SharpSoft, the company out of London with products for the Sharp line of computers, advertised four games in the January 1983 issue of Personal Computing World.
Dark Star by A.J. Josey
Mexican Adventure by Geoff Clark
Haunted House by A.J. Josey and Geoff Clark
Secret Kingdom by Geoff Clark
As the links above imply, we’ve played two of them, and have two more to go. I’m still unclear if these were listed in the order they were written or not. Having played Dark Star a little, I can say the parser feels better than Haunted House but worse than Secret Kingdom. However, that’s not really proving anything, and it could even be the case (given we’re dealing with two different authors) they were developing games in an overlapping way.
Both A.J. Josey and Geoff Clark remain mysteriously resistant to my attempts to find them even as references in computer magazines. The closest I found was that there was a person named Geoff Clark who worked as a camera supervisor on some Classic Doctor Who episodes; it would be lovely to find out it was the same person (especially as I know one of the readers of this blog also worked as a camera supervisor for Doctor Who) but there’s absolutely no evidence for that and there’s enough Geoff Clarks out there I can’t call it anything more than coincidence.
I didn’t find much else on Sharpsoft either other than a profile of Michael Opacic who wrote them word processor, spreadsheet, and database software, and “sold full rights — no royalties” with “the attitude that a bird in the hand is worth several in the bush.” A different contract paid out 15% royalties so the company was clearly giving both options; I still have no names associated with the founder or founders.
I originally had this game farther down on my list, due to a technical issue commenter Rob discovered; while you are required to type numerical digits later in the game, the program (in the MZ-700 format we have) doesn’t let you. It is literally impossible to win without modifying the source code.
Rob asked a while ago for help in a Czech MZ Sharp forum, and Lanhawk noticed that advice had recently rolled in. Specifically, this line is wrong:
500 IF(T<65)-(T>90)THENUSR(62):GOTO440
It needs to be
500 IF(T<48)-(T>90)THENUSR(62):GOTO440
What’s happening here is that the game is restricting what the player types to certain ASCII codes. The ASCII code for “0” is 48, and the code for “A” is 65. The first line restricts input to letter characters (anything less than 65 in ASCII is left out), leaving out the needed digits. By changing the value to 48, “0” through “9” are now included.
While it certainly is possible for a unfinishable game to hit in the 80s for no particular reason at all, in this case the game was originally written for MZ-80A before getting moved to the MZ-700. While this more or less just adds color, I could easily see a change like the bug above also slipping in.
So you don’t have to noodle with all that, I put together a package of the game with an emulator and the fix already swapped in. Load save state 1 and hit ENTER to start from the very beginning, or load save state 2 to jump straight to the first room.
The game starts with music, which I’ve dropped a video of below.
Despite the Star Wars theme, the game feels (so far) like an amalgam of Star Trek and Alien. You’re in the Dark Star ship and you are the only one aboard (except for, as you’ll see later, an alien); the closest aspect to Star Wars is a “starfighter” that’s on board, but maybe that gets later to shoot down TIE Fighters so suddenly the theme will be appropriate again.
The most interesting part of the instructions is the notice that this game has no score as it is “mission” based and “you either make it or you don’t!!”
You start in the control room of the Dark Star. There’s no options other than to SIT DOWN. That alone took a bit of time to work out. The command SIT is bespoke and only works in this room in this context (that is, somewhere it is hard-coded to check for “SIT DOWN” as a phrase rather than the command SIT being considered a verb on its own). It (and some other commands) evaded my verb list:
The evasion can be pretty bad; just typing SIT alone gives the message I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU MEAN BY THE COMMAND ‘SIT’, which suggests this is entirely the wrong thing to be typing; SIT SEAT gets equal confusion, and the parser doesn’t even let you type SIT ON SEAT (it will stop you from putting in a space after a second word — the same kind of hard enforcement that led to the bug where numerals couldn’t be typed in).
Sitting down successfully results in a blank screen, a red button and a blue button. Pressing either button just states NOTHING HAPPENS! which is slightly frustating because something happens in both cases. With the blue button, it turns the screen on and reveals the player’s mission: the ship is about to blow up and the self-destruct needs to be de-activated.
You starts with a WATCH in case you need to check how long until death. The clock is ticking even before you’ve seen the message, so my first game through I had the amusing scene of flailing wildly trying to get into a seat, baffling over buttons that do nothing, reading the destruction message, and dying shortly after.
The red button invisibly opens an exit to the north, where you can find a map which gives the overall ship layout in glorious ASCII.
Before going on to explore the ship, I want to point out how incredibly odd the opening is in a meta-sense. Surely if we’re here, and we’re the only one, we’re meant to be here — that is, the avatar ought to already know the function of the red button and blue button, so saying that nothing happens is doubly curious? In 1982, the amnesia trick still hasn’t been rolled in much yet to cure player-vs-avatar-knowledge disjoint (Ferret and El Diablero have been the only two); most games from this era seem to just pretend it doesn’t matter. It’s hard to deal with, though; Kirk in a Star Trek adventure game surely should know his own ship’s layout, yet the player needs to map it out.
