Deathship was written by Rodger Olsen in 1980 and published by Aardvark. It was originally written for the Ohio Scientific Computer but later ported to the C16/Plus4, the Commodore 64/128, PC, TI-99/4a, Timex Sinclair, TRS-80, TRS-80 Coco, and the VIC20. I played the Commodore 64 version of Deathship.
Deathship is an interactive text adventure and it was the first of six adventures that were written for the Ohio Scientific in 1980.
We had already covered both Trek Adventure and Vampire Castle and so I was curious to see how Deathship would rate compared to the previous two games.
I had a few parser issues with Deathship but despite those issues I thought the game was well done. I found the map to be very tightly put together and the game was challenging. It reminded me a bit of Secret Mission by Scott Adams.
When the game begins you discover that there is a bomb on board the ship and that you need to find and disarm the bomb before 9:00.
The map itself is very much a large part of the game.
You can go into a lifeboat from the Aft Deck and retrieve a flashlight. You find from exploring the ship that you’ll have to scramble down an anchor chain in order to get access to a porthole. Once you’re in the room you’re going to have to turn on the flashlight and that’s when you discover that the map itself is the puzzle. The map can be tedious because you need to discover ways to get from point A to point B and because you’re trying to find and disarm a bomb you’re on a time limit.
One of the harder puzzles reminded me of Vampire Castle by a different author but released by the same company and so I wonder if there wasn’t some “bullpen banter” involved as the “crate puzzle” was the first of it’s kind that I had encountered in Vampire Castle and lo and behold the same kind of puzzle is here in Deathship.
If you break the crate up to see what is inside you’ll “softlock” yourself from being able to finish the game. You first need to take the crate to the bow of the ship and use it to stand on so that you can reach the rope found on the top of the flag pole. Once you have the rope in your possession you then tie the rope off to a railing and use the rope to access yet another porthole.
The game is diabolical this way in that you need to economize your movements because you are on a timer to find and defuse the bomb and you also have to be careful with your flashlight as well and remember to turn it on and off when entering and leaving darkened areas.
There is an odd puzzle in the game involving the radio being nailed down and once you remove the nails and lift the radio you’ll find a cutter underneath which you absolutely need to defuse the bomb. This falls into the unfair play category just a bit because there is no rational reason for a cutter to be located under a radio that is nailed down.
The hardest part of the game is reminiscent of the Scott Adams game. You not only need to cut the wire on the bomb with the cutter you’ve found but then you need to submerge the bomb in water to deactivate it. Every time you try to carry the bomb to the swimming pool on the ship the bomb blows up as you run out of time. The solution is to take some water from the swimming pool with a bucket you find in a janitor’s closet and carry the bucket from the Aft Deck to the hallway off the Midship’s Deck. You drop the buck of water there and you’ll find you can then carry the bomb with the wire that you’ve cut to that point and you drop the bomb in the bucket for the win. Very devious.
I thought the plotting and map to be very tight and the puzzles to be fairly tough. There were some parser issues because I knew I had to climb down the anchor chain as an example and finally found after many tries that GO ANCHOR is what I needed to type to climb down the anchor chain. I also found that after I manipulated my environment like OPEN LOCKER or BREAK CRATE as examples that my description wouldn’t refresh. I would have to type LOOK AROUND to see what my actions had uncovered. All in all I enjoyed my experience with the game and if you want to play a challenging text adventure you’ll find one right here.
For my next game I’m going back to a CRPG from 1981 called Catacombs of the Phantoms. Until next time…
Sounds a bit like the 1974 movie _Juggernaut_, which was also adapted into (from?) a novel of the same name.
Alan thank you for posting I’m glad to see you here. I’m not familiar with the movie or book that you’ve mentioned but it’s very possible that the plot or some of the details were heavily borrowed. Many of these early games borrowed heavily from other source materials and the late 70’s and early 80’s were the wild west in that regard. I’m not saying or suggesting that happened but if it struck a chord in you it’s certainly possible. I just played a game that I reviewed that was based on the Poseidon Adventure and even entitled The Poseidon Adventure (however it was not a commercial release). Good to see you here and I hope you post regularly