Author: professor6153

The Missing Ring was written by Terry Romine and published by Datamost in 1982 for the Apple II.

The Missing Ring would later see a re-release in the 79th issue of Softdisk in 1988.

I played the original version which was released by Datamost in 1982 using an Apple emulator.

I’ve often talked about how much I am enjoying the thrill of discovery with each of these early games. Every game is so incredibly unique and they are so wonderfully different from one another. The biggest reason for this is that there was so much experimentation taking place as each author had their own unique vision as to how best to emulate the tabletop role-playing experience. Many of the developers were themselves avid Dungeons & Dragons players and they were trying to translate not only the game itself but the community experience as well. This is certainly the case with the Missing Ring in which from one to five players can undertake the quest. The promotion here is that you can enjoy this game with a group of players. One person can make the moves for each character in turn or a number of players can take their turn at the keyboard. We’ve seen this type of ideology in a couple of previous games as well. It reflects what Lord British and many other developers would try to do over the next ensuing two decades. How do you create both a great game AND the shared communal experience that you get with friends sitting around the table?

Matt Barton, in his fabulous Dungeons & Desktops book, refers to this period as the Silver Age and mentions that there was an acclimation period by developers to the hardware limitations of personal computers in their infancy.

When the game begins you get to choose from these various player options:

When you choose your characters you do not get to name them nor do you get to manipulate their equipment or view their attributes in any way. Melee characters such as the Dwarf with Ax or Elf with Sword move adjacent to their opponents and then you merely hit the space bar to attack. Characters that can shoot arrows or cast spells will see a flashing crosshair that is moved to the target with the move keys and then fired by another press of the space bar. The cleric can also cast healing spells.

Once you have your party selected it is time to venture into the dungeon. There is no grand backstory in the documentation that comes with the game. You are merely told that your quest for the magical ring takes you through myriad rooms and corridors of an enchanted palace. The game is much like Dunjonquest: Temple of Apshai in that at the beginning of the game you can visit the “merchant” to spend your gold on healing potions, spells, and experience. Multiple characters from several games can have “accounts” with the merchant. If you succeed in exiting the labyrinth your character can keep all of the accumulated treasure and powers and then use it for another foray into the enchanted palace. In this way you can build up experience points and treasure. Alas, this is the feature that gave me difficulties and I tried many different variations of the game. I WAS able to complete the entire game and find the ring but upon exiting the merchant did not recognize my experience or treasures nor was I able to save my progress in any way. I suspect it is some sort of issue between the emulation hardware and the disk itself.

Each character is controlled individually and the keyboard is setup so that two individuals can sit side by side. There are a left and right set of movement keys. Remember that a big premise of the game is that you could choose to play it with a group of friends. Movement keys on the right are OLKP and the movement keys on the left are RDEF.

Monsters that I encountered included a lot of goblins and orcs and an occasional hell hound. The big bad of the dungeon is an evil mage who is always found in the same location and he is the one in possession of the ring which you seek.

The map is one of the most eccentric features of the game. You can see my hand drawn map depicted above. The dungeon for each game is randomly generated only to a degree. The monster and treasure locations, except for the location of the ring, can be found in different rooms and the access points or doors to each room can be all different but the overall map layout is always the same. It is always an 8 x 10 grid and the rooms are numbered 0 through 79. I highlighted room 68 on the map above by shading it in green because that is the room the big bad is always located in. The big bad is an evil mage and he will always be in possession of the ring that you seek. In order to access the room you will need a key because the room adjacent to it will be locked. Once you find a key and unlock the adjacent room you’ll need to then search for secret doors. Searching for secret doors may require more than one attempt until you find it.

The evil mage is extremely hard to beat but I was eventually able to do so.

Movement through the dungeon takes a bit of getting used to as north, south, east, and west are used as reference points. The map can also wrap from one end of the map to the other. What makes it much easier however is that the room number you are in is always displayed at the top of the screen. It is a pretty easy affair to move through the dungeon in an orderly fashion and equally easy to determine which areas of the dungeon you have not yet explored.

Most of the time the treasure chests contain only gold but there are goblets that can heal your or hurt you if you drink from them as well as statues that crumble into gems and coins. You can also find keys which give you access to locked rooms within the dungeon. There are usually a few of these each game.

I found it a novel approach to control each of the five characters however after awhile with the game I found that controlling each of the five characters individually became a bit tedious. I ended up trying a game with just a solo character and I enjoyed that experience much more and I was also able to defeat the evil mage in the end and obtain the ring with just a single character. For my solo experience I chose the Fighter with Sword option.

When you obtain the ring you have to traverse back through the dungeon to the exit. You only then have the opportunity to save and name your character. You can also finally see character attributes which seem to increase with experience and levels. My main concern was that the merchant did not recognize the treasures that I took from the dungeon nor did he allow me to keep the ring or recognize that I found a ring. This may be an error rearing it’s ugly head in emulation or this could be like Temple of Apshai which also doesn’t congratulate you or tell you that the game is over in any way. If there had not been this issue I may have decided to go through the dungeon a third time merely to boost my character statistics and see more closely how that works.

I remember when I was a teenager seeing the box for The Missing Ring sitting on the store shelf and immediately entranced by the art on the cover. Many of these early games used the artwork to lure would be prospective buyers. I consider it a blessing that I was finally able to experience the game albeit 40 years later! I wonder if someone 40 years from now will be chronicling on an old game entitled Dark Souls and how antiquated it seems today. Technology advances in leaps and bounds now. I spent roughly four to five hours with the game and enjoyed the experience.

Next up on the docket is Ulysses & the Golden Fleece a graphic adventure which I have wondered about and wanted to play for some time. Until next time…

Crypt of the Undead was written by Marc Russell Benioff and published by Epyx in 1982. The game’s original title was The Crypt and it had been published by a company known as Crystalware. John Bell was the owner of Crystalware and in 1982 he sold the rights to his games to Epyx; previously known as Automated Solutions. The success of Epyx came on the heels of their Dunjonquest line; the most famous being the Temple of Apshai. The packaging and documentation that accompanied the Dunjonquest line was top notch and attributed to part of their games success. Having now secured the rights, the company now calling itself Epyx, republished the Crystalware line under different names, with new box art, and embellished documentation.

We’re no stranger to Crystalware games. I covered Forgotten Island, Quest for Power, and Fantasyland 2041 all published in 1981 by Crystalware. Epyx changed the game titles and packaging and Forgotten Island was now called Escape From Vulcan’s Island, Quest for Power was re-issued as King Arthur’s Heir and the Crypt was rebranded as the Crypt of the Undead.

What all of these games have in common is that they were written by a very young Marc Russell Benioff. I believe that Benioff was only 16 when he wrote Forgotten Island. This wunderkind was quite prolific during this period. In the interactive fiction arena we’ve discussed prolific authors before such as Scott Adams and Gregory Hassett but we’ve not yet encountered a programmer in the early role-playing arena as prolific as Benioff. Marc Russell Benioff would later go on to found Salesforce and purchase Time Magazine. He is now a billionaire and we’ve been playing and covering his earliest efforts.

Whereas Quest for Power and Fantasyland 2041 were more epic in scope, time consuming, and more difficult; Crypt of the Undead can probably be completed in a 2 – 4 hour period.

The premise of Crypt of the Undead is that you awaken in the middle of the night surrounded by a vast, desolate graveyard. Somehow you know that you must get out of there before dawn or remain forever as one of the undead. The manual is an elaborate affair with quotes from Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to name a few. Below is an example of one of the many pages in the manual.

The game is reminiscent of Quest for Power and Forgotten Island in that you wander about looking for items which will grant you access to other areas of the map. If you have the right objects in your inventory then you can access new areas of the map.

What was a bit more unique about this game compared to others is that you’re also searching for clues as to what to do next. I had no idea really where to begin and then I found a key and a riddle as to what the key might open and things just cascaded from there. The map locations are creative and there are areas of the game that show a great spark of creativity and thought. I would have liked more text descriptions of key areas and perhaps a few puzzles. I enjoyed the atmosphere and framework of the game and am merely musing that it could have been taken to an entirely different level too.

