Text adventure games from yesteryear. Help needed. C64.

[Kryton]

Ok this is not so much a list, more so a dribble of thoughts, request and suggestions whilst I cast my mind back to the Commodore 64 years. If anyone can help me identify the one's with missing titles, I'd be happy.



Black Knight. A quirky fantasy one that invoked a weird sense of loneliness (but I seem to remember it having weird jokes like 'Kiljoy was here' carved into a Boulder that blocks your way), I think it came in two parts with ZZAP magazine. I think I only ever played one of them. If anyone can find this (or any of these others mentioned online, please send links). I don't remember much else tbh. But it was basically the game that got me into text adventure games at a fairly young age.

Zork II - Considered a classic, so I won't write much as it's all easily googleable.

Quest for the Golden egg cup. An absolute favourite back in the day and probably one of the more popular fun ones.

The Famous Five. This was actually a really good game, but had a piss annoying beginning when fucking Georgina's arrival was semi-RNG and you could LOSE the game if you didn't visit the right location at the right (unspecified time). I think she was bringing lashings of ginger beer or something. But it was well written and involved nipping over to their smuggler's island to smoke crack and swig cans of special brew do something that I can't remember. I think a dog goes missing and you end up in WAITING in a cell. And some unsavoury types visit the island.

???? - A really atmospheric space one. I seem to remember you start in the cockpit of your own ship and need to dock with an abandoned ship via a combination of buttons and switches, and then you have to enter airlocks and explore the spooky vessel. It was full of frozen humans in cryostasis and the crew were all husked skeletons in decaying uniform. I don't remember much else besides getting stuck and not knowing how to kill the invisible entity that follows you one step behind after releasing it. If anybody knows what I'm talking about please reply.

???? - A game that involves you filling out a P46(?) form and visiting the job centre.

??? - Another game that started at the sea-side and nearby was a phone box and a shuttered store that would never open. I think it was a humorous game, and maybe had some images too. I always remember getting a really weird feeling (I was young at the time) of how it feels never to see that permanently shuttered store open. A very bleak feeling.

!!!! - The absolute best one I played was a sci-fi post apocalyptic one, that involved dogs following you through suburbia, someone with night vision goggles, a grenade trapped door and if you went the wrong way you'd get shot by artillery or a shell or something. I didn't get far but remember enjoying ever scene.

??? - This defo appeared on a cassette and I only played the very beginning once. I think it was a reader-contributed game and basically involved starting in a room with a floating Disc of some form. I only played it once 'cos the fucking tape didn't work after the first time (Much Like Turrican 2 did).

If you can help me find them I'd be a happy man.

[bomb_dog]

The sci-fi, post apocalyptic one... Rigel's Revenge?

And the floating disc one sounds like Dragon's Lair on the C64

[lazarou]

I mightn't be the most reliable source here as I'm mostly aware of text adventure history thanks to reading about them on the (genuinely excellent) Digital Antiquarian as opposed to personally playing them, but the Space one sounds like it could be either Starcross by Infocom or Snowball by Level 9.

[holyzombiejesus]

???? - A game that involves you filling out a P46(?) form and visiting the job centre.

Hampstead?

I remember there was a Spiderman game (I think) where the only way you could escape a certain location was to "hyperventilate". Wankers.

(Talking of foul language, that was always one of the first things we did. Type in fuck and shit and see if there was a response. One game on the Spectrum pretended to 'new' and if you repeated a swear word, it would properly 'new'.)

Anyone play Eureka? I'll never forget the moment I completed that and thought I'd won the money. I ran up the road to the phone box and rang the hotline only to be told that people had completed the game ages ago, that a man had been selling the solutions via the small ads and that much of the games had little to do with actually solving the puzzle and winning the cash. I was going to buy a C5 with that money too. I'd even imagined driving down to London from Newcastle-Under-Lyme in it and buying load of D&D books. Fucks sake.

[Phil_A]

Ok this is not so much a list, more so a dribble of thoughts, request and suggestions whilst I cast my mind back to the Commodore 64 years. If anyone can help me identify the one's with missing titles, I'd be happy.



