Alex Kreis, the author of Domes of Kilgari, recently dropped notice that back in 1982 he had written a sequel, and rescued it off an old disk. (You can find it on Github here.) I was able to talk to him further so I can give the story of how both games came to be; The Missing People was technically published, but as far as Alex remembers it sold one (1) copy. To take the history back to the beginning:
Alex Kreis first had exposure to programming through a class at his school (in California) which had access to a Unix mainframe via a teletype. Beyond the use in class, it was possible to pay for computer time, and his parents were happy to handle the bill. As part of his teletype experience he ran across Crowther/Woods Adventure (other than one other game which I’ll talk about shortly, it was the only adventure game he had played prior to writing his own games). One month he ran up a $47 bill which was “a lot of money” for the late 1970s, and his parents realized that with a personal computer he wouldn’t be racking up monthly charges. They sold their family’s upright piano to contribute to buying a TRS-80 (4K) which steered Kreis on his journey to becoming a professional programmer.
Kreis spent his own money on upgrades, including going from 4K to 16K of memory in 1979.
Alex’s receipt from 1979, via Facebook.
He was local to CLOAD in Santa Barbara and started publishing games through them, beginning with Stars in their January 1980 issue.
Screenshot from Stars. This is essentially a port of Atari’s Space Race from 1973, their arcade game follow-up to Pong. Alex did not know the game but rather it was described to him by the editor Dave Lagerquist. More details at an interview here.
In the same year he had noticed (with a friend of his, Warren) an ad for Death Dreadnaught. This had fairly unique advertising that leaned to the sensational, claiming a rating of R for “EXTREME depictions of VIOLENCE”.
Via 80-U.S. Journal, September/October 1980.
The game was published with pseudonyms (“Biff Mutt” and “Spud Mutt”) and Kreis didn’t even know the real authors until I mentioned them in an interview (Robert and Richard Arnstein). Robert Arnstein normally published directly with Radio Shack (including famous games like Bedlam and Xenos) but put this one through the The Publisher’s Guild, likely just because Tandy wouldn’t go for all the gore. For the owner of The Publisher’s Guild (Bob Lidell), self-professed huckster, this was entirely up his alley.
THE DISMEMBERED ARM ACTIVATES THE FINGER PRINT LOCK OPENING THE DOOR AND REVEALING A HUGE MULTILEGGED FLAT-FACED, ELEPHANT-NOSE, ONE-EYED CREATURE PERCHING ATOP A BLOODY MESS. THE CREATURE REALIZES IT HAS BEEN FREED, GRABS YOU AND RIPS YOUR HEAD OFF, PUTS IT ON A STRING, AND WEARS IT AROUND HIS NECK AS GOOD LUCK CHARM TO WARD OFF EVIL.
(Note we had the same death in The Lazurite Factor, the game I just played! Clearly it built up a fanbase.)
The game was unique in that it mostly was dedicated to building atmosphere and delivering the occasional instant death, but only having really one puzzle, where in order to defeat a creature you give it your gun.
THE CREATURE GRABS THE GUN. HE EXAMINES IT CURIOUSLY AND PRESSES A HIDDEN LEVER. THE GUN SELF-DESTRUCTS DESTROYING THE CREATURE AND RUINING HIS DAY.
Alex (and Warren) ordered the game, shared the tape, and it, and hatched the idea “it would be really fun to write a sequel.” Alex called The Programmer’s Guild directly (that is, Bob Lidell) and asked if he’d have interest in a sequel; Lidell responded yes, hence the genesis of The Domes of Kilgari. (This explains one of my questions back when I played it, because the game includes a direct reference to the same monster you give a gun to in the first game. In the sequel, giving the gun kills you. So it was written as a sequel, but in a semi-unofficial way.)
There is another direct reference, as there’s a moment in Dreadnaught where you can get a tank of what looks like O2 except the first part is removed, and the tank is really CO2; if you try to hook the tank up to your ship you die. He echoed this with the puzzle at the end of Kilgari which has you picking a rod to put into the ship; if you grab the first rod you see, it won’t be the right one and will kill you. (He hadn’t read any gamebooks like Choose Your Own Adventure; this was entirely riffing off of Death Dreadnaught as the inspiration.)
