Renga in Blue   Interactive fiction and the All the Adventures project

Today I continue my playthrough of the complete works of Steve W. Lucas, which is harder than it sounds, because what are the complete works of Steve W. Lucas?

Last time, for instance, I played through Haunted House as published by Silverlind, except it turns out it was also published as a type-in a year later, newly dubbed as House on Misty Hill. The game that Haunted House was derived from (Frankenstein Adventure, by a completely different author) was used by Lucas again to make The Monster’s Final Hour (1985) and The Monster Returns (1986).

The next adventure from Silverlind (Journey to the Stars) is lost, but I’m not worried because Lucas almost certainly duplicated the same game under a new name.

You have been sent on a dangerous mission to find 10 treasures — but how are you going to get back? Beware of the Antiflavian MegaTiger and venomous lizard woman!

This is followed by the third and last of the Silverlind adventures, Passport of Death. It was originally going to be my next game, until I found out I had already played it! Despite it having an entirely separate entry on CASA, it’s just a clone of Journey of a Space Traveller as printed in Oric Owner. The same CASA entry mentions Red Alert from 1985 (printed as a type-in) being yet another clone.

Just to be clear, this means the same game was published under four names…

Journey of a Space Traveller (Oric)
Passport to Death (BBC Micro)
Visitor from Space (Amstrad)
Red Alert (Commodore 16)

…with the latter adding slightly more detail but still using the same walkthrough.

From the art that goes with Red Alert. Computer Gamer, June 1985. Source.

The wrinkle is that it isn’t clear-cut “bad” that Lucas did this; it was quite common for games to be published non-exclusively, which is how Galactic Empire (as I just wrote about) ended up with multiple companies. Adventureland was published through Scott Adams himself but also printed in the Captain 80 Book of Basic Adventures. The unusual aspect is Lucas renaming the game each time (and sometimes adding some descriptions or items) making it a headache for people trying to sort out the catalog after the fact. I suppose it’s possible someone bought Passport of Death from Silverlind (for BBC Micro) while also subscribing to Oric Owner (for a totally different system) and being annoyed at buying a duplicate for a game they had already typed in, but Silverlind sales were so small I doubt it.

Today’s game comes as a type-in from A & B Magazine, the title being from the fact that the BBC Micro had a model A and a model B.

Source.

The very first issue of the magazine mentions soliciting games in the editor’s note, with the following warning:

All contributions are, of course, paid for at very competitive rates. So, if you’ve got your eye on a new BBC add-on or you’d just like to supplement your pocket money, get writing! It is vital, though, that all the programs you send to us are totally original, and not ‘borrowed’ or ‘adapted’ from other magazines or books.

Remember this note for later.

Turning to the game itself, you start in a loading bay in a starship. Your goal is to find ten treasures.

There’s a slightly unusual twist to the starting conditions found via typing INVENTORY.

Note that everything above is “hard coded” as being inventory rather than regular items you can manipulate; neither PADLOCK nor LOCK are recognized nouns. The parser in general is quite fussy and I’d love to have the actual verb list which came with the article (I don’t have the text of the article in this case, though). For the most part all I’ve managed involves SHOW, INSERT and KILL, although I know PRAY is also recognized.

Praying may be good for the soul,
but it doesn’t seem to work here

Exploring the immediate environs, to the immediate south is a “cargo bay” with a sign which says this is where the treasures go, and to the west, north, and east are sections of the planet we’re on. I’m used to (with this sort of game) our player having a personal vehicle of some sort and a moment where you disembark, but the structure here is almost like the ship that we’re taking all the treasures to is also part of the world itself.

Almost certainly incomplete as I haven’t finished the game yet, and with various obstacles you don’t know what path opens until after the puzzle is solved (so there’s at least one dotted exit missing, if not more).

North is a “security desk” with a “magnetic security key” (that I will be using up later), a “control panel” (I have no idea what it does and it may do nothing) and mineshaft with a lever that looks like an arm. You can’t just pull the lever (the verb isn’t even recognized); I did manage to solve this by the end of my session (I’ll explain when I get there).