Following the same order as the ship’s map:
2 is the recreation room, which has a pinball machine and a table. The table has an ID card which will be needed later, and a chart which talks about a star system DILOS DC. I have not used this information yet.
The pinball machine is described as a Captain Fantastic which is a real pinball game from the 1970s (it was the follow-up to Wizard by Bally and sold immensely well; it helped for Bally’s finances that Elton John — whose likeness was used — took his payment in pinball machines).
Moving on to 3 is the research lab, which has a radiation detector, a polystyrene box, and an Orac (a fictional computer from the show Blake’s 7). Sure, let’s toss all the sci-fi shows in there.
Via Blake’s 7 Wiki.
4 is the flight deck with a starfighter. You can hop on but the starfighter lacks gas. So much for escaping self-destruct the ignoble way.
5 is the galley (that’s far southeast on the map) which has an old tea strainer.
Stepping into the larder reveals an air vent; you can go in the air vent to find a “blank wall” and going any further results in death-by-alien.
Moving up to 6 is the cargo hold, with multiple suits: a spacesuit, a “metal suit” (which turns out to be radiation protection) and a green suit (which I don’t understand yet). Hidden within the suits are a COMPASS and a NOTE, the latter explaining that the starfighter — the one we saw earlier that needs fuel — responds to spoken commands.
With the ID card back at the recreation room you can get into 7, which is a armoury. It has a phaser (which can only be set to kill) and a coin which goes back at the pinball table.
Playing pinball has the game respond YOU’RE WELL ON THE WAY TO A HI SCORE WHEN THE MACHINE TILTS!
Finally there’s 8, which can be reached by starting at the control room and going due north. If you just do that right away you die.
The metal suit back at the storage is sufficient for protection.
The control panel has three buttons (yellow, red, and green) with the note that they disarm the self-destruct in the right combination. Why don’t we know the combination? Maybe we’re raiders and there’s a missing manual insert. Just to emphasize why the “bespoke command” feature is dodgy, here’s my attempt at reading the inscription that goes with the colored buttons:
I picked the wrong noun on READ first and it told me the command READ wasn’t understood! This very much implies to stop using READ, and I only persisted because I already observed the response was deceptive.
Once I got past the rough starting command the game became fun to explore. I’m not even “stuck” yet, but I had enough enthusiasm from people who wanted to play along I figured this was a good place to stop.
Renga in Blue 
It’s probably not likely but I wonder if the John Carpenter sci-fi comedy Dark Star (1974) influenced it.
I was going to bring it up in my next post when I’ve played a little farther, in case there were any seeming references past the title
(the ship blowing up I don’t consider enough of a reference to be a reference, I’d want to have a conversation with a bomb for it to count)
given we’ve had Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, and Blake’s 7 references so far, I think there’s room for more
I was hoping for that as well, but no dice so far. That movie may have been a bit “cult” for a reference in a game like this, to be honest.
I’ve always secretly hoped for a Zardoz-inspired scene to pop up in a British adventure, though. It might go something like this:
GO SOUTH
“You emerge into a vast plain, dominated in its centre by a huge, glowering stone head of unknown origin.”
EXAMINE HEAD
“As you approach, your way is suddenly blocked by a man menacingly pointing a revolver at you.”
EXAMINE MAN
“He is bare-chested, extremely hirsute, and appears to be clad in some kind of bizarre red diaper…”
btw, I’m not sure what point you need the numerals, but I wasn’t able to PRESS 1, 2, 3, etc on the panel in the ship, I was only able to type out the words ONE, TWO, THREE etc
See below. Here’s the longer explanation: When I originally got to that area, I naturally assumed that, since the game says “the buttons are numbered 1-5” that you had to use the numerals. When it became obvious that you couldn’t, I tried typing them out but the game kept responding “nothing happened!”. Since not being able to enter numerals was clearly a bug, I immediately reported it. No one could seem to figure it out, so I put the game aside, as I was juggling several at the time. It wasn’t until just now that I got to the point of realizing there was an item-specific requirement here. So, I blame myself for not being more thorough, but the combination of a legitimate bug and the misleading game responses kind of created a perfect storm of confusion for me. Again, I apologize to anyone who spent time on this, and hang my head in shame…
I’ll give a game status update here momentarily, but first something shameful and absurd: It seems that the number-input fix wasn’t actually necessary after all. I mostly blame myself, but the game deserves a hard slap in the face as well. You’ll see what I mean after you get to that area, but in the meantime I sincerely apologize to everyone involved for wasting their time.
On to the game: I’ve mapped out what must be the large majority of it, and now it’s a matter of testing some stuff out. I’ll have a bit more time to play later, so I may have another update then.
d’oh, I think we discovered the same thing at the same time!
I’m completely embarrassed with myself, but this parser and some of the responses are really dodgy.
Nah, don’t worry about it. I got a chuckle out of it. I did learn how to get something into MZF format so it was still a learning experience for me.