The first key that I found opened the door to the Cecil B. Demille Hall; deduced from a clue that I had discovered.

The Cecil B. Demille Hall was rather large and comprised many interesting rooms with descriptions and I eventually found a key within that opened the mausoleum.

There are many random encounters in the cemetery with creatures such as werewolves, vampires, and various ghosts. Combat at first is extremely difficult to survive but once you’ve won a couple of the encounters it increases your power and you’ll find that combat becomes easier to manage.

I enjoyed reading many of the epitaphs found within the mausoleum as they were very entertaining:

and yet another:

Ultimately the mausoleum contained a set of directions or a road map as to how you might escape the cemetery. You first had to find the Crypt of Lewis and then go where the fires burn (the Crematorium) etc. etc.

The Crypt of Lewis is found on the far southwest corner of the cemetery and exploring the crypt will yield the key to the Crematorium.

Once you make your way to the crematorium you have to carefully explore the many rooms found within and you’ll soon discover a way into an underground warren of tunnels.

The tunnels are a veritable maze but eventually lead to your escape from the cemetary.

Once you escape the cemetery you are rewarded with this final screen:

Taking you through a quick series of screenshots and describing moving from location to location probably sounds a bit mundane and a rather easy affair but it did involve quite a bit of exploring and walking around to discover each of the clues.

I played Crypt of the Undead using an Atari emulator and a keyboard and joystick combination. It took me roughly 3 hours to beat the game and make it all the way through. The manual advertises that it should take you roughly 8 hours to complete but I think most individuals today will complete the game in a 2 – 4 hour period. The map of the game, location names, riddles and clues were enough to hold my interest to the very end.

I’m not sure that this game fits into the role-playing genre. Yes your power seems to increase through combat and you do acquire keys or items but you can’t manage your inventory nor do you get to use items. Merely having the items in your possession allows you access to new areas of the game. It might be better to label the game as an adventure game with puzzle elements or RPG elements. I enjoyed my time with this one but if I had bought it off of the shelf brand new in 1982 for 30+ dollars I’d have preferred a greater game length. There is not much replay value either with the game other than to try and improve your score.

Next up is a role-playing game called The Missing Ring. Until next time…

This text adventure / RPG hybrid was published by Gebelli Software in 1982 for the Atari 800. The author is listed as a “Dr. Goodcode” and I can’t find any evidence that this author or pseudonym appears elsewhere or is associated with any other release. The game is strongly reminiscent of 1978’s Devil’s Dungeon which was the sixth game that I had ever covered for this particular blog.

You have been commissioned by this Dr. Goodcode to clean out the “basement” of his mansion. The good Doctor purchased the estate to conduct his experiments but has been plagued by various “pests”.

It is rumored that demons inhabit the lower regions of the mansion and that these demons constantly assault strangers and demand some sort of payment. The premise also sounds a bit like Creature Venture which I recently covered.

Rumor has it that at one time the rooms of the mansion were brightly painted and furnished exquisitely. Great parties were held and the staff numbered in the hundreds. It was even necessary to number the rooms in order to identify them. Then a demented wizard named Johnny started to conduct bizarre experiments in the lowest depths of the mansion. He developed a variety of bizarre creatures for the sole purpose of guarding his treasures.

Much of the background above was taken straight from the documentation that was packaged with the game. There are indeed demons which you randomly encounter and they do demand that you pay them in the form of gold coins. You find these coins in various rooms as you explore the mansion and you can choose to pay these demands in the form of a (B)ribe by hitting the B key on the keyboard. It is always best to give in to the extortion and pay the demons or they will ZAP you which hurts your health.

The game is played with a combination of joystick and keyboard. The rooms of the mansion are indeed brightly painted and these rooms are depicted as garish colors which flash on the computer screen. The program seems fascinated by color as you can see depicted above. There doesn’t seem to be any significance to the color of any particular room other than to provide the user with a visceral experience. The two blocks of color on the screen above are foreshadowing that Room 4 is a purple room and Room 2 is a brick red room.

The mansion itself is made up of a randomly generated dungeon that consists of three levels. There are 80 rooms on each level that are numbered and the 80th room on each level is a “special room” (more on this later). Your goal is to make it through all three levels and exit with as much treasure and kills as you possibly can. There is no character creation process and the only item in your inventory is a magic wand which can ZAP your opponents.

Each room provides a brief room description and your exits and room numbers are shown at the top of the screen. The room descriptions usually contain a detail that appeals to your senses to create atmosphere or mood. For example; “it’s warm in here” or “smells like fire”. There really is no need to map out the complex. You can just move through the rooms in order and sometimes you’ll have the opportunity to jump ahead a few rooms in the numbered sequence.

Combat is random and monsters that I encountered included grizzly bears, orcs, snakes, alligators, vampires, wild dogs and tigers. Each monster seemed to come with a randomly generated descriptor and color such as “a very big yellow wild dog” or a “big brown cave bear”. There is always an odd exclamation before each encounter too like “Great Caesar’s Ghost!!!” depicted above or “Jiminy Cricket!!!” or You’ve Stepped Into It Now!!!”

Each monster is accompanied by a strength rating as well. Any monster that had a strength rating under 50 I could usually take care of by hitting A on my keyboard for (A)ttack. If the creature’s strength rating is over 55 you could be in for some trouble. In these cases I would hit Z on my keyboard for (Z)ap which activates the magic wand. If you choose to ZAP a creature it instantly kills the creature. You only begin the game with three of these ZAPs. You can replenish these ZAPs by buying more in Room 80 but you need to move through most of the rooms sequentially on each level so you need to use your ZAPs sparingly and make them count. Combat is a hidden affair. Once you choose to (A)ttack the screen flashes multiple colors as you and your opponent clash. Some kind of calculation is taking place in the background and you and your opponent are losing health as you exchange blows. Combat can take anywhere between 1 and 3 rounds. I found the flashing screen to be a bit irritating and so I would grimace when combat occurred. If you win you find out what treasure the monster was guarding. These objects, like the rooms and the creatures, seem to be assigned random descriptors such as “plain, ugly chalice” or “beautiful platinum armband”.

Your only other option when encountering a creature besides (A)ttack and (B)ribe is (D)efend. I honestly couldn’t see where Defending made any kind of a difference. When my health was low, with no option to flee, and I chose Defend I would still get walloped. If you perish, you can quickly press a button on your joystick in the hopes of being resurrected. If you have enough coins on you to get resurrected, which is randomly usually a large requirement, then it will work. If you’re low on coins then the resurrection fails and the game is over. Because the resurrection requires so many coins you usually only get to attempt this with any chance of success once per game.

Here is an example of many of the treasures with random descriptors attached. Note that the value assigned to each treasure is random as well. There are no ties or reasoning that associates numerical value with the item’s description.

There does appear to be some kind of leveling system that increases after you defeat each creature but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It is expressed as two numbers such as 2-23 or 1-34. I couldn’t tell through multiple game experiences how or why that first number increases. Your health is represented as a percentage and the higher that percentage number is the more wounds you’ve suffered. It seems to go down as you move through rooms without encounters but the regeneration like everything else in the game appeared to be random.

The game manual suggested that demons inhabit the lower reaches of the mansion and this is certainly true. Demons appear at random, much like combat encounters, and each time you encounter a demon they are looking for a (B)ribe. They will even specifically tell you how much they want or sometimes they are wanting you to buy 2 -4 tickets to an event for XYZ price. You can then hit B on your keyboard for (B)ribe and pay them their extortion amount. In many of the rooms you randomly find coins scattered about and you begin to accumulate these coins. They become very important at the end of each level, Room 80, because you can use your coins to buy more ZAP spells. The demons serve to deplete your stash of coins you’ve found and thus make the game harder or more challenging. If you do NOT agree to pay the demon it ZAPs YOU! This greatly decreases your health and your chances of winning the game going forward.

