Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

I have been sent on a difficult and rather dangerous mission to a distant planet called EARTH. My mission is to locate ten items of treasure and bring them back to my spaceship. I will, in addition, need to locate some rocket fuel for my return journey.

My random roll has landed me on the works of Steve W. Lucas, perhaps best thought of as Britain’s answer to Peter Kirsch. That is, a wildly prolific author who wrote reams of slightly janky BASIC code but with flashes of creativity just naturally from cranking out bucketloads of content. He has 41 hits on CASA but some of those are duplicates — when porting from one system to another he would often change his game’s title and only sometimes change his content. It’s unclear how many distinct games he wrote and it may even depend on your definition of “distinct”; there’s a long thread at CASA that tried to tame the chaos but there still seems to be some confusion. The other comparison with Kirsch of note is how he worked with a wide variety of computers: MSX, Oric, Amstrad, and BBC Micro.

With Journey of a Space Traveller, it first appeared in Oric Owner (Aug./Sept. 1983) but got changed to A Visitor From Space in a 1984 printing for Amstrad, with some expansion of the text. The intro at the top of this post is from the Amstrad version; the Oric version instead starts “I have been sent on the first flight from my planet to the planet Earth” which I think has less punch than “rather dangerous mission to a distant planet called EARTH.” However, I’ve been playing (up to where I’ve been stumped) the Oric version; as is tradition with multi-version games, I might poke at the Amstrad version to see if there’s any tweaks or textual hints to help (allegedly the walkthrough is the same, at least).

The Oric is a new system for this blog. I’m not going to do a system history right now, but I’ll say it is Tangerine’s much more successful follow-up to the Microtan 65 and was particularly well-received in France as it didn’t need an adaptor for their SECAM television format.

It is likely his first published game but I’m not 100% certain; it is his first to appear in Oric Owner, at least, but he also published some BBC Micro software through Silverlind; the first ad for that I’ve found in November, with a “call for games” back in May.

From the Oric magazine original.

The other distinctive thing about his games — specifically the Oric Owner ones but maybe some of the others as well — is how buggy they are. None of the ones printed in Oric Owner work directly as printed; Garry has a patched version that’s needed to get past even the first command. This is the sort of thing I’d normally blame on the magazine rather than the author but it’s odd for it to occur multiple times; the author has two games in the December/January issue with the same problem.

Games Computing, November 1984, with a slightly higher art budget. Well, higher art budget for printing, but given the art has nothing to do with the game I think it was “borrowed” from elsewhere.

The instructions helpfully give the verbs (this seems to be common across all the Steve Lucas games) so I’ll give them, just as they were printed:

GO IN, GO OUT, GO TAXI, OUT, N, S, E, W, WAIT, SING, SAVE, WEAR, SCORE, ROW, SAIL, THROW, LIGHT, GET, TAKE, GRAB, CLIMB, DOWN, READ, **** OFF, TIME, DIG, HELP, SEARCH, DROP, LEAVE, GIVE, OPEN, PHONE, QUIT, LOOK, KISS, PRAY, LOAD, CLOAD, PUSH, PULL, EAT, ATTACK, HIT, KILL, EXAMINE, SWIM, USE, INSERT, UNLOCK, WEAR, JUMP, INVENTORY, BUY, CRACK, COOK, SORRY, SAIL, ROW

(****, OFF not required, gets “how dare you speak to me like that? What do you have to say for yourself?” and you need to respond SORRY before proceeding on.)

It’s a traditional treasure hunt, but with the twists that a.) you are an alien and b.) you’re treasure-hunting on modern Earth. Adventure-behavior — especially without regular communication with characters — is typically a bit non-standard, so I like the idea of the mute protagonist poking and searching every room (digging random floors, hitting walls, trying to climb everything, etc.) being explained away by their alien status.

I don’t know where the spaceship is; part of the goal is to find it. This is a major pain in that the inventory limit is three (weak alien arms, I guess we’re used to lower-G) so I have no idea where to stash things so they’ll be close for their inevitable unloading into a cargo bay of some sort.

Right to the east of the starting point are some pebbles and a shovel…

The Amstrad version adds “The pebbles hurt my feet!” but I haven’t gone past this room.

…and the shovel can be used just to the west to dig up some SILVER bullion, our first treasure. Nine to go!

Heading to the east, there’s a quarry with a hammer, and nearby is some dynamite and a parachute. I have yet to blow anything up (I think it needs a lighter I’ll show off later) nor have I found the right place to apply the hammer and parachute (…presumably not at the same time). There’s additionally dead ends with a Sheer Rock Face and Bulldozer but I haven’t quite worked out yet if this is an “everything is important” style game or some parts are just scenery. I’m leaning to the latter.

A rope is at a bridge (again, haven’t used) leading to a “primary school”. The school has a secretary which you can kiss (the game says she likes it, indicating we’re an alien counterpart to Riker) and a head teacher who has a GOLD pen, another treasure. Examining the teacher reveals they like singing (alien senses, I suppose) and SING will utilize the Oric’s speaker to play a tune, after which you can get the pen. Eight more to go.

Leaving the school (swiping a book of poetry for later, we can’t read it because we need glasses) and proceeding westward we can find a locket hut at a boat. I’ll mention right now there’s a key laying out in the open later used on the hut which contains *ROCKET FUEL* (seven to go); the boat needs to be carted a short way to a lake where ROW BOAT can be applied. Note that the three-item limit applies neutrally, so a LARGE KEY is the same size as the boat in inventory.

The trip over water landing at the Footpath (see upper right of above map) is one-way; the only way so far I’ve found to return to the start area is PRAY, which warps you over for some reason. (Religious miracles: alien technology all along!) The PRAY is quite relevant insofar as just to the west you can get lost in a forest that’s an endless loop, and as far as I know PRAY is the only way to get out.

Proceeding in a direction that isn’t a trap passes through a warehouse with a box (nothing in it), and that leads to a carpark, and then a bunch of directions from there, like a bus station complete with queue…

Only in a Britgame.

…a computer store with software you can LOAD…

…a fish and chip shop…

…and a closed newsagent place with newspapers that can’t be read because you still need your glasses. (If this was logical you’d have left them on your spaceship by accident, but I can’t rule out some random passerby’s reading glasses working just as well.)

Nearby all this lurks a LARGE KEY at an intersection which goes back to that hut with the rocket fuel; as I already indicated, the only way I can find so far to head back there is to PRAY.

Moving on to the west, we can pass by a rubbish bin (seemingly containing nothing!) near a supermarket.

To the west of here is a lighter at the cashier. I can try to BUY LIGHTER but the game asks “with what?” Maybe use one of the treasures and get it back later somehow? I still need to experiment.

Lurking outside the supermarket is a dog; no idea what to do here yet…

…followed by a bunch of rooms leading to a farm complete with tractor and a farmer. The farmer wants a book, so if you hand the poetry book over he’ll give you a trolley, because this game is following gonzo logic.

To be fair, the “I’m an alien” does a lot of the work in making the narrative seem semi-normal for an out-of-control treasure hunt. However, I am up on my limit now at only three treasures.

I’m not going to list every obstacle because I don’t know which ones are “real” and which ones are for scenery. Does the forest have a different escape? What can you do at the bus station? Does making the dog happy lead to treasure? This might be the extent of the map and I’m just supposed to mop things up (akin to Invincible Island) or I may have only seen part of it. Given the parachute (and distinct lack of gaping chasms) surely there’s at least a bit more to go. Maybe the supermarket is secretly the alien spaceship.