1.) figuring out, of the items I already found, which were part of the Key of Time
2.) finding the item on Peladon
3.) resolving the spider on Mutos
4.) finding the item on Mutos
For the first part, I brute forced things by making a beeline to a single object, picking it up, and quitting the game. That gave me a score.
As the above screenshot implies, the “Dr. Who specific” items (the jelly bears, the scarf, the sonic screwdriver) do not give any points and so are not part of the Key. The bananas from the slime world, the ray-gun from Skaro, the white crystal (not blue crystal) from the fog planet, and the large rock from the Moon all gave varying numbers of points.
This doesn’t mean all the other items are useless. If nothing else, you can give the jelly bears to the Time Lord at the very end who will eat it, just for a little role-playing. Some of the uses turn out to be very abstruse.
For example, I found out (rather too late to help) that typing READ RENTICULATOR will give a number, and that number matches the currently held number of key objects.
The main issue here is that the only information given is the item name; there’s no clue or concept of what the item looks like and it would even make some kind of sense to read the thing.
Moving on to the item on Peladon: I was very, very, close to resolving this one, even though it is a spectacularly unfair. I got lucky (?). Remember I had said sometimes the Peladonians are friendly, and sometimes they are not? They are friendly only right here:
By having this happen, in this location you can now go EAST (the only way to spot this is to LOOK or to return to the room).
I just happened to be lucky enough to hit the right moment to TALK but failed to capitalize on my luck, argh. Anyway: one sionated cumquat. Moving on to Mutos, where I need a walkthrough for both these parts…
…actually, let me back up a bit first and talk about beating the game as a whole. It turns out nearly every location can be handled without taking items from other places; that is, PELADON, SKARO, DIETHYLAMIDE, HIDAOUS, and DARK SIDE OF THE MOON can be visited in any order. You might think hitting Skaro (with the ray gun) is better to go to first, because of the ray gun, which blasts nearly anything into powder. However, you can just evade any creatures that appear without fighting, talking, or doing anything (except the Peladonians, as just mentioned).
If you get 40 TARDIS resets — as the Jim Gerrie version of this game gives you — it means you usually can beat the game in time. I ran a Monte Carlo simulation which failed essentially only once every 100 times. (That means you kept trying to reset making it to GALAFRY at the end and landed on SKARO repeatedly, or something like that.) If you go to the minimum the game’s source gave, 21 visits, you have more like a 25% chance of failure for no fault of your own. And that’s not accounting for the fact this probability is for someone who already has the game solved!
Ok, back to the main narrative. Finishing MUTOS is dependent on items from PELADON and DIETHYLAMIDE. The ray gun does not work on the blue spider; if you recall from last time, that’s where I was getting softlocked on Mutos. It turns out — more or less arbitrarily — that you need a blue crystal, and you need to GIVE SPIDER. I tried, on a different run, giving the crystal, and it didn’t work because I was using the wrong parser syntax.
There is no special item hidden here, and the blue spider is not blocking anything. It turns out the game needed another leap, and in another context I’d call this a clever puzzle, but here it was just infuriating.
Specifically, the “dig here” location lets you use the PICK from back on Peladon, and it digs a different route into the sewers than using the grate. However, there is another identical-looking room which is not marked as such, but digging also works here. Assuming you’ve already defeated the blue spider, you’ll find it here.
The dead blue spider is the last part of the Key.
The game presented what is generally pure exploration (with the weird meta-puzzle of finding key objects) but somehow felt the need to toss in two painful object-related puzzles at the end. Perhaps it is for the best.
As I’ve observed before, fan fiction can hit above its weight class in this era, given the space limitations on text; you don’t actually have to spend the time describing what a Dalek looks like. Unfortunately, I really had trouble feeling like I was ever “in the world” due to all the problems I’ve outlined so this will not satisfy a player who is mainly wanting to pretend they’re hopping around the Dr. Who universe. This is even more a pity in that Dr. Who seems wildly appropriate for adventure games (odd, convoluted solutions to things that don’t really involve violence); fortunately, there will be plenty of more such games to come in the future, including a licensed one in 1984.
