Forgotten Island was published by Crystalware in 1981 and was programmed by Marc Benioff. We had just recently covered Quest For Power which was also written by Marc.
This game plays much like Quest For Power except that this time your character begins the game shipwrecked on a “forgotten” and mysterious island from which he must escape. When you take a quick inventory you’ll discover that you have 5 gold pieces and a power rating of 102. There are treasure chests scattered all about the small island so it is very easy to obtain gold.
You will need the gold to trade it for supplies in the Forgotten Village which you’ll stumble across. You will want to purchase a lamp and also a boat. You will need the lamp to light your way in the underground caverns and you will need the boat to cross an underground river late in the game.
One of the first things you’ll uncover in the game is Alcemon’s Diary which is found in a cave complex on the island. “Try the other side” is a big clue to help you near the very end of the game.
There really are no puzzles in the game beyond the lock and key variety. Items that you find allow you to continue further into the game. The game is more of a metrodvania than it is a role-playing game. If you become stuck and are unable to move forward you can backtrack and pick up what you need to continue. The game warns you about nearby enemies, like it did in Quest For Power, and you will find yourself in combat quite often. The enemies, like the game itself, are very easy. Each time a day passes you gain 2 power and the days pass rapidly on the island. Each time you win combat you also gain power. Combat is resolved by random numbers between 0 and 20 which flash across the bottom of the screen. When you press a button on your joystick the numbers stop. You can occasionally get “walloped” pretty good (Stuart Smith would be proud of me there) but most of the time your enemies take more damage.
Once you have the diary you are then able to enter the volcano on the island and the Cavern of the Satyrs.
Behold the mighty volcano!
The enemies now change to Satyrs but they seem to have the same statistics as the “Harrises” you encounter all over the island. In the Cavern of the Satyrs you can’t help but stumble upon the Tomb of Pan.
Here you will find Pan’s Flute which will allow you to enter the next area: The Forgotten Gardens of the Shirrah Shirrith. In the Forgotten Gardens your enemies are now Med Flies.
You will soon find the Forgotten Tombs of Safron and it is here that I may have encountered a “glitch” in my version of the game. I believe that I was supposed to find a cloak in this portion of the game however whoever used it last forgot to hang it back up because this area was empty to me.
The tombs will eventually lead you back out to the other side of the island and this is where the clue in the diary, “try the other side” now makes sense. When you choose to enter the exit to take you back to the island if you walk in the front of it you will find that it leads to a dead end. If you backtrack and then walk around the exit and enter it from the other side it takes you to a completely different location on the island.
The last area of the game is called Alcemnon’s Home. Inside this area you will find a flare gun. Once you come in contact with the flare gun you are shown a screen that says you fired the gun and Welcome Back to San Francisco.
I played Forgotten Island on an Atari emulator and the game took me about 45 minutes to complete. Many of these early quasi-RPGs were meant to be played in one sitting of one to two hours in length. The game was published in 1981 but in 1982 it would be taken over by Epyx which would rename the title: Escape From Vulcan’s Isle. The republished version has better packaging and production values but it is still the same game.
One of the other games I am playing right now is Greg Hassett’s Devil’s Palace which is a text adventure for the TRS-80. Like Hassett, Benioff wrote this game while in high school. To put things in perspective, when I look at Hassett’s work with interactive fiction and compare Benioff’s work on both Quest For Power and Forgotten Island, it is very impressive. I think most folks reviewing this like I am now in this day and age fail to recognize this was coded by a teenager in high school and was probably a very impressive game by 1981’s standards.
Despite the variance in quality, I do miss this era of games, when they were usually made by one person, or at least a small team, and really reflected the people making them. The explosion of indie games over the last decade has fortunately brought some of that back in contrast to bland blockbusters made by studios with hundreds of people.
I am going to agree with you on this 100% I try to remain cognizant too of the lens through which I choose to look at these games. If we’re going to compare these to those games made with today’s technology then they are all going to get a negative or poor review. I am really enjoying experiencing the gaming medium change and unfold through playing these games in chronological order. Some of them are actually quite good and it is astonishing what programmers were able to do with so very little to work with. I REALLY enjoy the mystery of discovering many of these games for the first time and trying to find those undiscovered gems. Once again; thanks for your comments.