The copyright date on this game is 1981 although it may not have been published until 1982 (when it first shows up in the Dynacomp catalog). This is the year of the first Cannonball Run movie, sort of like the Gumball Rally movie but even sillier.
When I left off, I was enormously stuck on either crossing a collapsing bridge or getting by a locked gate. As I guessed, the bridge was just a trap, and the gate was the way to go. What I did not guess is that the locked gate would open more or less by magic.
This was down where there was a volcano erupting and lots of ash. You could PLAY RADIO (as hinted at by a sign nearby) to hear an update on the volcano:
THANKS FOR TUNING KXXX
AND NOW FOR THE NEWS:
MOUNT SAINT TROY ERUPTED TODAY SPEWING ASH AS FAR EAST AS AMIKAY
ROUTE 14 IS COVERED WITH UP TO FOUR FEET OF ASH IN PLACES
BE SURE TO CARRY A SHOVEL IF TRAVELING THAT WAY
MOTORISTS ARE CAUTIONED NOT TO GET TOO CLOSE TO THE VOLCANO
AS FURTHER ERUPTIONS ARE EXPECTED AT ANY TIME
THE NEAREST ACCESS ROAD IS COUNTY ROAD T8
HAVE A NICE TRIP
I had also found to approach further I needed to not be holding the shovel (“YOU ARE ON ROUTE 14 / A GREAT PILE OF ASH BLOCKS THE ROAD HERE”) and for some reason I was able to get by, which was clearly a bug, since holding the shovel means the player is stopped. Playing around with the bug some more I finally was able to SHOVEL ASH and get a message about clearing the ash away, and progress is possible.
Studying the radio message carefully, while I knew I had already checked every exit from every room in the volcano area, I wondered if I had checked any of them before listening to the radio, with the idea that hearing about “COUNTRY ROAD T8” might be the trigger to find such a road in the first place. I tested every exit and while I was at it tested the locked gate, and…
YOU ARE ON COUNTY FIRE ROAD T8
T8 LEADS INTO THE HILLS TO THE WEST
TO THE NORTHWEST IS MOUNT ST. TROY
SMOKE AND ASH POURS FROM THE MOUTH OF THE VOLCANO
THERE IS A LOUD POP! YOU HAVE A FLAT TIRE!
…what? Somehow the radio (plus the shoveling, I think?) was enough to trigger the door being open, which makes no sense at all. I’ve certainly had games with secret passages not revealed until you have the relevant info (as I had been testing here) but I’ve never had that be what triggers a lock to open.
Ugh. My first time through here, I didn’t have the spare tire replacement and had to re-do my steps so I had one before going through the tire-blowing. It happens both east-bound and west-bound so once through you can’t go back the same way.
Next is just a small maze-area of intersections, including a picnic table with a transit coupon you need to get through a toll gate later.
Also, if you like death scenes, there’s a volcano if you go the wrong way.
YOU ARE AT THE BASE OF THE VOLCANO
PLUMES OF SMOKE AND ASH RISE INTO THE AIR ABOVE YOU SUDDENLY, THE VOLCANO ERUPTS! PYROCLASTIC FLOWS POUR OVER THE RIM OF THE CRATER. GREAT BLACK CLOUDS OF ASH AND SMOKE COVER THE AREA. YOU ARE CHOKING! THE TEMPERATURE RISES TO 800 DEGREES. YOU ARE PAR-BROILED.TOO BAD
BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!
Heading past the maze north runs you into “T5 WESTBOUND THROUGH A FOREST” where going west results in “A LOG BLOCKS YOUR WAY”. Fortunately, I had a chainsaw at the ready (my very first item picked up in the game) and did SAW LOG.
The road then turns south to an ENDLESS TUNNEL and this is a sort of gag to the player who might be wondering “did the code turns this into an infinite loop so it really is endless?