There are three dungeon levels and each level starts the room numbering process over sequentially. So Level 1 has rooms numbered 1 through 80 and Level 2 has rooms numbered 1 through 80 as does Level 3. On Levels 1 & 2 Room 80 is a special room where you can use the coins you’ve collected on the levels to restock supplies. You can buy another compass, you can purchase rations, or you can buy more ZAP spells which power your magic wand. You can also opt to sell some of your treasures you’ve collected from defeating opponents to gain more gold for purchases. The rock demon sitting behind the counter gives you less than half of the items value. The rations serve to increase your health, the compass allows you to see the different room choices or exits at the top of the screen. It is possible for the compass to randomly run out of batteries and then you’re not privy to the room numbers or exit choices. You’re basically flying blind and when this happens I had to resort to actually mapping. The compass failing on you is a completely random event. Mapping was such a nightmare that I would just begin my game again when my compass malfunctioned. Once you restock with supplies you go through a trap door to the next level.

Room 80 represents the end of the line or the endgame. The room’s description is depicted above and then prompts you to take an action. No matter what I typed in I received the following screen:

This essentially represents winning the game. The game then goes on to show you your final haul of treasures obtained as well as your character statistics.

Besides showing you your final treasure haul the game then lists all of the monsters that you defeated in the dungeon as well. It even gives you an option to print them out.

and then lastly it goes over your character’s final individual stats:

Dr. Goodcode’s Caverns was a very bizarre and eclectic game. However I must admit that finding and playing these forgotten, odd, hybrid games are a large part of the enjoyment I derive when I chronicle all of these games. And quite often I find something that takes me quite by surprise – a hidden gem if you will. I would also like to point out that I can’t help but wonder if I missed something in the very last room. The prompt at the end of the description is quite mysterious. Several of the dungeon rooms had odd descriptions and numbers painted on the room’s wall or floor. My imagination can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a special code one could type in to unlock a hidden fourth level. I trolled the internet and searched afar but could not find hardly any references at all to the game let alone any kind of walkthrough or expose on it. The author uses a pseudonym so trying to contact the developer to ask this specific question seems an impossibility at this point. However that suspicion does create a “tickle” in the back of my mind. I spent about 4 or 5 hours with the game until I was finally able to beat it. The final winning playthrough took me a little over an hour.

Next up on the docket is the Crypt of the Undead from 1982. Until next time…

Dragon Stomper was programmed by Stephen Landrum and published by Starpath for the Atari 2600 in 1982. It may very well deserve the moniker of the very first role playing game created for consoles. We did play Adventure which was developed for the Atari Video Computer System in 1980 (later renamed Atari 2600) however I consider Adventure to be more of an action-adventure. Adventure can have the distinction of being the first console fantasy game but it is Dragon Stomper that seems to be the first console role-playing game.

The story driving the game is standard RPG fare. A Druid completed the enchantment of a powerful amulet that would allow him to subdue and control a dragon. The Druid, controlling a fierce dragon, would become invincible. So, amulet in hand, the Druid entered the dragon’s lair. And fell into a trap. The amulet skidded out of the Druid’s hand and into the dragon’s claw. Slowly the magic powers of the amulet flowed into the dragon adding cunning, intelligence, and great magical powers to it’s physical strength. As the dragon gained power, it became increasingly evil and turned it’s newfound powers against the once happy kingdom. From it’s cave, the dragon cast spells that caused crops to wither and die. Hidden pools of quicksand suddenly engulfed travelers on their way to market. Savage creatures – maniacs, scorpions, demented monkeys, and worse – suddenly appeared and attacked without warning. In steps a dragon hunter ( YOU! ) who is given the quest by the king to defeat the dragon and reclaim the magical amulet.

There are four different sections in this game. Once you leave one part of the game and move on to the next section there is no way to return to the previous section.

The first part of the game is a wilderness area that you’re meant to explore. This comprises much of the game as you use it to collect as much gold and items as you can so that you can purchase equipment in town which you’ll need for the dragon’s lair. You will also need to find identification papers so that you can use them to cross the bridge to get into town.

The wilderness area is an overland map that isn’t terribly large. There are churches, castles, temples, swamps, trees, and huts found on the map. The bridge which takes you into town is on the eastern edge of the wilderness map.

Monsters which you’ll encounter in the wilderness are knights, monkeys, slimes, maniacs, spiders, scorpions, ghouls, snakes, beetles, and demons. These creatures occur as random encounters.

When you encounter these creatures you have the option to move, fight, use an item, or check your status.

Combat involves you and your opponent exchanging blows and damage until one of you dies. You can see in a display window the amount of damage being dealt to you and the amount of damage you’re dishing out as well. I found it to be a bit difficult to stay alive in the very beginning of the game. There are churches on the overland wilderness map where you can purchase healing for 200 gold pieces. When my hit points would get low I would go to the church for healing. I found that my attributes soon increased enough where the random encounters became much easier affairs.

When you defeat your enemy you’re randomly awarded gold pieces or a special item. Special items can include charms, rings, keys, staves, potions, gold, a shield, a hand axe and identification papers. The hand axe you need as a melee weapon so you want to find this right away otherwise you’re using your hands as weapons. The shield makes it harder for your opponents to hit you. Keys are used to enter locked castles and temples. Special encounters and items can be found within. The charms, rings, staves, and crosses all work to either increase or decrease your attributes of strength and dexterity. Each game their roles are different but within a particular game they continue to do the same thing. For example if in the game you’re playing the charms serve to increase strength and dexterity then they will always do so in that game. If the staves decrease your strength and dexterity then they will always do so throughout that particular game. If you begin a new game the roles of these special items will randomly change and you’ll have to experiment with all of them.

Once I felt my attributes were high enough and I had my identification papers I made my way across the bridge and into town.

This was my first mistake and I discovered that I “soft locked” the game and was unable to complete the quest. Let me expound upon this.

The town depicted above is the second section of the game. Once you cross the bridge and enter the town there is no going back into the wilderness area. The town has three different shops which allow you to purchase equipment, healing potions, and lastly spells. There are also patrolling warriors which you can hire and are absolutely necessary in order to survive your ordeal with the dragon. Lastly you can reach the Dragon’s Lair from town. My mistake was that while my attributes were appropriately high enough, and I had my identification papers, what I didn’t have was enough gold to purchase the items that I needed in order to defeat the dragon.

The dragon is actually an EXTREMELY difficult encounter. You’re going to need to purchase a lantern so that you can see through the gloom of the dragon’s caves, you’re going to want to purchase rope so that you can climb down into the dragon’s lair otherwise you have to jump down in which you take some damage, and you have to purchase a bow so that you can attack the dragon from a distance for a bit. You see defeating this particular dragon involves some strategy. You are also going to want to hire the three warriors that are marching throughout the town. It will cost you roughly 250 gold pieces for each warrior that you hire. In addition to the equipment and warriors you’re also going to want to go into the magic shop and purchase some Blast and Stun spells to help deal with the dragon and Vision spells to deal with all of the traps. All of these purchases are going to require roughly 1500 to 1800 gold pieces in totality. I was crestfallen to discover that I had miscalculated what I would need to complete my quest so badly. I had to start the game completely over and then grind to raise my attributes and collect enough gold pieces so that I could afford all of the equipment I needed.

Once I felt I had a sufficient supply of gold I made my way back to town, purchased equipment, bought Blast and Stun and Vision spells, and hired my three warriors. I then made my way into the Dragon’s Lair.

The dragon’s lair is a linear series of caverns with all kinds of various traps. You can reveal these traps using the Vision spells which you purchased in the magic shop.

There are a lot of poison arrows that you have to avoid which shoot from the walls and there is somewhat of an arcade sequence where you have to avoid quite a few obstacles which move quickly back and forth.

