Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

PRISM is an ISM Storydisk which tells the wonderous tale of the theft of the three ancient Keys of Color, and the adventures of the young boy who must seek them in the monstrous kingdom of Yolsva, Plane of Darkness. All is chaos, and the story contains many levels of hidden meaning through which the Keys may be found and reunited with the prism. When this occurs, and only then, can the mysterious and magical ending of PRISM unfold.

— From the instructions for PRISM

Six years ago this blog tackled the game Alkemstone (1981), a contest leading to a buried treasure with clues in an Apple II game (the Alkemstone itself did not have value, but you could win money from the company for finding it). A year after Alkemstone there was another Apple II program, but this time hiding real buried treasure. As far as anyone knows this treasure is still buried.

Personal Computer World, May 1982.

In 1980, Stephen Brightbill founded International Software Marketing, Inc. in Syracuse, New York. They launched with the product MatheMagic in 1981, software that “harnesses the power of your Microcomputer to perform simple arithmetic to sophisticated mathematics.” It had versions for DOS, CP/M and Apple II and sold for $89.99.

Where this put them on their main product line was a 1982 extension, Graph Magic, which allowed for “figures in graphic form and full color”. From there they followed with Color Magic and essentially pivoted to graphic presentation software for the duration of their lifetime (folding in 1992, according to Brightbill, due to “competition” and the “rise of Windows”; they were DOS-only by this time).

The “International” part of the name is significant as while it might have been a little aspirational, they did list a UK office branch in their ads. This connection means they likely had strong familiarity with the book Masquerade which was still being a smash hit at the time.

I bet you can do something with books that no one has ever done before.

— Tom Maschler of the publisher Jonathan Cape, directed at the artist Kit Williams, author and illustrator of Masquerade

I’m not giving a history of Masquerade but rather deferring to Jimmy Maher; the important points are that it was a real-life treasure hunt for a buried hare designed by a real jeweler, and the hints to find it were inside the pages of a lavishly illustrated “children’s” book.

We’ve already encountered several “contest games” on this blog, including the previously mentioned Alkemstone, but also Krakit and Pimania. While it is almost certain they happened because of Masquerade-mania, none of them tried to match the form factor. Alkemstone had clues hidden in a first-person maze, Krakit just had a series of puzzles on ZX81 (and no buried treasure!), and Pimania was an adventure game where the clues suggested a particular time and place to go (but again, nothing buried).

That’s not the case for PRISM. PRISM has not just one buried treasure, but three: keys designed by the Syracuse Jewelry Manufacturing Co.

Blue: 18K gold key with 3/4 carat Blue/White Diamond

Red: 14K gold key with 3/4 carat Ruby

Yellow: 10K gold key with 3/4 carat Topaz

The value given by a 1983 review is $15,000 (I believe that’s all three keys together).

The people involved (besides presumably the CEO) are all listed. Mark Capella and Ronald Roberts are “co-designers”, Mike Sullivan did art, and Carol Keller did editing. We’ve seen Mark Capella here before; Mike Sullivan of Microstar Graphics later did the disk magazine PC Life. Relevant for today, here’s Sullivan’s “Musical Christmas Disk” called ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas disk from 1987 (if it embeds correctly, it is interactive and you can try it right in the browser):

If you’re wondering how a business-software company got involved with making a game, in some sense, it isn’t a game at all. The software is merely a “Storydisk” for Apple II which is a “slideshow” much like the ones people could make with their own software. It presents a book that bears strong similarity to Masquerade and hence PRISM represents the closest thing Masquerade had to an actual clone.

Now, a huge disclaimer: just like Alkemstone, it is quite possible the contest landed somewhere too ambiguous to solve (explaining why they never announced a winner, even though the company lasted for ten more years). On the other hand, we discovered things out of Alkemstone nobody had seen before, and there’s three locations rather than just one, so it is still faintly possible something of real money value may come from this exploration. I cannot prevent anyone searching on the basis of information here. I will state myself outright if I find anything myself personally I will be donating it to a gaming museum like The Strong. I cannot speak for anyone else. You can assume anything posted here is public.

The pages that do have art have some animations, so while I’m going to be showing pages from the “book”, there’s going to be a little more going on than with Masquerade; it’s even possible there’s “hidden keypresses” or the like which are part of the game. At least in general the only options are “left arrow” and “right arrow” to move between pages.

Not including the start and end, there’s forty pages total. I’m going to just give the first seven for now, but I’ll give out later sections in larger chunks. I expect to make at least six posts and possibly a few more; feel free to chime in with theories in the comments about what’s going on.

For the text-only pages I’m going to give text rather than screenshots, although I did want to show the first page off as an example.

Hubert stretched luxuriously in his comfortable bed, rubbed his eyes and met the brilliant colors of the morning with a smile. His first thought, as always, was of his favorite little puppy, Uanna. A whistle, a clap of his hands, and she was there on the coverlet, her playful green eyes urging him to get up and about for their morning frolic. Like any hearty lad, Hubert dressed without losing a moment… looking forward to the fun and sport he knew lay ahead. Calling the pup to his heel, he strode happily through the door.

It was a glorious day in spring, and the sun shone down on the myriad and beautiful colors of the world. The brightly clad people of Hubert’s town seemed to bloom with the splendor of the flowers around them. In the golden sunlight, the gentlefolk exchanged pleasantries and basked in the splendor of Nature.

I find the transcription much easier to read!

The rays do some color cycling.

The first graphical page; notice the words along the border as well as colored letters. These are both clones of Masquerade, although there is no implication they get used in the exact same way (the solution hadn’t been released yet of the original book!) Hence we have the curious situation of someone copying what a puzzle looks like but quite possibly doing something very different with it.

Hubert, a small but sturdy lad, smiled as he watched the congenial fellowship of his townspeople. Around them, the festively colored birds chatted as they built their nests, and the animals lazily stretched their muscles after a satisfying winter’s nap. With Uanna following close behind, the boy whistled as he strode down the road, with not a care in his mind.

And it was then that. . . A sudden hush descended upon the street. Hubert cast an anxious glance about, then started in disbelief. Around him, HIS WORLD WAS CHANGING !!!

Two more text pages (page 5 and page 6), and then I’ll give the image after, and that’ll be enough for today.

Where the warn golden sun had beamed, only a white blaze appeared. The gaily clad people looked down at themselves in disbelief as the colors slowly drained from their brilliant clothes. Before their eyes, their splendid world was turning black and white and every shade of grey in between!

Young Hubert felt a chill run through him as he witnessed this stupendous horror. ‘How can this be?’ he wondered. Even the animals seemed to sense the transformation as they scampered back into their burrows. The townsfolk silently dispersed, shaking their heads in wonderment.

Suddenly, Hubert found himself alone on the stark, black pavement, his puppy pressed up against his leg in her anxiety. The once, and so recently colorful world was rapidly beginning to resemble the pallid grey images on one of his grandmother’s old photographs. As he turned the corner in the direction of his home, he found himself confronting the gigantic figure of a strangely garbed individual. The apparition wordlessly reached for Hubert and as he lifted, they both seemed to fade into nothingness.

The above images animates with the two figures disappearing:

I’m stopping here (page 7) to give people time to comment and will continue on page 8 next time.