He received something around $1300-$1400 total for the product (mostly re-invested into the computer); he asked Bob Lidell about making a follow-up sequel; Bob said yes, but when Alex sent the game in, he heard nothing back at all. 1982 was when The Programmer’s Guild was bailing from TRS-80 games altogether (a Commodore 64 book was still upcoming, but they mostly licensed their TRS-80 programs to other sellers by this point). Alex Kreis ended up advertising the game himself in CLOAD in their August 1982 issue. He used a company name he had used before to sell BASIC programs, Superior Software.
This means the game was “published”, but as mentioned on the top, he only remembers selling one copy. He did not recoup the $50 he paid for the ad. Hence the game essentially went missing until quite recently when Alex started pulling out his old TRS-80 materials.
This adventure was written in 1982 and is the sequel to The Domes of Kilgari text adventure, although it is not really necessary to have played the earlier adventure in order to play this one.
We’ve managed to escape the deadly planet of Kilgari, arriving on your home planet, only to land in another life-or-death scenario.
You take a quick look around and discover that NOBODY is here. Where are all your people? What has happened to them??
Rather like Dreadnaught (moreso than Kilgari) this game tries for “environmental storytelling”, that is, including plenty of rooms that are there just for building the plot rather than serving a particular puzzle purpose.
YOU ARE IN THE WEST SIDE OF THE SHIP TAKEOFF/LANDING TERMINAL. YOU NOTICE THAT SOMETHING IS VERY STRANGE HERE. THERE IS NOBODY ELSE AROUND, WHEN THE PLACE SHOULD BE PACKED!
-E
YOU ARE IN THE EAST SIDE OF THE TERMINAL. THERE IS NOBODY HERE EITHER.
A meta-map first of the environs:
The Underground and City are available at first; an item from the City is needed to get past the Highway and to the Futuristic City.
The regular map of the starting area.
Going to the underground part first, the opening obstacle is a room with a red knob, white lever, and green switch. The green switch falls off the wall, the red knob kills you, and the white lever opens a secret passage. There isn’t a clue or anything: this is just a random choice. What makes this feel much different from Kilgari is that the game offers an “undo” style option.
YOU HAVE ENTERED A SECRET UNDERGROUND CAVERN. THE LIGHT IS DIM HERE, BUT YOU CAN MAKE OUT A PATH GOING WEST.
-W
YOU ARE IN A VERY DIM UNDERGROUND CAVERN. A RED KNOB, A WHITE LEVER, AND A GREEN SWITCH ARE ALL ON THE NORTH WALL.
-TURN KNOB
SUDDENLY THE CAVERN STARTS SHAKING, THE WALLS AND CEILING GIVE WAY, AND ROCKS START FALLING. HOW NICE. YOU ARE KILLED AND BURIED AT THE SAME TIME.
GAME OVER. START OVER (S), STEP BACK (B) OR QUIT (Q)?
Thus, you can treat the death more like one in a Choose Your Own Adventure story where you peek ahead at a choice to read a colorful death and flip back to where you start to move on. (Again, the author had no gamebook experience, I’m just making a comparison of how the effect feels on gameplay.)
-PULL LEVER
YOU NOW NOTICE THAT A PASSAGE NORTH IS REVEALED!
-N
YOU HAVE ENTERED A SECRET PASSAGE. THE ROOM IS WELL LIT FROM SOME HIDDEN LIGHT SOURCE. A TUNNEL GOES WEST, AND ANOTHER GOES DOWNWARD. YOU COULD GO DOWN IT, BUT IT LOOKS AS IF YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MAKE IT BACK UP.
If you go down the tunnel, this will trap you in a room with a creature who blocks your way.
YOU HAVE ENTERED A SECRET PASSAGE. THE ROOM IS WELL LIT FROM SOME HIDDEN LIGHT SOURCE. A TUNNEL GOES WEST, AND ANOTHER GOES DOWNWARD. YOU COULD GO DOWN IT, BUT IT LOOKS AS IF YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO MAKE IT BACK UP.
-D
YOU ARE IN ANOTHER SECRET PASSAGE. ANOTHER TUNNEL LEADS DOWN, AND IT LOOKS AS IF YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO GET BACK UP THIS ONE EITHER.
-D
YOU ARE IN A SMALL ROOM.