But for now, we’re going to return back to the United States, for one piece of unfinished business, followed by a well-regarded Apple II game: The Mask of the Sun.
An Unearthly Child, the first serial of Dr. Who, aired in 1963; in 1967, the Doctor made his first appearance in comic book form, via TV Comic issue 800.
Dr. Who is on a planet with his grandchildren (John and Gillian) and is facing off against spiders. The comic authors were somewhat unclear about the general mood of Dr. Who (which involves outwitting more than shooting alien species) but here he goes full blaster.
From the blog Die, Hideous Creature, Die! which includes details about the Doctor cheerfully destroying a species.
In Dr. Who Adventure I got to use a Dalek ray gun on a spider and it crashed the game, which somehow seems appropriate. But let’s rewind:
I had left off on planet Peladon. One thing I hadn’t experimented with was the verb SEARCH, which works in any random room for hiding hidden things. I ended up hitting zero going through the entire planet, even when trying SEARCH multiple times, except for back in the Maze:
I originally visualized this as a lockpick or a guitar pick; this is the kind of pick for digging.
The discovery of the item also let me test out just what the map was like, where I discovered that every direction (north, south, east, west, up, down) looped back to where the pick was. This indicates that escape from the maze is more or less random, so I shouldn’t sweat mapping it.
I also discovered, on a later playthrough, that you don’t always find the pick when searching — and it isn’t a matter of searching multiple times, but rather, you have to “loop again” and that resets the chance of the search working. I don’t know if this is true generally for the map, but if so, then trying SEARCH multiple times won’t help at all; you would need to re-enter each room multiple times, and try SEARCH each time, hoping for the random chance of the designated object showing up. I’m not up to that level of suffering yet though.
The “peladonians” are the “wandering random enemy” of the planet, but they’re only sometimes an enemy. Here are two separate attempts to TALK with them.
Success or failure seems to be random. HIDE on the always hand always works (when it is a creature you can hide from at all, there’s a nasty spot later where you can’t). You can also simply just move to an adjacent room, it isn’t like the aliens have any physical reality to them; it’s just a dice roll if you see one in a particular room, and if you step out and come back in they’ll be gone unless the dice roll makes them show up again. We’ve seen this kind of behavior most recently in Africa Diamond; somehow it was more irritating in that game, I think because it kept switching through what creature might show up, whereas here — being always the same encounter on the same planet — it has a vague tinge of realism.
Leaving the planet behind I hopped around a little. Note that not all of them have real episode equivalents, or at least, the author was mis-spelling from some half-remembered episode.
GALAFRY (the actual planet of the Time Lords, but spelled wrong) PELADON (as already seen) SKARO (the planet of the Daleks) DIETHYLAMIDE (probably invented for the game) HIDAOUS (probably invented for the game) DARK SIDE OF THE MOON (a Cybermen base from the episode The Invasion) MUTOS (not a planet; the derogatory term for an alien race on Skaro)
I did a lot of hopping around, for our purposes let’s visit the remaining planets as listed in order.
SKARO
Because it isn’t Dr. Who without Daleks. (Upon the Who “reboot” starting in 2005 it seemed like Daleks might have finally been done away with, but alas.)
I admit, I was initially tentative about exploring here, but Skaro turns out to be safer than some other places, as there aren’t instant-death spots like passing TARDISes and the geography, while jumbled up, isn’t mind-rending.
Stepping out of the TARDIS I found some jelly babies. They’re one of The Doctor’s favorite snacks, and one of the common elements I’ve found across a few planets (that is, some sort of “personal object” of The Doctor is lying around). They’d be my first candidate for the “key of time” items just because of the theming but if so, I haven’t found one on any planet yet.
The atmosphere is nice; it turns out you can ignore red screaming sirens, though.
The most important thing I found (via SEARCH in a random room) is a dalek ray-gun.
You might think I would immediately go back and try to use it on the actual daleks, but I was still slightly nervous at this moment and didn’t want to force a confrontation. You’ll get to see the gun in action later though.
DIETHYLAMIDE
There is no planet Diethylamide, a place of fog and mountains. That’s ok, not everything needs to be a reference.
