I was confused when I first read this ad for City Adventure because I wasn’t real clear on what the “Interludes” program was and was fearful that my lack of knowledge may prevent me from playing the game.
Then I discovered that Interludes was an adult computer program in 1980. It is a series of sexual role-playing suggestions and sometimes involves actual physical suggestions to use in the bedroom.
It then became clear to me what the main goal of the game is: Meet Suzy downtown and then bring her back home so that you can get laid.
City Adventure is an interactive text adventure written and published by Software Innovations in 1980 for the TRS-80. I found City Adventure to be different and unique from many of the other text adventures I’d previously played. I just had a similar (and enjoyable) experience with Kidnapped so I was pleasantly surprised to discover another unique text adventure so soon.
Map of City Adventure
You begin the game in your bed and ironically you want to end the game in your bed; however hopefully not alone. There are a number of items that you’re going to want to take with you from the bedroom. You’re going to want to grab a five dollar bill from inside of your wallet as well as a note and then you’re going to want to pick up and read the book that is in the nightstand. The book is a manual on how to train dogs; specifically to fetch.
You have trouble reading the note because you can’t find your glasses. You’ll find you will have trouble reading most anything without the pesky glasses; somehow you were able to read the dog training book though.
There are a couple of puzzles you’ll have to solve in the house before you leave. The first puzzle involves training the dog in the basement to fetch your glasses for you. The box of cookies from the kitchen pantry will help with this task.
Once you have your glasses you’re then able to read the note and discover that you have to meet Suzy downtown at 45th and 6th. This leads to the second and much tougher puzzle in the house and that is getting OUT of the house. There is a security system enabled and you have to disable the alarm system so that the front door will click open and allow you to leave.
While searching the house you discover a cassette tape labeled “security codes” and you also discover a cassette player in an office in the house.
Bypassing the security system
Seems simple enough right? The solution is right in front of you correct? Wrong! I wrestled with the parser for quite some time and I could not figure out how to get the cassette tape to play. I could load it into the player but just couldn’t get it to play no matter what I typed. So I had to solve the security issue the old fashioned way. There are buttons on the security panel labeled A through E and when you press the correct digit you get a green light. If you guess correctly again you’ll get 2 green dots on the panel and so on. You need five green dots in order to successfully leave the house. When you guess incorrectly you get a red dot and you have to begin the process all over again. So in this fashion I had to go through all of the mathematical possibilities until I had the correct alarm code. It wasn’t the route the game would have liked me to take but it got the job done and I was finally able to leave the house.
Once you’re outside of the house the game really opens up and there are a number of locations to explore. You’re going to want to catch the bus downtown, however the bus driver only takes exact change and cannot break your five dollar bill. So this next section of the game involves a drug store and a soda machine so that you can purchase items in order to give you exact change for the bus. In an alleyway you also find some graffiti that reads: “for some real magic go to 39th and eleventh!!” This is an important clue which will come in handy later.
Once you’re on the bus it takes you downtown and drops you off. The game does a brilliant job of creating the illusion of a huge city. Rather than map out all of the streets which seem endless I included relevant street intersections on the map.
There is one “wrinkle” to the game that caused me to have to begin all over again TWICE! Once you train your Doberman in the basement he usually stays with you. Sometimes however if you’re interacting with the parser quite a bit and experimenting with the surrounding environment your Doberman will leave you. You want the Doberman to stay with you. When you are walking around downtown there is every chance that you’re likely to get mugged. If you have the Doberman with you the dog will scare the mugger off. If the Doberman wanders away from you then the mugger will steal from you and likely take something that will then “soft lock” the game for you.
There are four major areas of interest while walking downtown. I found Suzy exactly where she was supposed to be. You really don’t have to worry about interacting with her; once you find her she just tags along with you much like the Doberman. At 42nd and 10th I find a piece of scrap metal and when I wash the piece of scrap metal at a fire hydrant on 42nd and 11th I find that I have a SHINING MAGIC RING. There is an inscription in the ring that you can read as depicted above. This is where the graffiti hint from the alley comes in handy. If you head to 39th and 11th you’ll find a Magic Shop there.
If you then type in SAY ONE you and Suzy are suddenly teleported back to your bedroom and in your bed.
If you then try to kiss Suzy or try any number of sexually aggressive things you get the message: “M-M-M. THIS IS FUN. BUT YOU STILL HAVEN’T COMPLETED YOUR ADVENTURE”
Remember the advertisement for the game? It stated that knowledge of the Interludes program would be helpful. So I went back to the office in the house and sat in front of the TRS-80 located on the desk. I typed LOAD INTERLUDES and it answered LOADED. I then literally grabbed the TRS-80 and took it back to the bed with me.
Once in bed if you type in: TYPE RUN then you’ll find you have successfully completed the adventure. I am then assuming you and Suzy are following directions from the Interludes program and having a great time. The TRS-80 computer in the bed with us seems like an issue but this is just a computer game after all.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game. Everything about it was extremely unique from the locations to the puzzles and even the ultimate end goal. I’m used to treasure hunts or trying to vanquish a dragon or a vampire not trying to get a girl into bed with me.
The next game on my list is a text adventure entitled Explorer. Until next time….