A VERY LARGE MULTI-GIRAFFE-LEGGED, FLAT FACED, ONE GREEN-EYED, ELEPHANT NOSED, HAIRY CREATURE IS HERE, STARING AT YOU HUNGRILY AS IF IT HAD NOT EATEN FOR YEARS!!
-W
THE CREATURE WILL NOT LET YOU PASS!
This is a softlock and you have to restart the game. You can try to KILL the creature to trigger the “STEP BACK” mechanic…
-KILL CREATURE
YOU ATTACK THE CREATURE. HE GETS VERY UPSET AT YOU AND SWATS YOU ONE. UNFORTUNATELY, HE DOES THIS SO HARD THAT IT KILLS YOU. GAME OVER. START OVER (S), STEP BACK (B) OR QUIT (Q)?
…but it will only step back as far as still being in the room with the creature and no way out. This is the only major softlock in the game; however, it does seem engineered to trick players into falling for it.
Past the drop and some more rooms you can find a “strange tool”, followed by yet another one of the creatures. With only one item in stock, I tried THROW TOOL and died.
YOU ARE IN A SMALL VALLEY.
A VERY LARGE MULTI-GIRAFFE-LEGGED, FLAT FACED, ONE GREEN-EYED, ELEPHANT NOSED, HAIRY CREATURE IS HERE, STARING AT YOU HUNGRILY AS IF IT HAD NOT EATEN FOR YEARS!!
-THROW TOOL
O.K.
THE CREATURE GRABS THE STRANGE TOOL AND EXAMINES IT CLOSELY. HE PULLS A HIDDEN LEVER, SEES THAT THE TOOL IS ABOUT TO VAPORIZE HIM, AND QUICKLY TOSSES IT BACK TO YOU! THE TOOL THEN VAPORIZES YOU INSTANTLY. AS YOU DIE YOU CAN HEAR THE CREATURE LAUGHING HYSTERICALLY IN THE BACKGROUND.
GAME OVER. START OVER (S), STEP BACK (B) OR QUIT (Q)?
Using STEP BACK doesn’t trap you in, though. With the tool you can loop back over to the first creature and try the same trick, who apparently isn’t as educated as the second one.
THE CREATURE GRABS THE STRANGE TOOL AND EXAMIMES IT CLOSELY. HE PRESSES A HIDDEN LEVER AND THE TOOL VAPORIZES HIM INSTANTLY. A FEW MOMENTS LATER THE TOOL RE-ASSEMBLES ITSELF.
Past the creature is a “strange rod”; you can throw the strange rod at the creature who previously outsmarted the tool.
The whole point of the sequence is to pick up a TRS-80 DISKETTE. This will get used at the end of the game. For now, let’s swerve back to the city portion of the game.
YOU ARE AT THE TOP OF A HILL. TO THE EAST, IN THE DISTANCE, YOU CAN SEE BUILDINGS. IT APPEARS TO BE A CITY.
-E
YOU ARE AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CITY. AN EMPTY ROAD EAST LEADS INTO THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY. ANOTHER PATH LEADS WEST.
-E
YOU ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MAIN STREET OF THE CITY. ROADS LEAD NORTH AND EAST.
-N
YOU ARE IN SHOPPING CENTER AREA OF THE CITY. ALL THE DOORS AND WINDOWS OF THE BUILDINGS ARE SHUT AND LOCKED.
Again, lots of “atmosphere building” rooms; none of these rooms are strictly “necessary”; you can’t sneak into any of the locked buildings in the shopping center. Just north is the “outskirts” which does have one shop you can go into, and get zapped by a LASER DEFENSE SYSTEM.
YOU ARE AT THE NORTH/WEST OUTSKIRTS OF THE CITY, AND ALL THE BUILDINGS ARE LOCKED EXCEPT FOR AN “UNUSUAL WEAPONS SHOP” TO THE WEST.
-W
YOU HAVE ENTERED A LASER GUN SHOP. A PASSAGE GOES NORTH. A LASER DEFENSE SYSTEM IS HERE, IN FULL OPERATING ORDER!!!!!!!! YOU ENTER THE ROOM, THEN SUDDENLY SOME LASERS MOUNTED IN THE WALLS TURN TOWARD YOU AND FIRE! YOU ARE VERY FAST, DODGING ALL OF THE LASERS, BUT YOU HAVE NO DEFENSE! ZAAPPP!!!! YOU GOT TIRED OUT, AND WERE KILLED.
