(Continued from my previous posts about Danny Browne, which were written four years ago so don’t feel bad if you need to refresh your memory.)
Just a reminder that for any UK-based author, “TRS-80” may actually mean a Video Genie instead. Computer & Video Games, March 1982 issue.
This is another circumstance like Marooned where I bailed on a game because it was broken, and a reader (Rob Browning in this case) came in later to repair it. The Lazurite Factor’s file had some kind of corruption and couldn’t be run on the original hardware (TRS-80). The game was one of three that Browne wrote over the summer of 1982 and all of them give off a “private game” feel; somehow the games tumbled into the various archives so we have them now.
The Lazurite Factor in particular apparently was stored in GW-BASIC format, even though that’s for DOS, not for TRS-80. (The easiest way to run the program is to get GWBASIC for DOS, copy the LAZURITE.BAS file in the same place, run DOSBox, and start the program with GWBASIC LAZURITE.BAS.)
Despite the Atari here in this Italian manual, this was for IBM-compatible computers. Source.
(Trivia: the Original GW-BASIC source code was released by Microsoft to Github. It includes COPYRIGHT 1975 BY BILL GATES AND PAUL ALLEN and ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ON THE PDP-10 FROM FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 9 1975; that is, the code for the paper tape for Altair that Microsoft started their company with carried over to GW-BASIC.)
The game is mostly a remix of Argorath Adventure: you start in a random spot in an underground area and try to escape, you find various discs and insert them in slots to open up the map, and you use a beverage to dissolve an obstacle.
On the map above, anything on the north side (not past the dotted-line connections) is a potential random start point.
This room has blue tiled walls. There is a table against a wal
There is a red disc inside a safe with a slot in it.
This room is one of the goal points; you find a different color disc to put into the slot in order to get the red disc.
A small library, the books have decayed badly. There is a sign but it’s unreadable.
There is a bottle of lemonade in the middle of the room.
You can just drink the lemonade if you want, but it softlocks the game.
A room like nothing ever experienced before. There is a hit of some dark prescence.
There is a glowing lever on the south wall.
Pulling the lever here kills you.
You were transported inside a small fishtank full of water. Naturally you drowned.
(Note I’ve fixed weird spacing and carriage returns; there’s a fair chance some of that got mangled in the TRS-80 porting process so it wasn’t fair to include them.)
While wandering the halls, you will occasionally meet a monster. You can FIGHT if you want; this will give you experience points if you win. There seems to be no purpose to experience points other than a more congratulatory final message at the end of the game. (This is exactly like Argonath Adventure, and seems to be the exact same source code ported over.)
An esgaroth is lumbering towards you.
It is small
It is of average strength
It has eaten 35 adventurers & now it wants to eat you.
>? FIGHT
It staggered off and died in a pool of blue ooze.
Having the fight go the wrong way (more likely if you pick on one that’s “powerful” rather than “average strength”) kills you. Death messages include
It ripped your arms out of their sockets and you die of blood loss.
and
It tore your head off and put it on a chain to wear as a good luck charm.
The right path is to first grab the lemonade and the blue disc, and head to the east side of the map to a chasm.
There’s a slot there, where you can INSERT BLUE DISC and it will cause a bridge to appear.
A small subterranean structure, this is the first part of a vast underground network. There is a screen with a slot below it.
There is a chasm preventing you from going south.
>? insert blue disc
A bridge swung across the chasm.
>? s
There is a pungent puttylike substance blocking your path.
The substance is very similar to a puzzle from Argonath, except rather than using Irn Bru to get by you use lemonade. The tricky part is that USE LEMONADE isn’t understood (despite this being comparable to the syntax with the blue disc); instead, you type the word “USE” alone, and then afterwards specify you want to use the lemonade. We’ve seen many perils with the bespoke parser but I think this is a new one. (Not even Argonath had this issue: it has the player type USE IRN BRU in full!)
>? use
Use what? lemonade
The puttylike substance vapourises.
Past that, there’s a button you’re not supposed to push…
There is a small poster which says, ‘THE LAZURITE FACTOR By Danny Browne jnr’ stuck on a black slimy wall. There is a red button on a wall.
>? push button
The roof caved in on your head.
…and instead you’re supposed to swerve west and pick up a white disc and a rom cartridge.
This room was totally white but, an evil darkness has escaped from an air vent in the ceiling and floods the room.
>?w
This cave is separated into two bits. In one there is an air vent behind which is a fan.
There is a white disc lying on the floor.
>?e
This physics lab has lots of different computer bits and pieces strewn around. But mostly in a large heap.
An inconspicous ROM CARTRIDGE lies on the floor.
>?
With those in hand, you can now walk to the far west of the map and the safe.
The safe opens with the white disc, letting you get a red disc. One room to the east you can find a door with a slot that needs the red disc.
You are facing a blue door. There is a screen with a slot to the left of it.
>? s
The door is in the way.
>? insert red disc
The door opened.
Head south, push a button, and you’ve won.
There is a large red button jutting out of the ground. On the ceiling is an grate above which is a camera like object.
>? push button
You are teleported.
You have escaped with the valuable rom cartridge! You are RICH!
By the way, will you lend me a few million?
In isolation, not terribly impressive, but just remember this has the context of the author just noodling around trying to learn how to make adventure games (here, by scavenging the code from his previous game). Despite the text-munging being cleared up the code was still broken, with one line in particular leaving a comment:
2110 PRINT ” You are teleported. “: GOTO 1202 : REM ***** THIS IS PROBABLY WRONG!!
Rob Browning fixed this so the game is winnable, but the comment means this is a snapshot of a private game rather than something published.
Coming up: an unpublished game recently rescued by an author from an old disc, then we’ll return to Japan.
Renga in Blue 
Leave a comment