Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

The author in 1984. Source.

Graeme Yeandle first encountered computers while visiting a university in 1972, although he decided against university and went straight to work for British Telecom. Starting in 1979 he switched departments to work with a mainframe computer and became a Systems Analyst.

In 1980 he saw an article in Practical Computing which would eventually change his life.

Specifically, an article by Ken Reed that’s come up on this blog before. Reed’s article gave a general system for writing adventure games (not even providing a complete adventure, just a partial sketch). This was enough to set imaginations working, leading to the Trevor Toms system, the Artic games, and the Abersoft version of Adventure eventually published by Melbourne House. The chain of causality led to both the start of French adventures and the start of Japanese adventures.

While Graeme Yeandle’s day job was with a mainframe, he bought into the Spectrum line to get into home computing, and had trouble finding good software.

It all began with me playing an adventure game. I can’t remember when (1981 or 1982) and I can’t remember whether it was on a Sinclair ZX81 or on a Sinclair Spectrum but I think it was produced by Artic Computing.

I was aware of an article by Ken Reed in the August 1980 issue of Practical Computing that described an adventure creating program. It appeared, to me, that the Artic adventure was based on Ken’s article. I thought, “I can write an adventure at least as good as this” and wrote to Artic offering my services. They didn’t reply.

While Yeandle was searching, he found an advertisement for Gilsoft. Gilsoft happened to be located in Barry, Wales, which was quite close to where Yeandle lived (Cardiff). He decided to come to their “office” in person to look at the programs before buying, although their office turned out to be Tim Gilberts’s personal home.

Barry (in red) just southwest of Cardiff.

I’ll write more about Tim Gilberts when I get to his first game, but in brief, he was a teenager well-supported by his parents who clearly saw him as talented in programming, and helped to finance the start of his company Gilsoft. He had a handful of games (two arcade-style, one 3D maze game, plus Poker Dice and Reversi) to start.

From Spectrum Computing.

When Yeandle came to visit, the conversation turned to adventure games, and with Reed’s article (and Artic’s rejection) in mind, he agreed to write one for Gilsoft. NOTE: Gilberts has an interview that differs slightly: “He [Yeandle] was impressed enough to buy a copy of 3D Maze Of Gold, and mentioned he’d written an adventure game called Time-Line.” According to Graeme the adventure wasn’t written yet. It could be that he had a concept of a game developed enough for Gilberts to remember, but just hadn’t started yet.

The Interpreter was written in Z80 assembler, based on Ken’s article, the database was also written in assembler and the result was called Timeline. This was all done on the cassette based Spectrum and it took quite a time just to make a small change to the database.

Time-Line became part of Gilsoft’s “Games Tape 3”, packaging Yeandle’s Time-Line with an arcade game called Tasks (by Gilberts).

Popular Computing Weekly, 3-9 March 1983.

This is still nine months before the release of The Quill (the Gilsoft toolkit — again using Reed’s article as a basis — that will spawn hundreds of text adventures).

Via Spectrum Computing. The cover gives the title as both Timeline and Time Line so I’m using the game’s title screen instead (“Time-Line”).

Tasks involves collecting treasures from a maze and avoiding thorn bushes, while a TASKMASTER sometimes gives a problem to solve. I’ve linked a video below with Gilberts himself playing:

In Time-Line, you have “become separated from your Time Machine”, not knowing if you’re lost in the future or past. Your task is to find the machine and return to the present.

The instructions are standard “VERB NOUN” information except for this last part about not talking to strange men and being sure to use the GREEN CROSS CODE.

There’s a spot of intrigue in the setup with “you don’t know whether you are in the future or the past.” This ends up being a parallel mystery of sorts; sure, you start in a place with sheep and a “sword in a stone”, but that could technically still be in the future.

There’s also quite early on a gas mask so we’re not talking medieval, but perhaps this is “1983” which is the past of the protagonist’s present (since real time machines weren’t around in 1983).

Aboveground you’re at a barn/farm house/stable setup, starting with a sword in a stone (see initial screenshot) and a sleeping bull.

