your party but there is a percentage chance each combat that the dragon will betray you and take your gold. Each time you encounter a king or a bane they will offer to join your party but for a significant fee ranging from 600 to 3100 gold pieces or higher. You only begin the game with 5000 gold pieces so it is important that you uncover more gold as you play. If they offer to join your party and you refuse because of lack of funds, the rub here is that they will automatically join Ra’s forces then.

Combat is a bit unique and mysterious all at the same time. Like many of these text adventure / RPG hybrids you are not privy to the math that is involved to resolve combat. Once 55 turns have elapsed Ra and his forces will attack you. Ra has a demon army 500 strong as well as any kings or banes that you sent his way. When combat begins you get to see your overall combat score and Ra’s combat score. If you found the Rhyn Stone in the game you can face Ra one on one otherwise it is your army against his.

The game is meant to be played in one sitting and there is no save option. Each game is likely to take between one to two hours. When you are defeated your heir receives your magical items that you found and embarks on the quest to defeat Ra in your stead. In my experience with the game I allowed the dragon, Demonsbane, to join my party and I kept defeating Ra however Ra would flee and live to fight another day. Each time Ra successively attacked; he had replenished his demon army to full strength. I found my own army and combat power slowly whittled down in this fashion and then I was ultimately defeated. When I continued the game, albeit with my heir Fost the Second, I was lucky in that I found the Sword of Zedek and also recruited Demonsbane again. I also found quite a bit of gold which allowed me to do some heavy recruiting.

When I next encountered Ra I thoroughly pummeled him.

I find that I tend to enjoy these text adventure / RPG hybrids that can be played in one sitting. I think some of it has to do with the mystery involved in the game mechanics and in the exploration of the game’s world. You just don’t know what you’re going to get with some of these older games and they are short enough that you rarely feel like you’ve overstayed your welcome. Where else can you fight big bads with names such as Ra, The Master of Evil? (que the orchestral crescendo).