I’m missing some exits in the northwest that almost certainly just go to death. The reason why is that it turns out to be horrible to test death-exits in this game.
There’s no save feature, and if you die, you simply go back to Time Lord Central and have to hop into the Tardis and type RESET a lot to get back to the planet you want. It isn’t even the time spent that was grating as much as the act of intentionally hurling bodies just to check every direction (N/S/E/W) to make sure they’re all accounted for.
There’s a troglodyte wandering around, and it likely is responsible for the occasion where you get knocked unconscious and sent somewhere random with your items missing. Lying around the planet (or requiring a SEARCH in one case) I found a DESIONATING RENTICULATOR, a BLUE CRYSTAL, and a WHITE CRYSTAL.
No idea what any of this does.
HIDAOUS
A slime world, again made-up for the game. There’s not much I can find (although I haven’t bothered mapping thoroughly yet), just a landing point, a set of “LOST IN THE SLIME” rooms (with a SKULL hidden therein) and a tree with some bananas. I expect I’m missing something, or maybe the author just ran out of disk capacity.
DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
Where Cybermen are hiding, based off a real series.
I know the Cybermen are supposed to be a threat on par with the Daleks, but I’ve never quite felt the same level of concern with them.
In the game version, they are at least a little more deadly than the Daleks since you can wander into death:
Still, in essence the procedure is the same: hide if you see a threat. I’ve snagged a long scarf (Tom Baker ahoy) and a “large rock”.
MUTOS
A planet with a mysterious monolith, and the one I’m definitely not done mapping yet.
There’s a bit where you can find a sonic screwdriver, and also a sign which says to DIG HERE. DIG works to use the PICK to go down into a sewer, although it seems like you can get the same way from another direction. Either way, the moment where my mapping ceases is right here:
There’s a spider where I softlocked the first time through (no items, no way to escape, HIDE doesn’t work) and the second time through, ray-gun in hand, I managed to hard crash the game.
I think maybe there’s supposed to be a PRINT statement there, but when trying to replace the line then playing through again it still seems to be buggy.
So this is at least a good place to do a write-up. My big problem, other than that stalling point on Mutos, is figuring out what the Key of Time parts are. The magazine article claims there is a way to tell what the parts are, and I have no idea. The game has a score but the only way to check it I’ve found is to quit the game. I’ve tried taking items to the Time Lord who needs the pieces at the starting area but I haven’t got a positive reception yet. Maybe I need all the pieces at once.
Cybermen from The Invasion, one of the “lost” serials of Dr. Who, since the BBC didn’t routinely start archiving their materials until the late 70s.
Tarro, where today’s author (James Smith) was located.
Australia started broadcasting Dr. Who back in the 1960s roughly contemporary to when they were being made in the UK, but the broadcast history was not straightforward; episodes needed to be censored for “early evening general viewing” — that is, unedited they were considered suitable only for adults — and some of the early serials just never aired at all.
In 1981, the first licensed Dr. Who animation was created, as part an ad for Streets ice cream in Australia. It used Tom Baker, right before Peter Davison took over the mantle of the Doctor. The Logopolis serial (where the switchover between Baker and Davidson happens) was already broadcast in the UK, but it didn’t air in Australia until March 1982.
1982 also saw the first Dr. Who text adventure I’ve been able to locate in any country, written in March 1982 and published in the July 1982 issue of the magazine Micro-80. If you check my dates, you’ll see Baker was still “the current Doctor” from the author’s perspective.
The source is for TRS-80 but I am playing Jim Gerrie’s edited version for TRS-80 MC-10. In his blog post about the game he mentions bug fixes, including one where you can get “mugged” for an object but it doesn’t fix your inventory count, meaning you eventually can hit your inventory limit with 0 items. He also made some random values a little nicer and I’m not that gung ho about authenticity when it simply is going to be pain.
You do not seem to be “The Doctor” but just “you” sent along on a TARDIS the Time Lords have managed to scrouge up. I assume you are a Different Time Lord.
