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…