Okay, I’ve explored and noted everything I seem to be able to at this point. Here are the unresolved questions I currently have:
1 Vf gurer nalguvat ryfr gb qb jvgu gur cvaonyy znpuvar?
2 Jurer qbrf gur enqvngvba qrgrpgbe trg hfrq?
3 Jurer qbrf gur pbzcnff trg hfrq?
4 Jung vf gur terra fhvg sbe?
5 Jung’f gur cbvag bs fubbgvat naq zrygvat gur fgnynpgvgr bapr lbh unir vg?
6 Pna gur cunfbe or fubg ng nalguvat ryfr?
7 Ubj qb lbh trg gur pelfgnyyvar ebpxf?
8 Jung qb lbh srrq gur svfu gb bapr lbh’ir pnhtug vg?
9 Jung vf gur fgbar hfrq sbe?
10 Ubj qb lbh trg tenivgl ba gur fuvc fb gur beo qbrfa’g rkcybqr?
11 Pna ohggbaf sbhe be svir rire or hfrq gb fraq lbh fbzrjurer?
12 “Hfr xrl” vf erpbtavmrq, ohg vg qbrfa’g frrz gb qb nalguvat gb gur ybpx. Jul?
Here are a few more, just to be comprehensive:
13 Pna nalguvat or qbar jvgu gur oynax jnyyf?
14 Vf gurer nal jnl cnfg gur nyvra, be vf vg whfg n qrngu genc?
15 Jurer pna lbh qvt, naq jvgu jung?
I won’t be able to play again for quite a few hours, so I’m sure you’ll progress far past me. I’m so chagrined and stultified by the whole bug/non-bug situation that I don’t think my brain is really functioning anyway…
This is neither your fault nor on-topic, but something about that array of questions (which I haven’t revealed yet) reminded me of this song and made me think that it could plausibly be the basis of an adventure, one which wouldn’t end well for the protagonist. The second verse would be a conversational interlude and “Why’d you turn away? Turn your head around so I can see” is practically an excerpt from Galatea.
I’ve got about as many questions as you do (I haven’t checked the list yet but I can bet what some of them are).
and don’t worry, these games are jank, this sort of thing happens all the time
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The link to the pack of the game and the emulator… does not work…
Anyway, I was going to peek into the code and see where the counter was stored at which variable… I guess it’ll be easier to explore if you don’t have a so harsh time limit.
I will look at the download link when I get home. I did manage to get past the self destruct (ye olde “help” is an essential command and not an external one)
the link is fixed if you’d still like to download it
Indeed (sorry if the following is boring, short story replace line 530 with “530 REM”.
I downloaded the package and executed the emulator (with wine, that is). The keyboard is mapped quite well, except that Backspace is Del, and Break is Backspace, so in order to break (for instance, a listing), you have to press shift+Backspace.
1. Using the CMT menu, I chose “play” and selected 1Z-013B.mzf, typed LOAD, and then selected CMT >> Play button. This loads S-BASIC.
2. I typed MERGE “”
3. Then I chose CMT >> play and chose DARK-STAR-700.mzf, then CMT >> Play button, which loads the Dark Star adventure BASIC program, but does not execute it.
Then the matter was to list some locations, while pressing the space bar in order to make the listing pause. For the life of me, I did not find the GO=1 instruction, but I found this:
210 nh$=”blah blah…”:EX=50
“EX” is the variable marking the explosion, while GO is the variable holding the number of user inputs. The existence of a variable called EX makes me wonder if the explosion can be delayed or something.
530 GO=GO+1:if GO=EX then 6920
At line 6920 starts the code for the explosion, so the obvious move would be to remove line 530 completely. This is not a good idea though, since a few goto 530 instructions exist. So I ended up with…
530 REM Do not count user inputs
Now it is a matter of typing “RUN” and enter. No counter, no explosion. Feel free to explore as you feel like.
could you look at what the syntax error is at 6020?
The only offending instruction in that line is:
color6,1
which should be:
color,,6,1
I’ll break my silence here just a bit, as Jason is already past that part and I’m sure the “WON!” post is coming any minute now.
The timer structure of this game is interesting, as the initial self-destruct gives you 50 turns, but if you don’t figure out how to abort it by 30, the next 20 are essentially “dead man walking”, as yhe game will tell you, Hokuto no Ken style, that it’s already too late to abort. That gives you a little bit of extra time to wander around and keep sussing things out before the ship explodes and you have to start over.
After you’ve successfully aborted the sequence within 30 turns, you’re then given a new 200 turn timer to work within, before the ship’s life support system fails. This is quite liberal (especially with save states), but there’s an intended complication with the size of the giant crater and a third timer, which is a repeated warning about the oxygen in your space suit getting stale, as well as other issues, which I’ll touch on after he’s finished the game.
A couple of other points on the code: As you might notice, there’s an initialisation screen each time you load up the game, but the only things that get randomized seem pretty pointless. There’s also a decent bit of space wasted on bespoke joke commands and responses, and one little unsolved mystery I noticed in the code (which I finally combed through after I’d won) that I’d like to ask you about after his final post on the game.
It seems this message got lost. The problem is that this instruction in the line 6020:
color 6,1
Must be changed to:
color ,,6,1