Once you make your way past all of the traps and obstacles you come to a pit. If you bought rope from the equipment shop in town you can descend safely into the pit. If you did not purchase rope you can jump into the pit but doing so will cause damage and you want to reserve as many hit points as you can for the dragon.

Once you finally reach the dragon in it’s lair you are in for quite a battle. The amulet that the dragon is guarding can be seen just behind the dragon. It took me multiple tries to defeat the dragon and I had to experiment with different strategies but the bottom line is that the only way you’re going to defeat the dragon is to strategize and use tactics.

I was able to finally defeat the dragon only after sending the warriors in to do combat with the beast. While they engaged the dragon I stayed back and I hurled Stun spells, which paralyze the dragon for a couple of rounds, Blast spells which do great amounts of damage to the beast (caution sometimes the spells will not work and they are dispelled by the magic of the dragon’s amulet) and then I shot arrows from the bow that I purchased. Near the end of combat you’ll finally have no choice but to engage the dragon and exchange blows. You’ll want to hope that between the warriors, blast spells, and arrows that you’ve whittled down the dragon’s hit points enough to finally finish it. It is not an easy task.

Once you defeat the dragon you move to the back of the lair and retrieve the amulet. It is then that you’ve completed your quest in vanquishing the dragon and reclaiming the amulet and the game is over.

Dragon Stomper took me completely by surprise. I had never heard of it growing up and my expectations were that it would be something resembling 1980’s Adventure for the Atari. I couldn’t have been more wrong. You have a character whose attributes approve through combat. You find items to help aid you in your quest. There are four different sections of play that involve buying equipment and magic for your expedition through the dragon’s caves and you also have to hire warriors to lead through them. The last part, in which you face the dragon, requires strategy and tactics to win.

I enjoyed my time with it. It took me roughly 4 hours to beat as there are no save game features and it is meant to be played in one sitting albeit it’s a long sitting. This is no Ultima or Wizardry or even a Fracas by Stuart Smith but it’s about as fun and as close to a true role-playing game as you’re going to get on an Atari 2600.

Next up on the list is Goodcode’s Caverns. I have a vacation and some travel plans with my wife on the docket for next week so I will be on hiatus for a good week but then I’ll be back and ready for new adventure. Until next time…

Intellivision hit the scene in 1979 and sold for the steep price of $275 which is over $1000 today adjusting for inflation. Atari had already released the 2600 in 1977 and had a two year head start to this competitor. Mattel’s delayed launch of Intellivision however allowed it to outshine with better graphics and better audio. The Intellivision Pac-Man port was far superior to the Atari 2600’s and a fairly faithful reproduction. The Atari 2600 used an 8-bit MOS Technology 6507 running at 1.19 MHz. Mattel equipped the Intellivision with a 16-bit 2 MHz CP1600 built in a partnership between General Instruments and Honeywell in 1975. It also had a 3 channel sound chip. It’s superior performance caused it to sell out it’s entire first year production run of 175,000 units. The following year in 1980 it sold 200,000 units and in 1981 it sold over 1 million consoles. By 1983 sales had exceeded 3 million units.

In a world used to joysticks Mattel decided to take an entirely different approach with a controller that looks more like a television remote. The home computer market through several generations will never see another controller quite like this one.

The unique design allowed developers to add more interfacing options but it also required each game to provide a plastic overlay that slid over the keypad to display what each button does. These overlays would often get bent and become hard to insert.

There were not many role-playing games produced for the Intellivision during it’s lifespan. I believe there are a total of five that, God willing I live long enough to get to, we’ll cover in this blog.

The first and a fan favorite was the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons cartridge. Mattel licensed it from TSR and it was the first licensed AD&D video game ever made. It was written by Tom Loughry and he wrote the later sequel to this game as well. He would then move on to work for Accolade but these were his only two role-playing games.

Mattel would later release a sequel under the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license which led to them renaming this first volume in the series Cloudy Mountain.

The object of this game is to acquire the two halves of the ancient Crown of Kings, hidden deep within the caverns of the legendary Cloudy Mountain. To reach the treasure you have to cross an overland map of obstacles. Below is straight from the game manual:

When the game begins you choose your skill level of the game that you want to play. The easy version is called the Sightseer option. The medium version is affectionately referred to as Weekend Adventurer. There is a medium/hard version with the moniker Soldier of Fortune and lastly the hard level is called Hero. The harder the skill level you select the faster the monsters will move on the screen towards you. There are also fewer arrows in each quiver you find. For example, on the easy version the quiver contains 11 arrows but on the hard version they only contain 5.

The color of Cloudy Mountain reflects the skill level of the game. Gray is easy, blue is medium, red is medium/hard, and lastly purple is hard. I played on the Easy level as my reflex / arcade skills are not the greatest and I still found the easy level challenging.

I found this game to be a lot of fun and found it to be very addictive as well. I can see why it was a fan favorite in 1982. You begin on the left side of the overland map and have to make your way across the map to Cloudy Mountain. When you come into contact with the mountains you can choose to enter them and explore a maze of caverns underneath them. Each mountain or obstacle has a color associated with it as well. Your warrior is armed with a bow and starts with a quiver of only 3 arrows. It is imperative that you explore the underground warrens and find quivers as quickly as you can. They are your only means to dispatch the monsters you encounter. Gray mountains are easy and have quivers of arrows only. You might choose a gray mountain range first to stock up on ammunition. Blue mountains are medium difficulty but contain a boat (which you’ll need to cross the river in the overland map) and arrows. Red is hard and contains an axe (to get through impenetrable forest) and arrows. Purple is extremely hard but contains the key you’ll need to access Cloudy Mountain and arrows.

The Sword of Fargoal was a game in which the sounds were an integral part of the game. AD&D Cloudy Mountain might be the first RPG game cartridge where the sounds were just as integral. A big part of the enjoyment of Cloudy Mountain was the tension created when you heard the sounds of the creatures coming closer to you within the caverns. You could hear the flapping of bat wings or you could hear the hiss of the snake or the roar of the dragon. The closer you got to the creature the louder the sounds become until suddenly the creature charges out of the darkness (fog of war) towards you and you have to quickly react. There is also a button you can press and the game will beep at you once for each arrow you have left in your quiver. Sounds were not only a real treat but integral to the game.

Once you find yourself in an underground warren of caves you have to find the exit ladder or the way out located somewhere within the complex. There is not really a need (nor would you have time to) map the complex out and you’ll find that top to bottom and left to right will eventually loop and continuously connect with one another.

There are objects that you pick up that you must have in order to traverse left to right across the map. Your goal is to ultimately reach Cloudy Mountain so that you can search for the two halves of the crown. You’ll need to find a boat in order to cross the river that runs through the map and you’ll need an axe to carve a path through the forests. You’ll need a key to unlock the gate blocking you from Cloudy Mountain.

Each half of the crown is guarded by a dragon which is the toughest beast to slay. You’ll need to strike the dragon with three arrows in order to defeat it – so you’ll need a minimum of six arrows in your quiver before you face the dragons beneath Cloudy Mountain.

You can bank your arrows off of the walls of the dungeons so mastering angles and how they affect your shots is crucial to killing some of the monsters. It is also possible to shoot yourself as well. If you shoot at a flat surface the arrow bounces back to hit you and you can also be struck by a banking arrow as well. I regret to say that I shot myself more than a few times before I mastered the complex controls. I played Cloudy Mountain on an emulator and had to download the plastic insert that normally goes over the Intellivison controller and overlay it over my numeric keypad instead. It takes some getting used to.

If you defeat the two dragons and recover both halves of the crown you essentially win the game. The game will then depict an overhead view of the map with a crown sitting atop Cloudy Mountain.

