Greg Hassett has already graced this blog in Journey to the Center of the Earth Adventure and House of the Seven Gables. The former felt incomplete and had only one real puzzle, and the latter had a few more puzzles but was still a goofy pastiche. They held in common a highly tenuous relationship with a work of literature (essentially just ripping off the title).
King Tut’s Tomb instead riffs off a Steve Martin routine. (Click the image to watch the video.)
It is clear the author meant this because there is a Steve Martin poster in one of the very first rooms.
So, the gameplay, such as it is, involves plundering treasures from a tomb 19th century archaeologist style. There are nearly no obstacles; it’s grab, tote-to-entrance, and drop.
(Click for a larger map.)
There was a mummy…
+=+= HOLY BANDAIDS!
SUFFERIN’ SUCCOTASH!
AN ANCIENT MUMMY WALKED IN TO TERMINATE ME!
-> WHAT SHOULD I DO? BURN MUMMY
THE MUMMY BURNS TO THE GROUND.
…and a snake that can be tamed with food.
As far as I can tell from studying the source, a 100% score is impossible, but erratic scoring would not be unusual for a Greg Hassett game.
…
That’s a wrap! There is almost nothing I can think of to say here, unless I wanted to compare the reckless cultural plundering of this game to the majority of grab-the-treasure adventure games.
So, I made something extra which I’ll post about in a moment!
Jason do you have a working copy of King Tut’s Tomb? I’ve made my way though the first two Hassett adventures and wanted to give this one a go but I am having trouble tracking it down. I just finished Treasure Hunt from 1978. It ended up being more intricate than I had thought. The map was something else. I enjoyed that one much more than I thought I would. Keep up the great work here Jason!
A TRS-80 version is here:
https://willus.com/trs80/?-a+1+-p+6930+-f+1+q=tomb
or you can play the TRS-80 MC-10 port:
https://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=16dfu06zzfijcsdn
I believe when Nathan played it he got stuck by a bug, I’m not sure which version he was playing.
I have tried the first one there that you highlighted and got stuck by the same bug that Nathan had mentioned. I may try it again just to be sure. I have not yet tried the second one. I also read that he had to actually go in and edit the game and fix the problem to get his to work. When I jumped here and read that you had played it I was scratching my head and wondering what version you had played. I will try the second link as well. Thank you for your time and your rapid response. Good gaming!
I’ve been wondering that source is the “sold on tape” version or someone’s attempt to type in from source where they introduced an error. There’s printed source code from this book:
https://archive.org/details/Captain80BasicAdventures/page/n95/mode/2up