YOU ARE ON THE COAST ROAD
THERE IS A TUNNEL AHEAD TO THE SOUTH
A SIGN READS: ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
YOU ARE IN THE ENDLESS TUNNEL
>S
It is not literally endless and you end up in the small town of Endless on the other side. The only things to do in Endless are take a toll road east back to Bordertown (using the coupon from the picnic table) or take a ferry ride over to the next town.
You may be thinking, “didn’t we use our ferry ticket already to get at the gas station card and be able to fuel up the car?” You’d be absolutely right. Fortunately, in the throes of being stuck on other things, I combed back over the original towns and found that if you use the ferry ticket up, it (“another one” I mean) magically re-appears back at the dump where it first appears.
YOU ARE AT THE ENDLESS FERRY
A BOAT IS WAITING TO LOAD
HAVE YOUR TICKET READY
>W
YOU ARE ON THE FERRY TO GOLD ISLAND
THE SEA IS ROUGH AND YOU ARE SEASICK
THE FERRY FINALLY DOCKS ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE ISLAND
TO THE NORTH CAN BE SEEN A SMALL TOWN
The town of Yellowbar is large, annoying to map out, and a lot of it consists of recently built homes on “Simba Estates”. To be fair this describes my experience sometimes in navigating such communities. Would it kill them to use a grid?
>NW
YOU ARE ON GOLDEN DRIVE
THERE IS A CAR PARKED HERE
A SIGN TO THE NORTH READS:
SIMBA ESTATES
>N
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF GOLDEN DRIVE AND ANDERSON
THERE ARE MANY NEW HOMES HERE
>W
YOU ARE AT THE CORNER OF MARCUS AND ANDERSON
>N
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF MARCUS AND BARBER
With the “CAR PARKED HERE” I should put up a reminder we’ve been chasing the directions of a poem.
STAY ON THE ROAD OF THE GOLDEN BAR
‘TILL YOU FIND THE PLACE WITH THE PARKED CAR
FOLLOW THE LION ‘TILL YOU FIND THE SCHOOL
I guess Uncle Marcus is highly confident the parked car is just going to stay there forever. In a planned community? Maybe it’s one of the slacker Home Owner Associations. (To be fair, we’re in Imaginary Country Gamma, not the real United States or Canada or whatever.)
I spent a while searching for a “lion” and the general feel was oddly like a real road rally scavenger hunt as I went through the variety of road names (Jones, Miller, Johnson, Adams, Jackson, Barber, Anderson, Murphy, Thorp, Lomac, Todd, Owens…) searching for a potential pun, but no luck. However, I hadn’t tried messing around with the railroad tracks yet.
There are a couple points where there’s a railroad crossing, and trying to go along the railroad says you can’t go in a car. You have to disembark here and walk. Going in a tunnel collects another death.
OK, YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR CAR
>E
YOU ARE ON A W-E SET OF TRACKS
THERE IS A MOUNTAIN TO THE SOUTH
>E
YOU ARE ON THE TRACKS
THERE IS A TUNNEL ENTRANCE TO THE EAST
>E
YOU ARE IN A RAILROAD TUNNEL
IT IS VERY DARK BUT TO THE NORTH
YOU CAN SEE A LIGHT. IT IS GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER. IT IS A TRAIN!!
YOU ARE RUN OVER. TOUGH LUCK!
However, one part of the tracks leads you to a “roaring” noise that surely is what was meant by the lion.
YOU ARE ON THE TRACKS EAST OF TOWN
THE TRACKS SWING SE AND WEST HERE
>SE
YOU ARE ON THE TRACKS SOUTH OF A LARGE MOUNTAIN
A SIDING TO THE NORTH PARALLELS THE TRACKS HERE
THERE IS A CABOOSE SETTING ON THE SIDING YOU CAN HERE A ROARING SOUND COMING FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CABOOSE
>N
YOU ARE AT THE EAST END OF THE CABOOSE
THERE IS A DOOR INTO THE CABOOSE HERE
THE ROARING SOUND IS LOUDER HERE
>W
YOU ARE IN THE CABOOSE
THERE IS A DOOR AT THE EAST END
THERE IS A SMALL CROWBAR LAYING HERE
The roaring is not a train about to run us over (as the game intentionally seems to indicate) but a waterfall.