The game took me a couple of hours to win. Some of that time was spent trying to master the controls of the game. I actually enjoyed this experience and it really took me back. I remember that I loved to go over my Uncle’s house because he owned an Intellivision whereas we owned the Atari 2600 at my house. Remember that you could buy an electronic dishwasher for the same price as the Intellivision console. My Uncle Ken owned a copy of AD&D Cloudy Mountain and I used to love to play it but I was never able to beat it. I knew this would be a nostalgic trip for me however I was surprised that I enjoyed the gameplay experience as much as I did. I look forward to coming back to the Intellivision emulator when it is time to do so.

Next up on the docket is Dragon Stomper. Until next time…

The Tomb of Drewan originates from the United Kingdom and was developed and published by Audiogenic. It was released in 1982 for the Commodore VIC-20 and then later ported in 1983 for the Commodore 64.

There was once an ancient evil empire known as the Kartos Empire. The source of this empire’s power was a magical amulet. It came to be known as the Amulet of Kartos and it contained four powerful runestones of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water giving the possessor power over the four elements. As time passed, this evil empire eventually crumbled. The last survivor of the empire, Drewan, lived for many years after it’s collapse. He started to repent for the many evils committed by the empire but knew that eventually he too would die and so he constructed a repository for the powerful amulet and runestones. He populated this grand 400 room tomb with a variety of guardians to protect these objects of power. He also provided spells and a means to retrieve these artifacts in case one day a hero arose and needed the power of the artifacts for good. All of this can be learned in the manual which came shipped with the game.

At first blush The Tomb of Drewan is a bit reminiscent of The Sword of Fargoal but as you experience the gameplay and all of the various tools at your disposal you’ll realize it is a highly original offering.

There is a lot to unpack here. Firstly, The Tomb of Drewan is a very large game. The tomb itself consists of 400 randomly generated rooms. They are arranged in a 20 x 20 configuration. Each room is divided into four quadrants and each quadrant contains a treasure and a guardian. There are different kinds of treasures to obtain and there are both mortal guardians and magical guardians. There is a bit of an arcade or reflex factor in the game and only the most patient and driven of players are likely to complete this game.

The ultimate goal of the game is to enter the tomb, find the amulet and the four runestones, and then return to the top left corner of the tomb in the 20 x 20 configuration that is present. This is not an easy task. The guardians are no mere pushovers. An irritating feature of the game is that you cannot attack or cast spells at your adversaries from a top, bottom, or diagonal direction. You can only defeat them from an unobstructed left or right direction.

The guardians are identified by their different shapes and different colors. There are mortal guards and magical guards and there are three different types of each. Black represents the strongest of each type and blue is the weakest.

Mortal Guards

Death Master – Black

Soul Stealer – Yellow

Tomb Guard – Blue

Magical Guards

Dark Lord – Black

Sorcerer – Yellow

Spell Maker – Blue

Your health is measured as a percentage and is labelled WND which is short for wounds. Each time one of the tomb adversaries hits you this number decreases. When it reaches 0 you die. There is another component measured in percentage and that is called STR for strength. It represents how much weight you can carry and your fatigue. The more gold you have the more this percentage drops when you move. If this number reaches 0 you also die. If you stand still and do nothing this number will slowly tick back up and increase for you. The only way to improve your WND % once you have taken damage is to find a magical ELIXIR. This acts like a healing potion and it will restore both your Strength and Wounds to 100% Unfortunately you cannot stockpile these ELIXIRs. You are only allowed to carry 1 of each different item or spell.

Where the game’s further originality can be found is in the myriad number of options you have as a character. Each of these options can be accessed by pressing the corresponding letter on the keyboard. I played the game entirely on a keyboard and the keyboard controls did take some getting used. The movement cluster is @ = UP and \ = DOWN and then L = Left and R = Right. You have to be facing enemies in order to attack them so getting used to the movement cluster as well as all of the keyboard options was a bit of a learning curve.

If you’re facing your opponent you can choose to fire an (A)rrow if you have one and it will streak towards your opponent. It is nice in a pinch if range is an issue. The (C)haos spell can be used against all guard types and it obliterates them and then leaves an area of Chaos that the other guards cannot cross. (D)rop merely will allow you to select an item to drop; in most instances this is some gold because it is taxing your strength too much. The (E)lixer will heal your strength and wounds 100%. The (F)ire spell can be used against all guards and it inflicts 7 points of damage. The (H)elp key is a nice touch as it will list all of the inventory items for you and explain what they do and how much damage they cause if applicable. The (J)ump spell will teleport you from the chamber you’re in to a random chamber somewhere within the tomb. I never used this spell because I was concentrating on systematically mapping out the complex and I didn’t want to become lost or disorganized in the process. The (M)irror spell only works on magical enemies and only while they are casting a spell at you. It will reverse the spell and send it back to them. (O)verjump allows you to jump over guards or treasure and (P)etrify turns any guard white with terror and rooted to the spot as long as you are in that particular chamber. (Q)uit leaves the game AND probably the coolest spell in the entire game is (R)emove. Casting REMOVE will quite literally allow you to remove a section of the wall to avoid guards or to get to an unreachable treasure. Sometimes the randomization of chambers seals a treasure chest into an area that can only be reached by a REMOVE spell. When you find these spells as treasure they are to be coveted. (S)word represents the only item you never lose or that depletes itself. The sword will always do 3 points of damage to an opponent. I waited to talk about the (I)nventory choice because I wanted to talk about it together with the (T)ake option. When you find yourself next to a treasure chest you want to turn and face the chest much like you would the opponent and then press (I)nventory and that will let you know the treasure that is in the chest. It may be gold, it may be a spell, or it may be the Amulet itself or one of the four runestones. Once you know what is in the chest you then can pick (T)ake to place it in your inventory.

Gold can slow you down but it is in fact useful because if you should perish, a Tomb Lord will appear and attempt to resurrect you if you have enough gold. If you do not have enough gold then it is game over for you. The spells are extremely important because they help you to survive. You need their offensive capabilities to deal with the mortal and magical guardians in each room. Remember there are 400 different rooms and 4 guardians per room! You can only carry 1 of each spell type at a time which creates a lot of tension.

Where the game can change for you and become a bit easier is when you begin to find the amulet and runestones because they each bestow special powers upon you. If you find the amulet then when you enter each new chamber the different kinds of guardians that are in the chamber will quickly flash and reveal themselves and their location. If you find the fire stone it gives you a permanent Fire Spell; you never run out. If you find the Water Stone, this is the one I found first, it gives you a permanent Water Spell. The Earth Stone gives you permanent use of the Remove spell. I got extremely lucky and this is the second stone that I found and I found it early on. I had the Water Stone and the Earth Stone rather early and didn’t find the others until I had almost all of the rooms mapped out. The Air Stone gives you permanent Strength and your score doesn’t then decrease as you move.

In my foray into the tombs I ended up finding the Water runestone first and then shortly thereafter I found the Earth runestone AND the Amulet of Kartos. All within probably the first 80 chambers that I explored. Getting ahold of the Earth Runestone early was a game changer for me because it allowed me to get to treasure chests that were surrounded by stone walls. If you did not have the Earth runestone you would have to make a notation on your hand drawn map which chambers have treasure chests you could not access. If you find after having moved through all 400 chambers that you did not get all of the pieces that you need you would then have to backtrack to the rooms with notations.

I was hoping that perhaps having found three of the pieces early on that I may not have to explore all of the 400 rooms. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. I did not find the last piece that I needed until the very last room that I explored. I was beginning to become fearful that something was wrong because I had so much time invested in the game up to this point. Once I had the Amulet and all four runestones I then made my way back to the chamber in the upper left corner of my map. Once I arrived in the chamber I was greeted with the following screen:

It took me almost 17 hours to explore the tomb and to find all of the magical items that I needed. This game sports a lot of originality. It has small similarities to Dunjonquest and Sword of Fargoal but clearly stands on it’s own and is quite unique. Removing parts of the wall with the Earth runestone as you move about the map is reminiscent of Lode Runner too which wouldn’t come out until years later. I felt I went above and beyond to persist in finishing this one and my thought process is that not many can make this distinction. If you finished Tomb of Drewan yourself or have fond memories of it I’d love to hear from you.