After Dr. Who collected the Key to Time and defeated the Black Guardian, he received many praises and went on to greater things. The Key itself was again broken into its component pieces and scattered throughout the universe.
But the dark forces threaten, and in order to save the universe, the Timelords again need the Key. You have been chosen to go forth and locate it for them.
The Key of Time is from Tom Baker’s run, specifically starting with The Ribos Operation in 1978, where the Doctor is asked by the White Guardian to find the six segments of the Key, bringing balance to the universe. The main gimmick to note for our purposes is that the pieces of the key are disguised as other things; in the first serial, a lump of Jethrik crystal is the first part of the key.
X pieces of some item of power makes for an extremely common videogame plot, so it is not shocking James Smith picked up on this as a game device. Your job is to bounce around planets searching for the Key, given that the pieces will be disguised.
You start on Gallifrey. It is terribly easy to get lost, and at one intersection I got rammed by a passing TARDIS.
I did manage to find a “throne room” where the parts apparently get delivered after finding them.
However, upon exiting the throne room I got stuck in a series of junctions which I’m sure are a fairly simple maze, but since I didn’t have any objects yet I had to restart the game.
So I decided it was best to hop into the TARDIS and start time-hopping.
You will be given a TARDIS (rather old and unreliable, but the best available) that has the coordinates of the planets on which the six parts are located pre-programmed into it. By RESETing its controls you can travel between the six planets and Gallifrey. As usual, the six parts are disguised as other things, and you will have to use your intuition to figure out which is which. (There is a way to tell … )
All the planets are inhabited, and most inhabitants tend to be antisocial. Whether you TALK to them, HIDE from them, kill them, OFFER them gifts of appeasement, or simply ignore them is up to you. Most objects are obvious, but some are hidden and have to be SEARCHed for. Only one key part is on any one planet. Beware the maze on Peladon …
Of course, it was terrific that the first place I landed in an effort to avoid mazes was Peladon, the place of three moons and constant storms.
From a recent Big Finish series set on the planet. “Journey to Peladon, member world of the Galactic Federation and home to intrigue and adventure. With each passing generation, industrial exploitation and deadly political games are taking their toll on the planet.”
sigh Well, let’s try it. I stepped out to a trail, only to find some Peladonians coming nearby. As the instructions mentioned HIDE, I tried the verb out, landing me in the maze.
There was really nothing for me to try than wander randomly. I did hit some non-maze paths but quickly landed in the maze again. I eventually had to simply restart my game and go back to the planet from the TARDIS. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, since RESET from the TARDIS lands you on a random planet; you can’t choose.
The destinations are GALAFRY, SKARO, HIDAOUS, PELADON, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, MUTOS, and DIETHYLAMIDE. You can also just end up in SPACE which in case it is simply another reset.
I wanted to be stubborn and finish what I could on Peladon, so I eventually got there after about twenty resets. The TARDIS incidentally comes with a limited number of resets in this game, and that number is intended to be random! (One of the values made nicer in the MC-10 port is making this random number of resets simply be the maximum from the range.)
Even when not explicitly in the MAZE (as three of the exits go) the map is fairly maze-like and is the sort of game where if I go EAST from one room, I immediately need to test WEST back the other direction to see if it returns, since I’m likely to get a nasty surprise.
The wandering Peladonites turned out not to be a threat — I could just go somewhere else when they showed up — and the only other thing on the planet I managed to find is an Aggedor.
Perhaps I need to return with some music?
From the Alien Species Wiki: “The Aggedor is a wild beast native to the mountainous regions of planet Peladon … The ancient natives of Peladon viewed the Aggedor as a sacred animal and symbol of great power, to be feared and respected. The creatures can be domesticated and trained, and are susceptible to some kinds of music. The Doctor was once able to hypnotize one such beast with his watch while singing a Venusian lullaby.”
This game has been a hassle to get going, so I wanted to report in for now. Hopefully I’ll have visited all the different planets next time. I don’t think this is be like G.F.S Sorceress with a dense plot — this still is only a type-in with limited space — but at least the random elements (whatever they happen to be) should make for an interesting write-up, even if it turns out to be suffering on my part.
Renga in Blue 