YOU ARE ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF
IN A CANYON BELOW TO THE NORTH IS A RAGING RIVER FILLED WITH ROCKS A HIGH WATERFALL TO THE NE POURS TONS OF WATER INTO THE RIVER
A BOILING CLOUD OF MIST RISES FROM THE BASE OF THE FALLS
THERE IS A TRAIL LEADING INTO THE CANYON TO THE NW
The trail leads to the penultimate section of the game.
A fork in a trail leads one way to Bradley Academy (abandoned) and the other way to a baseball field (also abandoned).
THE TRAIL HERE RUN N-S
TO THE EAST IS THE ROARING RIVER
TO THE WEST A HIGH CLIFF RISES 200 FEET
>N
YOU ARE AT A FORK IN THE TRAIL
THE NW FORK LEADS UP THE SIDE OF THE CLIFF
THE NE FORK CONTINUES ALONG THE WEST BANK OF THE RIVER
A SIGN TO THE NW READS: BRADLEY ACADEMY
A TRAIL LEADS SOUTH
>NW
YOU ARE AT THE TOP OF THE CLIFF
THERE IS AN OLD SCHOOLYARD HERE
THE SCHOOL BUILDING HAS BEEN TORN DOWN
SOME SCATTERED LUMBER LIES ABOUT HERE
TO THE WEST IS A LARGE BOULDER
TO THE EAST IS THE EDGE OF THE CLIFF
A FENCE BORDERS THE OTHER THREE SIDES OF THE YARD
Just a reminder of the last part of the poem:
FOLLOW THE LION ‘TILL YOU FIND THE SCHOOL
CLIMB ON UP AND SEE THE JEWEL
FROM THE TOP YOU CAN SEE REAL GOOD
THE THING YOU WANT’S BENEATH THE WOOD
TAKE THE THING THAT YOU’LL FIND THERE
THEN GO AND SEARCH; YOU’LL KNOW WHERE
“Climb on up” seems to refer to a fir tree that you can climb.
YOU ARE ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF A LARGE POOL
THE POOL IS A CALM BACKWATER OF THE RIVER
THE RIVER BENDS TO THE EAST HERE
THERE ARE MANY FISH IN THE POOL
A SIGN READS: NO FISHING
THE TRAIL TURNS WEST AROUND THE POOL AND TO THE SOUTH
>W
YOU ARE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE POOL
THERE IS A LARGE FIR TREE HERE
THE TRAIL LEADS TO THE EAST
AND WEST FROM HERE
>U
YOU ARE AT THE TOP OF THE TREE
YOU CAN SEE A BASEBALL FIELD TO THE NE
ON TOP OF THE CLIFF
THERE IS A TRAIL TO THE NE LEADING UP THE CLIFF
THE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL IS HIDDEN IN BUSHES
AT THE BASE OF THE CLIFF
Specifically, at right field in the baseball field, you can find a piece of wood and a boulder. At the SW corner of the Bradley Academy, you can also find a piece of wood (a “board”) and a boulder.
YOU ARE AT THE SW CORNER OF THE SCHOOLYARD
THERE IS A LARGE BOULDER HERE
THERE IS A SMALL BOARD LAYING ON THE GROUND HERE
However, despite the crowbar in hand, neither boulder wants to budge (with PULL or PUSH or MOVE) and there is nothing under either piece of wood.
For a time, I felt quite a nice vibe from the game here, as I started searching around both the baseball diamond and the school looking for some way of thinking of “BENEATH THE WOOD” in a less literal way, kind of like the lion. Since I had it mapped out the game felt briefly like a real scavenger hunt.
Unfortunately, yes, “briefly”, especially when I found out what was required. At least I had the right suspicion: home plate at the baseball field.