Next up I’ll be tackling the AD&D Cloudy Mountain Adventure published for Intellivision consoles. Until next time…

I may find myself journeying back in time to play a stray game that I’ve missed from the year but I am now officially closing the books on 1980. I played over 85 games that were published this year for home computers. It was an exciting time in an industry that was much like the wild west. You had individuals quitting their regular jobs to become programmers and game developers and you had individuals and companies working out of their garage. Many games in 1980 were still sold in a Ziploc bag with typewritten instructions.

It was a period where games like Ultima and Wizardry had not yet set industry standards and so it was an age of experimentation. Developers were groping around in the dark as they presented odd iterations in the quest to simulate the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing experience that was taking the world by storm.

It is this very reason that made it such a pleasure and a treat to play each of these games first hand. Loading each of these games for the very first time was like opening up a mystery box – you just didn’t know what to expect or what you were going to get. It was a year of undiscovered gems and in many of these games what worked really well would be emulated by other companies going forward. One encountered some extremely unique games in this era that were some real treats to experience.

So who walks away with the coveted Retrogamestrove.com Game of the Year for 1980?

In the computer role-playing category I am giving the 1980 Game of the Year award to Rogue. You can read my original review of Rogue that was published December 24th, 2020. Though Beneath Apple Manor predates it (1978 Retrogamestrove.com Game of the Year winner), Rogue, which is ASCII based, is considered the forerunner and the namesake of what would become a new subgenre. Roguelike would go on to become a term that characterizes a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels.

These games were immensely popular with college students in the 1980s and 1990s and remain so even today. I found Rogue to be extremely addictive even by today’s standards and was constantly muttering; “Just one more try”. It’s influence is still felt today by the several variants that exist and are still being created today. It is for these reasons that I am awarding Rogue with the 1980 Game of the Year in it’s category. Thank you Michael Toy and Glen Wichman for creating such a fun and addicting game whose influences are still felt today.

In the interactive fiction category the Game of the Year award has to go to Zork I. You can read about my initial experience with Zork I here that I published February 18th, 2021. The sophisticated word parser of Zork I was able to understand adjectives, compound verbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. It is a marvel that in an Infocom game that you’re able to type in most anything and get a qualified response.

The intricate descriptions and puzzles compared to other text adventures was mind blowing at the time. The description lengths of each location made the world of Zork I seemingly come to life. I likened my experience with the game and it’s comparison to others that have come before it to the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy leaves the cottage and steps into Oz for the very first time; a world suddenly depicted with vibrant colors. Playing Zork I was the same type of experience for me. Zork I would be the game that launched Infocom into what would become super stardom. The company ended up producing high quality interactive fiction throughout the roll of years. Blockbuster after blockbuster. Zork I was the shot across the bow to announce that “we have arrived”. Awarding Zork I the 1980 Game of the Year for the interactive fiction category was an easy and obvious decision.

Here is the Retrogamestrove.com Awards Page I will also place this link that can be accessed at anytime from our Home Page.

I wanted to take the time to make a few honorable mentions of other very interesting games that were published this same year. There are some individuals and company’s that created and published some extremely interesting and entertaining games that remain a bit underrated even today.

Med Systems would publish three different games in 1980 and I found all three of the games to be extremely entertaining and a “must play” for game historians. Reality Ends by William F. Denman Jr. presented a unique game format which I found to be highly enjoyable. Deathmaze 5000 written by Frank Corr Jr & William F. Denman Jr. may be the very first dungeon crawler that predates both Ultima I and Wizardry I that no one talks about. I found the objects and puzzles and mapping out of the maze to be highly enjoyable and difficult as well. This pair would also write and produce Labyrinth that would prove to be a challenge for those who love the old school chore of having to successfully map their dungeon levels. I was surprised to discover that I found all three of these games to be hidden gems for myself in 1980 and that all three originated from the same company as well.

Highlands Computer Services published Oldorf’s Revenge, The Tarturian, and Creature Venture in 1980. Oldorf’s Revenge and The Tarturian would introduce a very unique system in which you switch back and forth between character classes each possessing a very unique set of skills or spells. Each of these characters would be integral in solving a myriad variety of puzzles throughout the two games. It was an odd RPG hybrid that was eccentric enough to win me over. Both of the games were very challenging as well and worth the time that I put into them. Creature Venture is a wire-frame graphic adventure that is better than the few that have come before it in my humble opinion. It was well done and of higher quality than all of the Sierra games that have come before it.

We were also introduced to the extremely difficult Savage Island Part 1 in 1980 which would be the pinnacle of Adams’ illustrious career. He set out to make an extremely difficult text adventure and was certainly successful. The introduction of a randomization factor coordinated between the weather & the bear on the island completely turned the text adventure trope upside down. It was the first time in a game where it became a matter of attempting the same thing several times and expecting a different outcome; which in real life is the very definition of insanity.

All of the games that were given to us in 1980 provided for a very memorable year. The fact that industry standards for genres had not been set caused the creation of a lot of different hybrid games which created a unique experience. There was a sense of awe and mystery as I began each and every game from this era and what it did for me was really reinforce the enjoyment I’ve been getting from playing these games in the order in which they were published.

Creature Venture is a graphic adventure using wire frame graphics like those seen in Sierra’s Mystery House. The game was written by Butch Greathouse and Garry Rheinhardt and published by Highlands Computer Services for the Apple II. This is the pair that brought us the very unique Oldorf’s Revenge and it’s sequel The Tarturian. When Creature Venture was released it was distributed in a clear Ziploc bag with the above insert as many games were during this early era.

The premise of the story is that you’ve just inherited your Uncle Stashbucks mansion. Your uncle was known to be very eccentric and to have a fascination with the occult. He unfortunately learned the ways of black magic and called forth creatures from hades and dealt with Lucifer himself. He ended up relinquishing his soul to their demands and it was rumored that in the end he attempted to fight back with the help of a magic lamp but by then it was too late. Lucifer also hid your uncle’s treasure deep in the mansion. The only way you’re going to enjoy your inheritance is somehow ridding the mansion of these creatures and recovering your treasure.

You begin the game outside of the mansion and next to a mailbox and tree. There are a number of things to do here. If you climb the tree you’ll discover that there is a key hidden up in the branches.

Notice too, in the picture above, how there appears to be something on the roof of the adjacent building. This was a characteristic we would see experimented with in early graphic adventures. Instead of a picture accompanying an otherwise straightforward text adventure, the picture itself would show an object visually without describing it. It was then up to the player to take the cue from the depiction and act upon it accordingly. We see this used a few times in this game. If you open the mailbox you’ll find a postcard inside the mailbox. Reading the postcard reveals one word: SESAME. The adjacent building next door turns out to be a shed. Inside the shed there are batteries (which will be useful for a flashlight you find) and if you say SESAME in the shed a panel slides open revealing stairs up to the roof of the shed. There is indeed a KNIFE sitting upon the roof of the shed. This KNIFE will be very important later in the game.

Once you’re finished with the grounds outside of the house it’s time to explore the manor. One curiosity that I passed making my way through a crack in the manor’s wall was an elf throwing objects over the wall. I ventured back out and went to the area outside of the wall to see if I could pick up whatever the elf was throwing over the wall but had no success with that idea. The elf and his throwing arm would come in handy later in the game.

The house has a few rooms to explore but one has the sense that there are a lot of locations missing and a lot more game left. This certainly turns out to be the case but the house contains some interesting items to find and all of them are useful. The items are a diary, a pair of glasses, a flashlight, and a message which reads; “If you can’t killem then scareem”

If you examine both the diary and the key and put the letters from both together it will form Beelzebub which will cause the bookcase in the manor to slide open revealing a hidden passage and much larger portion of the game.

