So if you’re wondering about the unusual pairing in the title, this game has a twist. Make sure to stay to the end, and hit those like and subscribe buttons wait this is just a blog.
Computer and Video Games was one of the UK’s most important gaming magazines, being the first British magazine devoted solely to games, and lasting at least in electronic form until 2015 (they kept hanging on with YouTube for a bit, including here). We will be seeing more of them as they printed quite a lot of source code in their early days.
Our source code today, printed starting on page 31, is BY ALEC PEARSON and RUNS ON AN ACORN ATOM IN 12K.
If you don’t want to read all that, it shortens to “escape the haunted house”.
It is exceedingly simple, and the only reason it took me longer than 5 minutes to finish is a handful of annoyances:
1.) the game only takes two-word commands; that means N or NORTH don’t work, but you have to type the full GO NORTH
2.) there’s an item carrying limit of three
3.) DROP isn’t understood, only LEAVE
4.) room exits aren’t described so you have to test all the exits
You only face a handful of obstacles. One room is blocked by a FIERCE DOG.
I went back to get the BONE (see earlier screen) and tried to USE BONE but was told
THERE’S NOTHING HERE.DON’T WASTE IT!
You have to actually try to go in the prohibited direction and then apply USE. After placating the dog you can pick him up and then take him to a cellar to scare some rats.
The library has a BIBLE and the cellar above has a CANDLE. You can also just find a BELL lying around. Take all three in hand and then you can apply the word EXORCISE:
The first time I’ve ever used the verb, but fortunately it is listed in the information text in the magazine. I can’t imagine coming up with this otherwise.
The ghost is guarding a key which you can use to break out and go outside.
Honestly, this was short and inconsequential enough I might have considered skipping this with a short mention somewhere. This is also the only magazine contribution from Alec Pearson I could find.
But I did say there was a twist, and I’m not meaning the map appears to be cribbed from the board game Clue. The last line I excerpted from the magazine mentions:
The author reckons the strength of his program lies in its flexibility. Any room names, object names and room contents can be changed simply by altering the statements assigning the string contents. The vocabulary will alter accordingly. The interaction between the room contents can similarly be altered and does not depend on the names contained in the arrays. Thus the body of the program can handle any number of rooms, with any interconnection, without altercation.
The author places this as a “tutorial game”, essentially. Sometimes with these sort of games it is hard to tell if they had an impact at all, but here someone took the author up on the offer to change the room names and object names.
Welcome to Squirrel Tree! It’s exactly the same game, except:
1.) it starts with a map
2.) all the spooky stuff is now squirrel stuff
Squirrels use guns, right?
Beware the phantom nut!
Oh no, not the mad nibbler!
The NUT CRACKER is standing in for a BIBLE.
Is the MR FORD reference some joke in particular?
Maybe a bit harder to solve (I don’t think nut cracker/bell/candle are as well known as bible/bell/candle) but I am at least delighted that this thing exists, and I salute whatever anonymous author was responsible for the modification.
Renga in Blue 
Hmm… Maybe the Ford reference is from Hitchhiker’s Guide? I seem to recall that Ford Prefect uses peanuts to revitalize himself after space travel, or something along those lines. Not sure it really makes sense in this context, (“use nibbler”?), but the game is chock full ‘o nuts, and Hitchhiker’s would be about the most likely thing you’d expect a cheeky/geeky young coder to namedrop in early 80s Britain.
Sounds plausible to me!
For those wondering, I’ve been investigating a bit: the magazine seems to be issue #10:
https://archive.org/details/cvg-magazine-010
I was interested in the listing being a game engine in itself; however, I wasn’t inclined to take a look to the source code in that form. Did you find any repository with the game in downloadable form?
I think these should be in the Atom Software Archive, which you can find links to on the Stardot forum, like most Acorn/Beeb related things.
I did take a look at the listing in C&VG, but I wouldn’t say it’s any more a “system” than most other adventures in BASIC, which you’re generally free to muck around in if so inclined. Maybe the code is a little cleaner and simpler than usual, so I guess that could have been helpful? Again though, nothing too different from the zillions of other “Write your own Adventure in BASIC!” books and articles that proliferated at the time.
Funnily enough, the lost Apple II adventure “Doom Valley” that I mentioned in another recent thread was apparently cast by its youthful authors as just this sort of “tutorial” adventure that you should try to modify and expand upon, but at least one of the mags that covered it slagged it off as too crude and simple to bother with, if I remember correctly.
I do wonder if these “this is a tutorial game” or “this is a beginner game” type messages sometimes served as a sort of easy out. “This isn’t that complicated a game so we’re going to claim it is simple to make the code easy to modify”, that is.
When it is part of a column/book (like Fun House was, or Dungeon from the C64 tutorial book) then I can see it being true.
You might try The Youtube channel TheAirShark, they have tons of type-in games from magazines and books.
Thanks!!