Black Knight. A quirky fantasy one that invoked a weird sense of loneliness (but I seem to remember it having weird jokes like 'Kiljoy was here' carved into a Boulder that blocks your way), I think it came in two parts with ZZAP magazine. I think I only ever played one of them. If anyone can find this (or any of these others mentioned online, please send links). I don't remember much else tbh. But it was basically the game that got me into text adventure games at a fairly young age.

Zork II - Considered a classic, so I won't write much as it's all easily googleable.

Quest for the Golden egg cup. An absolute favourite back in the day and probably one of the more popular fun ones.

The Famous Five. This was actually a really good game, but had a piss annoying beginning when fucking Georgina's arrival was semi-RNG and you could LOSE the game if you didn't visit the right location at the right (unspecified time). I think she was bringing lashings of ginger beer or something. But it was well written and involved nipping over to their smuggler's island to smoke crack and swig cans of special brew do something that I can't remember. I think a dog goes missing and you end up in WAITING in a cell. And some unsavoury types visit the island.

???? - A really atmospheric space one. I seem to remember you start in the cockpit of your own ship and need to dock with an abandoned ship via a combination of buttons and switches, and then you have to enter airlocks and explore the spooky vessel. It was full of frozen humans in cryostasis and the crew were all husked skeletons in decaying uniform. I don't remember much else besides getting stuck and not knowing how to kill the invisible entity that follows you one step behind after releasing it. If anybody knows what I'm talking about please reply.

The "trapped on a spaceship" scenario sounds a bit reminiscent of Planetfall, but I think that was more of a typical Infocom semi-comedic adventure rather than an atmopheric horror, so I dunno.

???? - A game that involves you filling out a P46(?) form and visiting the job centre.

Bureaucracy?

??? - Another game that started at the sea-side and nearby was a phone box and a shuttered store that would never open. I think it was a humorous game, and maybe had some images too. I always remember getting a really weird feeling (I was young at the time) of how it feels never to see that permanently shuttered store open.

!!!! - The absolute best one I played was a sci-fi post apocalyptic one, that involved dogs following you through suburbia, someone with night vision goggles, a grenade trapped door and if you went the wrong way you'd get shot by artillery or a shell or something. I didn't get far but remember enjoying ever scene.

Mindfighter?

??? - This defo appeared on a cassette and I only played the very beginning once. I think it was a reader-contributed game and basically involved starting in a room with a floating Disc of some form. I only played it once 'cos the fucking tape didn't work after the first time (Much Like Turrican 2 did).

If you can help me find them I'd be a happy man.

[Kryton]

Hampstead?

Yes!

The sci-fi, post apocalyptic one... Rigel's Revenge?

Yes!

And the floating disc one sounds like Dragon's Lair on the C64

No, sorry, this was something much more obscure (and I don't mean to sound hipster). More sci-fi than fantasy. I  do remember Dragon's lair though!

I mightn't be the most reliable source here as I'm mostly aware of text adventure history thanks to reading about them on the (genuinely excellent) Digital Antiquarian as opposed to personally playing them, but the Space one sounds like it could be either Starcross by Infocom or Snowball by Level 9.

Not Starcross (but very similar style from what I recall) and not Snowball either. Thanks for the link!!! Just clicked to the  mainpage and it's all about Ultima VII, great stuff.

[Mister Six]

Did the post-apocalyptic one involve freeing a bloke who was trapped in a burning car and later climbing over a massive pile of bodies? Kind of a Stand-inspired thing?

[Kryton]

Did the post-apocalyptic one involve freeing a bloke who was trapped in a burning car and later climbing over a massive pile of bodies? Kind of a Stand-inspired thing?

I don't remember getting very far, but bomb_dog revealed it to be Rigel's revenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCZz2rtDIKE

[kalowski]

Elrond cracks your skull open...

...or was it Thorin?

[touchingcloth]

Ok this is not so much a list, more so a dribble of thoughts, request and suggestions whilst I cast my mind back to the Commodore 64 years. If anyone can help me identify the one's with missing titles, I'd be happy.