YOU ARE IN RIGHT FIELD
THERE IS A LARGE BOULDER HERE
THERE IS A PIECE OF WOOD LAYING ON THE GROUND HERE
>W
YOU ARE ON FIRST BASE
>W
YOU ARE AT THE SW END OF THE FIELD
THERE IS A WOODEN PLATE IN THE GROUND HERE
CHALK LINES LEAD TO FIRST AND THIRD BASE
Home plate is made out of wood! The other two pieces of wood were deceptions. This would be classy if the game did not then
a.) require guess the verb
b.) require guess the noun
c.) hard crash upon resolving both a.) and b.)
PUSH PLATE (“NOTHING HAPPENS!”), MOVE PLATE (“I DON’T UNDERSTAND MOVE PLATE”), and LIFT PLATE (“I DON’T UNDERSTAND LIFT PLATE”) don’t work. You also can’t take the item, either. No, the game is fishing for the exact verb and noun LIFT HOME (and yes, it seems like a moment before LIFT isn’t even an understood verb!)
>LIFT PLATE
I DON’T UNDERSTAND LIFT PLATE
>LIFT HOME
THERE IS AN ENVELOPE UNDER HOME
SYNTAX ERROR IN LINE 1730
READY
This could have been the best moment in the game — I really did puzzle the answer out carefully, and the boulder plus crowbar led to enough side-deception to make this work.
1730!V0$\P1=1\X(12)=L\\GOTO300
The double-slash at the end (before GOTO 300) is wrong. There should be only one. This is not the sort of error that would be done by disk corruption; I’m fairly sure this was an authentic author-typo, meaning nobody bothered to test the game to the end (and nobody complained because who would find LIFT HOME?)
Rather than fixing the code (before starting with the RUN command, type that 1730 line but with only one double-slash before GOTO 300) and going through everything again hoping it wouldn’t break, I changed the code to give me the envelope at the very start. The envelope has a ferry ticket (so you can go back across, you can then take the toll road to freeway-country) a latchkey, and a note.
THE NOTE READS: GO SEARCH MY HOUSE IN EASTPORT-WHERE YOU STARTED!
Weirdly, UNLOCK DOOR never works and always claims you don’t have a key, while you’re holding a key. You can just go WEST while at the locked front door with the key in hand, though.
Now we’re in a relatively normal house-searching game! No more driving.
YOU ARE IN THE MASTER BEDROOM
THERE IS AN LARGE OLD BED AND A
SMALL DRESSER HERE
A DOOR LEADS NORTH
>OPEN DRESSER
THERE IS A PAPER WITH NUMBERS ON IT IN THE DRESSER DRAWER
>GET PAPER
OK
>READ PAPER
THE SLIP OF PAPER READS: 22R-12L-45R-7L
In addition to the safe combo in a dresser, there’s a padlock key in a desk. This lets you tromp downstairs through a padlocked door into a storage room and the final challenge of the game: fiddling with the parser, yet again.
YOU ARE IN A STORAGE ROOM
THERE IS MUCH JUNK SETTING AROUND THE ROOM
THERE IS A FRAMED PICTURE OF UNCLE HARRY ON THE NORTH WALL
ON THE EAST WALL IS A LARGE MOOSE HEAD
THERE IS A DOOR TO THE WEST AND SOUTH
I was out of places to go and this came after the locked door and its picture, it ought to be hiding the safe, right? Still, it was infuriatingly hard to come up with the only verb that would work, SLIDE.
>SLIDE PICTURE
THE PICTURE SLIDES TO THE SIDE REVEALING A SAFE IN THE WALL
Fortunately, you do not then have to master a parser syntax for working out how to spin right 22 times etc.