In a review found in Computer Gaming World Creature Venture was labeled as an adventure for beginners but I’m going to respectfully disagree with that reviewer. I found Creature Venture to be very challenging. There are a number of extremely interesting things that transpire in this game that place it a step up over the recent Sierra graphic adventures that we’ve reviewed. The game has a number of original elements that are under appreciated in my humble opinion. One such element involves the pair of glasses that you found. In the living room there is a painting and when you view the painting it appears to be a snapshot of the outside wall surrounding the manor. However if you put the glasses on that you found and then look at the painting the picture suddenly looks like this:

There are two hidden locations in the game and once you find them they will unlock many more locations for you to explore. One such area is a mirror hanging over the fireplace. You can actually enter the mirror and explore several locations beyond and the second area is the bookcase which leads to the deepest areas of the mansion. It is in one of these areas that you’ll find a shovel. The shovel is being guarded by a strange creature but the note you found in the oven contains the hint as to how to deal with the creature. If you then take the shovel to the area outside the manor where the arrow is pointing to and dig; you’ll find the magic lamp.

The magic lamp is an integral piece to completing the game. It will not only vanquish two creatures for you that you can’t deal with on your own; but in a very tricky and twisty way it helps you to defeat Lucifer as well.

I was very impressed with so many different aspects of this game. I thought it to be quite clever. The elf that you see throwing things over the wall in the beginning of the game? You’ll find that the shovel you’re carrying won’t fit through the crack in the wall. So what do you do? You give the shovel to the elf who then throws it over the wall for you. I was then able to go through the crack, retrieve the shovel, and dig for the magic lamp.

Underneath the mansion in the catacombs there are a number of puzzles and items to obtain. In a room with pillars you find the following riddle:

I thought it quite clever and cute. You find a door that you are unable to open in a different location of the complex. The riddle was a clue and if you type in SAY TONTO the door will open for you revealing a bottle of water in the room. The bottle of water proves useful later.

You’ll encounter a chest that turns out to be a mimic – yes – I perished – and you’ll find the only way to deal with this creature is by rubbing the magic lamp. A genie will appear and defeats the mimic for you. Once the mimic is defeated a magic wand is discovered.

In a box canyon you had encountered a tiny tree and when you attempt to climb it the game responds with “it’s too small”. So once I had the bottle of water I went back to that box canyon and watered the tree and watched as the tree grew.

You can then climb the tree and you discover a mean and nasty Kybor prevents you from going any further. It is necessary to rub the magic lamp a second time and watch as the genie vanquishes the Kybor.

Once you progress beyond the Kybor you’ll find an empty bird’s cage. The cage is important because it will allow you to capture a bat at another location. The cage is protected by the BOOGEYMAN but if you PUNCH BOOGEYMAN you can then procure the cage. I only thought to do this; because if you choose to read the game instructions which are on the disk (the game comes with no manual) one of the examples it gives for actions is to PUNCH BOOGEYMAN which I thought was an odd example. When I encountered this BOOGEYMAN much later in the game I recalled the example I read and merely followed suit; and it worked!

Once you have the cage in your possession you can go back to retrieve the bat; which requires a bit of inventory juggling as you’ll discover if you play the game on your own. Caged bat in hand you move ahead and find yourself in a room filled with fireflies. You can trap the fireflies in the bottle that used to have the water in it and these will act as your new light sources because the batteries you place in your flashlight will wear out and you only have a limited number of moves with the flashlight. Unfortunately when you are trapping the fireflies there is a cave in which occurs in this room. This is where the wand you took from the mimic comes in handy. You wave the wand and it will clear the rubble away for you so that you can exit. I soft-locked myself in this location and that is how I came to discover that I would have to have the genie defeat the mimic because I knew I needed to find another inventory item.

We’re now almost to the endgame. There is an old stump that when examined appears to have been worn smooth. This is a hint. If you RUB STUMP nothing happens however if you drop the FLASHLIGHT and BATTERIES ( you now have a bottle of fireflies as a light source) and then RUB STUMP it works and the stump will teleport you to a bridge over a ravine. A snake guards the bridge but if you now let the bat out of the cage it will attack the snake for you.

If you cross the bridge and move north this is where your final confrontation with Lucifer takes place.

Let’s pause to talk about the magic lamp once again. If at any point you examine the lamp this is what you’re shown:

So from this picture one could easily discern that you’re going to be granted three wishes or get to use the power of the lamp three times. Now remember during the course of the game we’ve already invoked the power of the genie twice. I can report to you too that through trial and error while playing the game I had to deduce when to use the lamp or not use the lamp. Could I move past obstacles using other items in my inventory? I can further report that during these experiments I ended up rubbing the lamp MORE than three times. On the fourth attempt the magic lamp exploded and thus so did I. Back to the drawing board.

Now back to our final confrontation with Lucifer.

Remember that Lucifer wants the lamp to prevent you from using the lamp against him in some way. In what I consider to be an absolutely creative and ingenious endgame, what I did was RUB LAMP (which amounted to the third time I did so). Special Note: When you rub the lamp in different locations of the game where the genie isn’t necessary than nothing happens. So once I rubbed the lamp and nothing happened; I dropped the lamp. Lucifer gleefully picks the lamp up and then quickly rubs the lamp. The lamp magically explodes and so does Lucifer. What a brilliant ending.

If you then move north from that location you encounter the hidden Stashbuck fortune.

I tell you I really enjoyed this one. I found it to be very creative and very challenging as well and very rewarding to play and complete. Butch Greathouse and Garry Rheinhardt wrote three very distinctive, original, and entertaining games in 1980. If you’re a text adventure or graphic adventure fan I highly recommend you try this little gem.

In my last blog post I mistakenly though I had 1980 wrapped up but then I realized I still needed to complete Creature Venture. I now have all of the games published in 1980 under my belt and in my next blog post we will have the awards ceremony for the Retrogamestrove.com games of the year for 1980.

Until next time…

Roger Olsen returns with Pyramid; another interactive text adventure published by Aardvark. Roger Olsen & the Aardvark crew were quite prolific in 1980 having published six different text adventures. Pyramid author Roger Olsen also wrote Deathship and Escape From Mars in that same year. Aardvark published four other text adventures in 1980 as well; all originally for the Ohio Scientific: Trek Adventure, Vampire Castle, Nuclear Sub and now Pyramid. I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten to experience all six.

Pyramid was first published for the OSI and then later ported to the Commodore 64/128, Timex Sinclair, TRS-80 Coco, Vic-20 and IBM PC. I played the Commodore 64/128 version. Interestingly enough, even though Pyramid was text only for most platforms, the later TRS-80 Color Computer version added pictures but didn’t change anything else.

I was really looking forward to Pyramid having enjoyed the other five offerings from the Aardvark crew. Alas it appears that I set myself up for disappointment. It appears that Roger Olsen set out this time to make a much more difficult game. In doing so, a couple of the puzzles are exceedingly difficult and the result spoils the flow of the game compared to earlier efforts.

In Pyramid you take on the role of an archaeologist. The game starts in a tent on the site of the excavation. The object of the game is to get into the Pyramid, explore the site, and recover four treasures and bring them back to the tent.

One distinct feature in this game is your knapsack. You can pick up and manage many more items in your inventory thanks to the knapsack. When you pick something up it automatically goes into your knapsack and if you want a list of your inventory items you have to type: LOOK KNAPSACK.

The advertisement on the back of the Pyramid box rings true. Pyramid is very hard. I am a little aghast at the mention of 50-70 hours of playing time but still compared to other entries from Aardvark I felt that this one was the most difficult.

There are what I would call three very difficult puzzles that exist in this game. One puzzle is actually ingenious and very fair – albeit still quite difficult. The other puzzle which we’re going to talk about in a moment borders on what I like to call “unfair play” rules.

This aforementioned puzzle involves actually getting INSIDE the pyramid itself. As an aside, why is that all of the games that we’ve reviewed that involve a pyramid, make it so bloody hard to get into the pyramid? The absolutely terrific Scott Adams adventure Pyramid of Doom comes to mind.