GAME OVER. START OVER (S), STEP BACK (B) OR QUIT (Q)?
Giving the overall map…
…two easy stops to make are down a “side street” to pick up a KNIFE and a DEAD END to pick up a STRANGE BALL.
THIS IS THE UPPER CLASS CITY AREA. A PATH LEADS EAST AND SOUTH.
-E
YOU ARE IN A DEAD END.
A STRANGE BALL IS HERE, GIVING OFF A STRANGE ENERGY GLOW!
-GET BALL
AS YOU PICK UP THE BALL, IT GIVES OFF A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF INTENSE ENERGY! YOU ARE BLINDED FOR A SECOND–AS THINGS BEGIN TO CLEAR UP, YOU SEE THAT THE BALL IS NO LONGER HERE! BUT YOU NOTICE THAT NOW YOU HAVE MUCH MORE ENERGY, AND YOU FEEL STRONG AND QUICK!
Going into what the game describes as a “SLUMMY” area you can find an alley with an abandoned bus, and a coin at the back of the bus. If you try to leave, a mugger will take the coin from you unless you have a knife. This is the only one of the “missing people” that appears. Maybe they’re all hiding from the mugger.
SUDDENLY A MUGGER JUMPS OUT FROM BEHIND A BUSH, LOOKS AT YOUR SHINY COIN, AND ALSO LOOKS AT YOU BRANDISHING YOUR SHARP KNIFE AT HIM, AND HE RUNS BACK INTO THE BUSHES.
Going down from the place the mugger appears, you can find a RECTANGULAR PLATE in a basement, and a cryptic phone booth. The coin goes in the phone to get a hint.
To get the actual hint you need to follow the prompt and HEAR THOUGHTS. It doesn’t seem like that great a hint, since a normal player would be trying to get past the highway (which you’ll see in a moment) anyway?
YOU THINK FOR A SECOND – THEN A THOUGHT COMES INTO YOUR MIND. IT IS, “ESCAPE IS BEYOND THE ROAD.”
With the rectangular plate in your inventory, and with the power from the mysterious ball, you can take down the security system at the laser store.
If you haven’t energized yourself the game says you are too slow and you die. It’s easy to back out, though.
With the protection defeated you can pick up a LASER RIFLE and shoot anything you want to, more or less. This includes key items
THE AMAZING WEAPON VAPORIZES THE (THING) INSTANTLY.
This does not allow for the backtrack mechanic but at least it takes some intentionality to land in this softlock. The first thing the weapon goes to is the long-promised highway. I wonder if Mr. Kreis was having issues with California traffic.
YOU ARE AT A HIGHWAY CROSSING. A PATH NORTH LEADS AWAY, AND ONE SOUTH LEADS ACROSS THE ROAD. IT LOOKS KIND OF DANGEROUS TO CROSS IT.
-S
YOU ARE ON THE NORTHERN LANES OF THE FIVE LANE HIGHWAY. IN THE DISTANCE YOU SEE THE FRONT END OF A CAR COMING STRAIGHT AT YOU AT A HIGH RATE OF SPEED!
-SHOOT CAR
YOU WHIP OUT THE RIFLE, QUICKLY AIM AND PULL THE TRIGGER. YOU SEE A RUBY RED BEAM OF LIGHT JUMP FROM THE BARREL OF THE LASER TO THE CAR, WHICH THEN EXPLODES IN A BRILLIANT FLASH OF LIGHT!!
Oh, I guess that was a second missing person, huh? Except now they’re missing for a different reason.
On to Futuristic City!
YOU APPEAR TO BE ENTERING A FUTURISTIC TYPE CITY, AND IT APPEARS TO BE A GHOST CITY. THERE IN NO ONE IN THE STREETS!
-S
YOU ARE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUTURISTIC CITY. FUNNY – NO ONE IS HERE, AND ALSO THIS CITY DOES NOT LOOK FAMILIAR TO YOU AT ALL.
To the east are buildings marked as belonging to Tandy, including a welding building and a power building. The power building has a control box that is locked, but the key is fortunately not far: head through Manufacturing and Customer Service and you can follow the path to a beach, which has an old key.
YOU ARE IN THE QUICK EXIT OF THE CUSTOMER CENTER. THIS WAS TO BE USED BY EMPLOYEES IN CASE OF ABUSIVE CUSTOMERS. HALLS GO NORTH AND EAST.