>OPEN SAFE
AS YOU DIAL THE COMBINATION THE SAFE CLICKS OPEN
THERE IS A RUMBLING SOUND
A SECTION OF THE NORTH WALL SLIDES BACK
REVEALING A ROOM UNDER THE OUTSIDE STAIRS
>N
YOU ARE IN A SMALL ROOM UNDER
THE OUTSIDE STAIRWAY TO THE COAL SHUTE
THERE IS A LARGE CHEST HERE
THERE IS A DOOR TO THE SOUTH
>OPEN CHEST
THERE IS A STACK OF TWENTYS AND A LETTER IN THE CHEST
>GET LETTER
I DON’T UNDERSTAND GET LETTER
Sure, let’s give the parser one last quirk. No, just read:
READ LETTER
THE LETTER READS:
CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE PERSERVERED TO THE END OF THE SEARCH! THE MONEY YOU HAVE FOUND IN MY CHEST WILL PAY YOUR WAY TO ENGLAND THERE, YOU’LL FIND YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE. SOMEWHERE IN WHEMBLY CASTLE LIES HIDDEN A HUGE TREASURE OF JEWELS AND GOLD. HIDDEN THERE BY YOUR GREAT, GREAT, GRANDFATHER ALMOST TWOHUNDRED YEARS AGO. MANY HAVE SEARCHED, BUT NO ONE HAS FOUND IT. WITH YOUR LOGIC AND INTELIGENCE I KNOW YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FIND IT! GOOD LUCK!
UNCLE HARRY
“LOGIC AND INTELIGENCE”, eh?
Thus the sequel (published with this game by Dynacomp) is now set up. However, I’m not sure how obvious it was from the size of the maps (and the moments of parser struggle, and the hard game crash): this took a lot of energy to play, so I’m going to kick the sequel (Whembly Castle) further down my 1982 list.
Some aspects had a unique aura. I’ve never seen an attempt (in computer game form) to capture the gimmick rally and while the riddle was not airtight it did give the experience a stronger feel than Just One Map Section After Another. The sheer amount of mapping went far too extreme but I can at least see conceptually what the author was going for. The noble failures of history can be just as useful to look at as the masterworks.
From the Japanese movie poster for Cannonball Run III (aka Speed Zone), via eBay. Cannonball Run (1981) and Cannonball Run II (1984) were followed by one last sequel to make a trilogy in 1989, where the racers all get arrested right before the event starts and the sponsors need to find new drivers.
I did finally get to grips with the monstrous map, and I even included the whole thing so far as a 4143 by 2839 image file, but first a few words on rallies vs. races, and the tradition of “gimmick rallies”.
There’s a very important difference between rallies and races which is best exemplified by the final leg of The Gumball Rally movie:
It looks like Franco’s team loses by just a few seconds (thanks partially due to a stop for Linda Vaughn). In reality, this is a rally, and the thing that counts is overall time. There was a time difference of 10 seconds at the start, meaning he actually won!
Rallies (needing to travel along real roads) are asynchronous and are scored by all sorts of things. I already alluded to the use of puzzles in “gimmick rallies”; they often track ability to navigate more than speed, which is why rallies tend are done in teams (one driver, one navigator). For a recent real life example, here’s a clip from a gimmick rally cued up to some directions being read:
This is all relevant to Uncle Harry’s Will because I think the poem that serves as instructions really does give the vibe of the slightly-corny directions you’d get in a gimmick rally. They were certainly around in 1981; Jean Calvin’s Rallying to Win (still available in an updated edition) was first published in 1974 and mentions different species like the photograph rally (where all directions are in the form of photographs of locations), the scavenger hunt, or what the book calls the “grand old man” of gimmick rallies, the poker rally:
The instructions call out route-following procedure, but ordinarily there is no tight time schedule. There will be an elapsed time for the entire run, and along the route either five or seven checkpoints. Instead of receiving a time at the control, each team draws a card from a standard deck of playing cards. At the finish, the team with the best poker hand is the winner.
Here’s the map I mentioned; click the image to view its high-resolution glory. Dark blue marks positions that hold items, showing how few objects there have been so far.
The freeway took an enormous amount of time to map but it was the kind of map where I wasn’t discovering new things but just figuring out what looped back to where, and then repositioning multiple times to have the map make a modicum of sense. It’s still incredibly messy.