Note the river described to the south. Try to JUMP and the game responds it is too wide. There’s also a ditch to the east of the starting room. I’ve marked them both on the map and I don’t know if they’re obstacles to later be passed or just meant for flavor. Based on where I’m stuck later I’m guessing the former.

Also just lying around are a ladder, a horseshoe, and a lamp. You might think the ladder would help with the ditch, but PUT LADDER merely sets it down and no other verb I’ve tried is helpful.

I am in an old farm house. A shopping list is pinned to the wall. Exits are North, East & Down.
I can also see:
A lamp.

What should I do now?
>LOOK LIST
It says only one match left in basement.

The “list” indicates an important norm that sometimes interactable items are in the room description, rather than everything being items you can pick up.

The match is needed because going down finds the room immediately dark, and you can’t light the lamp without the match. You just need to GET MATCH while in the dark and the player will find it (nevermind one might assume the room is large enough you need to feel around for a while to find it).

To the east is an air raid shelter with a gas mask; I’ve tried both putting it on and not putting it on and there doesn’t seem to be any of the alleged poison gas to worry about yet.

What there is a problem with quite quickly is hunger. A hunger daemon triggers for no particular reason, and the only food around is the toadstool from the basement.

This might be fine — the toadstool (“Ugh! It tasted horrible.”) indeed prevents hunger from killing you — but you also turn into a fungus eventually instead, and faster than starvation takes.

I don’t think I should have eaten that toadstool. I’m turning into a fungu…
You have taken 18 turns.
Would you like another go?

You can still eat the toadstool close to when you are about to starve which buys a little extra time; this suggests the gameplay might be tight enough on move count that you’re supposed to toss yourself from one dire situation into another and then try to fix the second one in time (perhaps tossing yourself in a third dire situation which needs yet another cure).

The starvation / fungusifying means everything past here is the result of “designated death-clone” exploration, especially the maze you’ll see in a moment where I kept reloading my game in order to finish the map.

Below the toadstool room is a “damp chamber” with a boot-lace…

…and a “small chamber” with a battery.

Notice also the high fence and the chasm, both obstacles which again foil any movement. (And again, you might think the ladder might be helpful, and maybe it is, but not with any verbs I’ve tried yet.)

Heading west instead leads to the maze.

It’s fortunately not the kind of maze where the sides turn (going north and then south returns you to the same place you started); instead it drops describing exits so you have to test all six (N/S/E/W/U/D) in every room.

I am in a network of passages!
I am hungry!

What should I do now?
>U
I can’t go in that direction.
I am hungry!

What next?
>D
I can’t go in that direction.
I am hungry!

What should I do now?

There are three points of interest. One is a “phone booth” which I think it meant as a Dr. Who reference but not the actual time machine (and seems to be mainly there to dispense some pliers).

I am in a phone box. The exit is North.
I can also see:
A pliers.

A beeline straight west leads to a giant spider. I did try KILL SPIDER, SWING SWORD, etc. with no result.

Right before the spider the room is described as having a “draft” which is supposed to be a hint you can go up and find a key (I tried going up and down in every room anyway).

From here I am stuck. To recap, I have a sword, horseshoe, ladder, lamp, match (used), gas mask, toadstool, boot-lace, battery, pair of pliers, and key. I’m facing a giant spider and sleeping bull (neither are aggressive, but I haven’t gotten anything useful either); active obstacles are a ditch, river, tall fence, and chasm. I may simply be using the wrong words with the ladder, or I may be missing something more fundamental.

If anyone wants to try the game, there’s the ZX Spectrum original but Graeme himself also made a port for DOS which I’ve found easier to play. (The ZX Spectrum version of the game drops keystrokes, so GET LADDER sometimes comes off as GET LDDER. It may simply be assuming you’re on a slow membrane keyboard.) I haven’t made my verb list yet so I’m not horribly stuck, but I’m stuck enough I’m happy to take suggestions even from people who peeked at the walkthrough (ROT13 if this is the case, though).