In the beginning of the game while in the desert I am able to find VINES, an AARDVARK (no really – and he’ll actually go into the knapsack as well), a BANANA, and a MONKEY.

There is a heavy locked door in the front of the pyramid that I cannot get into. However, using a shovel, if I dig in a certain location on the map the ground caves in and deposits me into a cave. In this cave there is a stream, a boat in the sand, and some rocks. This is where I was stuck for the longest time. How do you proceed forward you ask? I am ashamed to admit that I had to resort to finding a solution to this dilemma. The solution is to TAKE ROCKS followed by PUT ROCKS. The game will ask WHERE? You then type in STREAM.

Once you do this the water level begins to rise freeing your boat from the sand. Once you hop into the boat you can follow the underground river. Now I’m as familiar with the concept of dam building as the next guy but the game doesn’t describe the rocks as a pile of rocks or a lot of rocks; merely rocks. So TAKE ROCKS and PUT ROCKS as a solution I found to be rather frustrating as a player however I understand the paradigm.

The stream takes you to an ancient cave complex where you find a sword. When you examine the sword you find that it reads property of “ALI BABA” which it turns out is a hint to help you proceed further. There is a bit of parser navigation concerning the altar in the room and magical words that you’ll have to utter but eventually you’ll find yourself teleported to some twisting passages.

There is a bit of a maze here to contend with but you also find a message on one of the walls. If you shift all of the letters back by one, the message reads WALLS HIDE SECRETS. Eventually you’ll find a secret door which will help you to escape the maze that you’re in. It took some time to find it but I finally discovered that by typing in PUSH WALL it revealed the secret passage.

Pushing on a wall to reveal a secret door reveals then the second difficult puzzle in this game. A hole with a locked grate over the top of it. This is another part of the game that I had to look up the solution for. Once I discovered the answer to getting by the locked grate I was a little upset with myself. I wonder if I had given myself a lot of time to ruminate on it if I would have arrived at a solution. It is unclear but what is clear is how ingenious the solution is. One of your inventory items is a pistol. If you open up the pistol and look inside you’ll discover bullets. If you open the bullets you’ll discover gunpowder. One of the other inventory items in your handy knapsack is a book of matches. I am sure you can now deduce how to get by the locked grate. I’ve never seen a solution like this yet in any of the games that we’ve covered. Genius and diabolical all rolled into one.

Once you’re by this obstacle you’ll find yourself at a chasm. If you LOOK CHASM you’ll find a jeweled dagger down on a ledge. This was another difficult puzzle that finally involved using the vine, a banana, and the monkey’s help in order to retrieve the dagger. Once again I had to resort to using a hint here. Roger Olsen was not playing around in his attempt to make this a much more difficult game than his predecessors.

The jeweled dagger is one of the four treasures you’re meant to find. You’ll next find yourself in the throne room and attacked by swarms of ants and this is where pulling the Aardvark out of the knapsack comes in handy.

The four treasures you’re meant to find are: Ali Baba’s sword, an amulet, a deathmask, and the jeweled dagger. You’ll have to contend with a mummy in order to obtain the amulet. Having already played Pyramid of Doom helped me to deal with the mummy as the solutions were the same.

Once you have the four treasures in hand you’ll find that you can make your way out the front of the pyramid via the heavy door that you could not open before. Once you make your way back to the tent and deposit the four treasures you’ll find yourself victorious.

I did not feel very victorious because I had to resort to “cheating” not once but three different times to get myself through the game which has been very uncharacteristic of me to this point. I didn’t even have this kind of problem playing the venerable Zork I the very first time. There were three very difficult puzzles to overcome in Pyramid. They were not the only puzzles but they represent three monumental hurdles. This brings up the question of game design and implementation. Was this game truly so hard compared to anything else I’ve played to this point or is the implementation and execution of the puzzle design flawed? Where the locked grate puzzle is concerned I would venture to say that the puzzle is ingenious and more than fair. Very difficult but makes a lot of logical sense and you had all of the items in your possession to solve it. I think it is asking a lot for a player to think of opening up the pistol, emptying it of it’s bullets, then opening the bullets to obtain the gunpowder but what an ingenious and devious puzzle, and, if we’re being honest, fair and logical. Great stuff. However the GET ROCKS and PUT ROCKS solution to create a dam to free the boat and tying a banana to a vine to get a monkey to crawl down it to get the jeweled dagger both seem like a bit much. I could probably spend an entire blog post talking about adventure game puzzle design vs. real world logic with several examples, and while I may very well do that in a future post, I won’t do so here.

Pyramid does not have many map locations however it replaces size with several devious puzzles which are likely to befuddle and frustrate the average player. Despite my frustrations with Pyramid I can’t help but be impressed with the offerings presented by Roger Olsen, Bob Retelle, and the rest of the Aardvark crew. It is with the completion of Pyramid that we finally close the door on 1980 and in my next blog post it is time for the Retrogamestrove.com Awards as I present the awards for the 1980 Game of the Year for CRPG and Text Adventure categories. Until next time….

Nuclear Sub is an interactive text adventure written by Bob Retelle who also wrote Trek Adventure. Nuclear Sub was published by Aardvark originally for the OSI/Compukit but was later ported to the C64/128, Timex Sinclair, TI-99/4a, TRS-80, TRS-80 CoCo, and the VIC20. I played the C64/128 version.

One of the very first puzzles which you have to solve is finding a circuit board and installing it so that you can get the computer operational. Once you have the computer up and running you realize the ship is in serious trouble.

The game seems reminiscent of Retelle’s previous Trek Adventure in that it seems you need to repair the ship. This was a false assumption on my part and in reality what you want to do is escape the ship. Once I discarded one paradigm for another the game began to make much more sense to me.

There are two different hatches in the game that will not open for you. The first hatch is jammed and will not open all the way. In order to open this hatch and reveal new locations you’re going to have to throw a heavy chair at it. The second hatch has a broken latch that will not open. The solution to open this hatch is a little bit trickier. You’ll need to find and don a pair of gloves and pick up a leaky battery. Pouring the leaking battery acid on the broken latch will get the hatch to open. Opening this hatch however leads to a flooded compartment and my untimely death due to drowning. I had to start the game over a few times, and I finally remembered to channel the spirit of Scott Adams and I typed in HOLD BREATH and this works long enough for you to dive down and open a locker where you’ll find a set of scuba gear and a lantern. Once you put the scuba gear on you won’t have to worry about losing oxygen again.

In another area of the ship you’ll find the reactor room and the smashed reactor control rods. You keep getting an intermittent warning throughout the game that the core temperature of the reactor is rising. If you do not do something about this the ship will explode before you can escape. In the reactor room there is a large puddle on the floor. If you look up you see leaking pipes. In the tool room if you picked up the sledgehammer you can use it here to BREAK PIPES which causes the Reactor Room to flood and thus the reactor to cool off.

Cooling off the reactor and allowing water to flood the compartment also somehow allowed a moray eel and an electric eel to enter the ship. If you’re wearing the rubber gloves that you picked up in the ship’s galley you can pick up the electric eel without harming yourself. If you then type in SHOCK EEL you’re somehow able to use the electric eel to deliver an electric jolt to the moray eel and it goes away.

All that remains now is heading to the torpedo room, climbing into the torpedo tube, and swimming through it to escape. There is a slight problem however. At some point in the game, before the ship loses power, you needed to clear the torpedo tube by typing in FIRE TORPEDO. A torpedo will indeed fire, clearing the torpedo tube so that late in the game you can escape through it. If you do not fire the torpedo in an earlier part of the game then your escape route will be blocked by the said torpedo.

There were a few difficult puzzles in the game but overall I was very impressed. I though the map locations made a lot of sense and I certainly appreciated how your actions in the game could change the game environment. I must say I have really enjoyed Aardvark’s offerings and we have one more game to play from them that they published in 1981 which happens to be the next game on my list. Aardvark’s last game offering in 1980 is Pyramid and I’m looking forward to it. Until next time…