There are two gas stations (marked in orange). It takes much longer to happen than with Gumball Rally Adventure but your car does eventually run out of gas, essentially the equivalent of the lamp in Adventure. It takes so long it no longer has the incessant simulationist feel of the previous game. However, while the gas station lets you buy GAS, OIL, and a TIRE (letting you get by that one road I mentioned last time) it initially tells you that you have no money.
I was able to find a way to get access to the gas station’s services which I’ll show off shortly. Note on the map the Border Crossing on the west side. Just a bit to the east there’s a Passport Office with a border pass you can use:
YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR CAR
YOU ARE IN THE PASSPORT OFFICE
HEAPS OF OLD PAPERS COVER THE COUNTER
THERE IS A BORDER PASS LAYING ON A COUNTER HERE
However, as you can see from the map, the border doesn’t really go anywhere! All you can find is a “BOTTLE OF COKE”, and if you try to take it with you it turns out to be the other kind of coke.
YOU HAVE BEEN CAUGHT WITH A BOTTLE OF COCAINE. YOU GO TO JAIL!
GEE WHIZ! JUST WHEN YOU WERE GETTING SOMEPLACE!
WELL, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. AT LEAST YOU’LL KNOW
BETTER THAN TO DO THAT AGAIN!
Turning over to that poem now, the first part of the poem seems to indicate the final destination:
BEHIND THE WALL, BELOW THE RISE,
IN THE ROOM MY TREASURE LIES
IN ALL DIRECTIONS YOU SHOULD DRIVE
TO FIND IT, YOU MUST STAY ALIVE
ON YOUR WAY ACROSS THE NATION
I think this might be the house right at the start; if you go around to the back there’s some stairs down and a second locked door. (“Below the rise”?)
YOU ARE ON THE WALKWAY AT THE BASE OF THE FRONT PORCH
STEPS LEAD WEST TO THE FRONT PORCH
ANOTHER WALKWAY LEADS NORTH AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE
>N
YOU ARE ON A WALKWAY AT THE NE CORNER OF THE HOUSE
THE WALKWAY CURVES WEST AND SOUTH HERE
THERE IS A WIRE FENCE ALONG THE BORDERS
>W
YOU ARE ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE HOUSE
STEPS HERE LEAD DOWN TO THE BASEMENT
THE WALKWAY HERE LEADS EAST AND WEST
>D
YOU ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STEPS
A SMALL DOOR IS SET INTO THE NORTH SIDE OF THE HOUSE HERE
THE DOOR IS LOCKED FROM THE INSIDE
The next part of the poem refers to a “station”, presumably a gas station, and says there is a “smoky hill” that will lead the way.
YOU’LL HAVE NEED TO FIND A STATION
THE SMOKEY HILL WILL LEAD THE WAY
I KNOW YOU’LL FIND IT, COME WHAT MAY
The hill in question is visible one of the western towns, Lakecity.
Specifically, at the ferry:
YOU ARE AT A FERRY DOCK
A FERRY IS HERE WAITING TO LOAD
ACROSS THE LAKE SMOKE CAN BE SEEN
RISING BEHIND SOME HILLS
>N
YOU ARE ON THE FERRY CROSSING A LONG LAKE
THE FERRY PULLS INTO A DOCK ON THE EAST SHORE
YOU CAN SEE SMOKE BEHIND SOME HILLS AHEAD
THE DOCK IS TO THE NORTH
This leads to a route which culminates in a “paper bag” by a road which has a card for free service at a gas station. Once you get the car you can BUY OIL, BUY GAS, and BUY TIRES while at one. I’m still puzzling over if the card is meant to be the goal of following the ferry directions, or if there’s something else entirely going on. (Or maybe even if the map is bugged. There’s one road where one part is inexplicably one-way such that I’m almost sure it was unintentional.)
If it wasn’t for the direction that makes your tires go flat, you could go to the paper bag in a much more direct way. It only affects the car going westbound, so if you go east you can land right back at the starting town.