The security desk and office seem like they could still be part of the same starship as the cargo bay, but the mineshaft seems like we’re on a planet now?

To the east is a “battery” along a walkway, a “security pass” at a kiosk (which I will also be using shortly), and the Jolly Sailor. There’s “whisky and soda” at the Jolly Sailor but we are apparently judged inadequate to receive its wondrous alcoholic properties.

Surely this means we’re parked at some kind of spaceport, right? The game just isn’t clear where starship ends and spaceport begins.

Just to the south off of where the pass is there’s a Dalek blocking our way. You know, I’m starting to think Lucas was just throwing around his geography and obstacles at random.

Taking the pass and the key in hand, you can instead head west to the SPIGON HQ. The game is unclear what SPIGON is referring to. At least I know what a Dalek looks like.

Blocking the way is a guard, but you can just show the pass that was lying around just a bit to the east and you can get in. Good security procedures! I bet the passkey on the computers is “4”.

There’s another gate inside, but the magnetic key serves to open the way further.

Two branches, actually. To the south are some “tunnel” rooms with KRYPTONITE (described as too heavy to carry), a helmet with a light (weird since you have a lamp) and a door with a lock.

I haven’t been able to get in here. Incidentally, saying UNLOCK (just by itself, remember the word LOCK isn’t recognized as a noun) gets the response “I can’t remember the combination”; is the engraved message inside the door and we’re just remembering that the message is there? I otherwise have been unable to find any way to read the engraving.

Going back to where the gate was, to the east there’s a Centurian selling crystals…

…a vending machine that takes dollars next to a jeweled pickaxe (which is the first of the treasures)…

…a repair manual (to what, the game doesn’t say), a SportsHall manager that blocks our way (to what, the game doesn’t say) and a rock with the word BLACKPOOL on it. If you try to say BLACKPOOL the game says that’s too dangerous to do here; I think it’s reading that as typing the word BLAST. (It’s a two-letter parser, so it only is reading the BL.)

After quite a bit of noodling, I realized I could take the rock back to the “arm” lever and drop it to open the grate. The real issue was that the parser is dodgy enough I thought maybe I was just typing PULL LEVER wrong.

This unfortunately doesn’t help with progress; it’s just a single room mineshaft where you can loop forever back to the same room.

The message here doesn’t change even if you have the helmet with the light and/or the battery.

I did have one other solution, verging on the dreaded “moon logic”. (A less frequent visitor on this blog than you might think, although I’ve discussed it here.) That pickaxe which counts as a treasure also counts as a weapon and works to defeat a Dalek. I have no idea how you’d come across this without simply trying everything on everything at random (the phase I was at).

Past that you can find a purse with money (I should go back and try buying a crystal, come to think of it), a “rusty padlock” on a narrow path (an item you can take, not an obstacle), and a tiger in a clearing.

The tiger increased my suspicion of something that I’m sure a number of you have already spotted: this is probably the missing Journey to the Stars from Silverlind. In both games you’re looking for 10 treasures; in both games you’ve got a tiger as an obstacle. The Silverlind game mentions a lizard woman which this game doesn’t have (I skimmed the source code), but notice the Dalek is talking about poison which doesn’t make a lot of sense. What would make sense if it had been reskinned from a “venomous lizard woman”. I of course can’t be 100% confident but I’m hovering at around 98% that they’re the same game.

“Ironside” Dalek via eBay. Defeating a lizard woman with a pickaxe also makes more sense to me than defeating a Dalek with a pickaxe.

To summarize, I’m stuck on: getting by a SportsHall manager, a mineshaft that seemingly goes nowhere, and a tiger. There’s also various places I haven’t been able to get anything useful from (like the bar and the control panel) although they’re not actively blocking my path.

There’s two walkthroughs and the whole thing is in BASIC so I could always source-dive, so I don’t need general hints from anyone who knows spoilers, but I will still take suggestions from anyone in the audience who is “playing along”. Note the inventory limit is 3 so it’s a little slower testing “lawnmower style” than some other games.