-N
YOU ARE OUTSIDE OF THE PLANT, AND FROM HERE YOU CAN SEE THE
ENTIRE INDUSTRY SECTION OF TOWN.
-E
YOU ARE ON AN EAST/WEST DIRT ROAD.
-E
YOU ARE AT THE BEACH. A PATH WEST LEADS AWAY.
AN OLD KEY IS LYING NEARBY.
The old key unlocks the power box and you can push the button to turn on all the power to the city. (You can also close and lock the box again, if you so feel inclined.)
Heading west instead, there’s a “large building” with a wall that blocks your way early. Fortunately you still have a Big Gun.
YOU ARE STILL IN THE CITY. TO THE WEST IS A LARGE TOWERING BUILDING, AND A PATH LEADS EAST.
-W
YOU ARE INSIDE THE LARGE BUILDING. IT APPEARS TO BE A COMPUTER ORIENTED BUILDING, AS EVERYTHING LOOKS COMPUTERISTIC.
THERE IS A STRANGE WALL BLOCKING A PATH WEST.
-SHOOT WALL
THE AMAZING WEAPON VAPORIZES THE WALL INSTANTLY.
-W
YOU ARE IN A STAIRWAY.
The stairway leads up to a roof where you can get a view of the city (just atmosphere) and down to computer rooms. In one of the rooms is a TRS-80. The DISK from underground seems to go here.
-E
YOU ARE IN A HALL WITH MANY COMPUTERS ALL AROUND. NONE OF THESE COMPUTERS LOOK LIKE THEY MIGHT WORK.
-E
YOU ARE IN ANOTHER HALL WITH MANY COMPUTERS AROUND. NONE OF THESE LOOK CAPABLE OF WORKING EITHER.
-S
YOU ARE IN A SMALL CHAMBER. TO ONE SIDE LIES AN OLD TRS-80 MODEL I MACHINE WITH AN EXPANSION INTERFACE AND DISK DRIVE. IT MIGHT WORK IF THE PROPER THINGS WERE DONE.
-INSERT DISK
O.K.
THE DISK FALLS TO THE FLOOR, LOOKS AROUND FOR A SECOND – SPOTS
THE TRS-80 DISK DRIVE, YELLS “OH BOY!” AND JUMPS INTO THE DRIVE!
–
I say “seems” because I can’t get anything to happen past this point. There’s a closed door in the room to the east that I assume the computer is intended to open but it doesn’t open even with the power on and the disk inserted.
YOU ARE IN A ROOMS WITH A SMALL GLASS CUBICLE TO THE NORTH. IT HAS A GLASS DOOR ON THE FRONT.
THE DOOR IS CLOSED.
-N
YOU CANT GO THROUGH A CLOSED DOOR!
-OPEN DOOR
THE DOOR CANNOT BE OPENED MANUALLY.
You can try vaporizing the door; a creature comes out and kills you. I am guessing I am close enough to the end that this is going to be a “update my blog post with the ending” type deal rather than making a whole new post about the ending, but when you’re stuck you’re stuck. I tried dumping the verb and noun lists and no dice; I’ve used all of them, and no novel nouns come up either. (The actual messages are not plaintext, so I can’t straight-out cheat.) No nouns seem to correspond with the computer, which seems particularly suspicious, and even though they aren’t listed, I tried start-a-computer verbs like BOOT and START with no luck.
Just judging based on what I saw, I did find the experience enjoyable and I liked some of the spots of storytelling-by-place. I found the game more fair than Domes of Kilgari in a modern sense but less atmospheric. This is hard to articulate, but reflects a point that’s come up here before: certain finesses that game authors did in the 80s sometimes would be completely against modern standards yet still served a gameplay purpose. The number of deaths in Kilgari (and lack of UNDO command) made the game more tense; I felt like I was descending into a crumbling structure which could (and did) fall apart at a touch. “Lonely city” can make for interesting atmosphere (see Xenos) but it didn’t loop in with the gameplay here quite as well, and the deaths being easy to undo gave it a light touch. (Again, I am not endorsing painful game design that arises from sudden-death-and-no-saved-games: I’m just saying that it served a particular purpose that needed something swapped in to compensate.)
Coming up: Enix’s first adventure game.
Renga in Blue 