I’m also still unclear about the next part of the poem:
FOLLOW THE SUN AT THE END OF DAY
TO GET ACROSS, YOU’LL FIND A WAY
STAY ON THE ROAD OF THE GOLDEN BAR
“Follow the sun at the end of day” surely means that we’re driving west, but there are only two places on the map where I have the opportunity to drive west and are unable to; everything else is mapped out. First, most straightforwardly, is a “RICKITY” bridge near the Passport Office that collapses. I suspect this is meant as a trap rather than a puzzle.
YOU ARE ON RICKITY ROAD
THERE IS A BRIDGE TO THE WEST
A SIGN READS: RICKITY BRIDGE
>W
YOU ARE ON A RICKITY BRIDGE
THE BRIDGE BEGINS TO SWAY AND ROCK
IT FALLS WITH A CRASH INTO THE RIVER
YOU ARE KILLED! TSK. TSK.
GEE WHIZ! JUST WHEN YOU WERE GETTING SOMEPLACE!
WELL, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. AT LEAST YOU’LL KNOW
BETTER THAN TO DO THAT AGAIN!
This even happens if you’re on foot! (By the way, the way the game treats walking on the street while out of your car is repeatedly saying IF YOU’RE GOING TO WALK, IT’LL TAKE FOREVER. If you walk over the spot on the map that pops your tire, the game will still claim the tire-popping happens, but you can walk back to the car and drive off like normal.)
The other more likely possibility for going west is back at the lake. If you drive southwest there’s a sign about tuning into the station KXXX, which is a hint that you should try to PLAY the RADIO:
THANKS FOR TUNING KXXX
AND NOW FOR THE NEWS:
MOUNT SAINT TROY ERUPTED TODAY SPEWING ASH AS FAR EAST AS AMIKAY
ROUTE 14 IS COVERED WITH UP TO FOUR FEET OF ASH IN PLACES
BE SURE TO CARRY A SHOVEL IF TRAVELING THAT WAY
MOTORISTS ARE CAUTIONED NOT TO GET TOO CLOSE TO THE VOLCANO
AS FURTHER ERUPTIONS ARE EXPECTED AT ANY TIME
THE NEAREST ACCESS ROAD IS COUNTY ROAD T8
HAVE A NICE TRIP
Just a bit further, a “great pile of ash” is blocking the way.
YOU ARE ON ROUTE 14
A GREAT PILE OF ASH BLOCKS THE ROAD HERE
However, weirdly enough, if you have the shovel with you, the way is blocked (“YOU CAN’T DO THAT”). The way to get through is to not have the shovel. This is 100% clearly a bug; the author must have swapped a logic statement somewhere. (Or there was a very slight corruption of the file which did the same thing, that has happened here before.)
YOU ARE ON ROUTE 14 A N-S ROAD
A DIRT SIDE ROAD LEADS EAST
>S
YOU ARE AT THE MAIN INTERSECTION IN THE
TOWN OF AMIKAY. MOST OF THE TOWN IS COVERED
WITH A FINE WHITE ASH
Going west you are blocked by a “locked gate” and … that’s it. I’m stuck from here. The map is big enough I’m sure it might be worthwhile to check over everything again, but the shovel bug in particular has lowered my confidence significantly and I might poke in the source code before too long.
Uncle Harry has died! You are called to his house on the east coast of the country to hear the will. The will leaves everything to you! The only problem is that he failed to tell where “everything” is located. Not even a map! The only thing that might help is a poem which gives clues on where to look.
In 1975, Art Walsh and Fred Ruckdeschel were both working at Xerox in the area of Rochester, New York. Fred was Art’s supervisor. In 1975, Ruckdeschel had just bought an Altair:
… it only came in kit form, cost $495, I think. And you you got a a box full of components in a in a shell which look like a big bread basket. And, he put one together.
He said this is neat. And, so that we could use it in our laboratories and have our machines directly input their output, into a computer and do all sorts of image analysis on it. Which we were able to do. And he, he tried getting me interested in the computers, and I’m used to working on mainframes, but, and it was also cheap.