Black Knight. A quirky fantasy one that invoked a weird sense of loneliness (but I seem to remember it having weird jokes like 'Kiljoy was here' carved into a Boulder that blocks your way), I think it came in two parts with ZZAP magazine. I think I only ever played one of them. If anyone can find this (or any of these others mentioned online, please send links). I don't remember much else tbh. But it was basically the game that got me into text adventure games at a fairly young age.

Zork II - Considered a classic, so I won't write much as it's all easily googleable.

Quest for the Golden egg cup. An absolute favourite back in the day and probably one of the more popular fun ones.

The Famous Five. This was actually a really good game, but had a piss annoying beginning when fucking Georgina's arrival was semi-RNG and you could LOSE the game if you didn't visit the right location at the right (unspecified time). I think she was bringing lashings of ginger beer or something. But it was well written and involved nipping over to their smuggler's island to smoke crack and swig cans of special brew do something that I can't remember. I think a dog goes missing and you end up in WAITING in a cell. And some unsavoury types visit the island.

???? - A really atmospheric space one. I seem to remember you start in the cockpit of your own ship and need to dock with an abandoned ship via a combination of buttons and switches, and then you have to enter airlocks and explore the spooky vessel. It was full of frozen humans in cryostasis and the crew were all husked skeletons in decaying uniform. I don't remember much else besides getting stuck and not knowing how to kill the invisible entity that follows you one step behind after releasing it. If anybody knows what I'm talking about please reply.

???? - A game that involves you filling out a P46(?) form and visiting the job centre.

??? - Another game that started at the sea-side and nearby was a phone box and a shuttered store that would never open. I think it was a humorous game, and maybe had some images too. I always remember getting a really weird feeling (I was young at the time) of how it feels never to see that permanently shuttered store open. A very bleak feeling.

!!!! - The absolute best one I played was a sci-fi post apocalyptic one, that involved dogs following you through suburbia, someone with night vision goggles, a grenade trapped door and if you went the wrong way you'd get shot by artillery or a shell or something. I didn't get far but remember enjoying ever scene.

??? - This defo appeared on a cassette and I only played the very beginning once. I think it was a reader-contributed game and basically involved starting in a room with a floating Disc of some form. I only played it once 'cos the fucking tape didn't work after the first time (Much Like Turrican 2 did).

If you can help me find them I'd be a happy man.

Bandersnatch?

[BlodwynPig]

You start off at a the bar in a hotel and if you exit you are in some fields. That is as far as I got.

[BlodwynPig]

The P46 one?

http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/drg_vvfgxu6shbewqun-yg/job-quest

[MiddleRabbit]

Elrond cracks your skull open...

...or was it Thorin?

Thorin was always sitting down and singing about gold.

Cut secloses.

Funny what sticks in your brain, isn't it?

[JesusAndYourBush]

I have a lot more of these, I'll scan 'em when I find 'em.

I worked out a failsafe way to trigger a Hobbitbug™, so used to switch on the ZX Printer and capture them, hence the gibberish in that printout.  I don't think water ever evaporated in the actual game but the bugs triggered unused stuff.

[lazarou]

I'm fascinated by the Hobbit, it's such a madly ambitious piece of design for the time. For anyone interested in everything that's going on under the hood, someone developed a custom emulator specifically designed for running the game, with a built-in interface that displays the states and locations of everything in the game while you play. You can find it here: http://members.aon.at/~ehesch1/wl/wl.htm

Also going to give the Digital Antiquarian another plug for what must be the definitive account of the game's development, well worth a look if you have any interest in game design: https://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the-hobbit/

[Kryton]

I'm fascinated by the Hobbit, it's such a madly ambitious piece of design for the time. For anyone interested in everything that's going on under the hood, someone developed a custom emulator specifically designed for running the game, with a built-in interface that displays the states and locations of everything in the game while you play. You can find it here: http://members.aon.at/~ehesch1/wl/wl.htm

Also going to give the Digital Antiquarian another plug for what must be the definitive account of the game's development, well worth a look if you have any interest in game design: https://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the-hobbit/

Brilliant. Hats off to you!