Both Fred and Art got further into computers, writing articles for Byte magazine.
Ruckdeschel’s articles were fairly technical and eventually he wrote a two-part book of over 1000 pages on mathematical algorithms in BASIC. From November 1978 Byte.
Art had a lull between assignments where he programmed his computer to play bridge, and around the same time Fred had made an oil tanker simulator. Ruckdeschel had the notion that they since the pair had two programs already, and they could produce a few more and a start a new company together.
We formed a company, and it was one of the first software companies [1978], and the name is Dynacomp. And we ran ads in Byte Magazine … we started getting an order here and there for our software.
This was all while they were still at Xerox. The pair eventually had a personality conflict and by 1981 decided to split their company (and catalog) in two, with Art going one way with the company Artworx, and Ruckdeschel keeping under the Dynacomp name. (Some titles were kept in both, which is why both had a version of Cranston Manor Adventure.) For our purposes today, Dynacomp is more our target of interest, because Fred Ruckdeschel had a North Star Horizon at home and it was one of his favored computers, meaning his company kept the North Star part of the catalog.
Dynacomp incidentally lasted a bit longer than many other mail-order kings; they got up at least to the early 90s. Artworx had similar longevity, but at least I can explain theirs: their Bridge game was an evergreen product. With Dynacomp, I’m not entirely sure why they lasted so long. It may have been they didn’t focus entirely on the “hip” computers (like Apple and Commodore) but rather went for unusual niches, most with some variant of the CP/M operating system. In addition to their large collection — really the only large collection — for the North Star Horizon, later catalogues list support for:
Osborne, North Star CP/M, SuperBrain, NEC PC 8000 CP/M, KAYPRO II MORROW DESIGNS, HEATH ZENITH Z-100, HEATH ZENITH H-89 8″, CROMEMCO, ALTOS, XEROX 820, IBM PC/PC Jr., SANYO (with MS DOS), PANASONIC, COMPAQ Z or BA, CANON AS-100, DEC RAINBOW 100 (with MS DOS), and other CP/M IBM 3740 systems.
SuperBrain, now that’s a oddball computer. I found a Usenet thread from ’88 with someone trying to locate a commercial C compiler for CP/M and getting a recommendation for Dynacomp (a company that “no one has heard of”).
The SuperBrain came out in 1979. Check out that 70s design aesthetic! From Wikipedia.
The North Star Horizon has only come up here recently due to the discovery of a new cache of software thanks to f15sim, essentially a gigantic chunk of the Dynacomp catalog (given there are disks supposedly still left to upload, maybe the entire Dynacomp catalog). I wanted to try out three games from I hadn’t heard of before: Gumball Rally Adventure, Uncle Harry’s Will, and Windmere Estate, all (probably) by R.L. Turner. They’d been out there in the Dynacomp catalog already (see the Winter ’82 one here) but uncatalogued on Mobygames and elsewhere; the North Star just never has gotten much attention.
I unfortunately have not dredged up any details on R. L. Turner other than he seems to have been a car enthusiast, as his first game in the Dynacomp catalog (probably) is Gumball Rally Adventure. The (probably) is because it is listed as copyright 1980 from Novel Software, but there’s a Turner Motel, and the theming matches quite strongly with Uncle Harry which we’re about to get to, and they’re right next to each other in the catalogue, so–
YOU ARE IN GOOFY’S GARAGE ON THE EAST SIDE OF BIGTOWN. THERE ARE FIVE CARS PARKED HERE. YOU MAY CHOOSE ANY ONE TO DRIVE. EACH CAR HAS BEEN PREPARED FOR RACING AND IS GASSED UP READY TO GO. ALL FIVE CARS HAVE A SPARE TIRE IN THE TRUNK. THERE IS AN EMPTY 1 GALLON CAN HERE. ALONG ONE WALL IS A GAS PUMP, AIR & WATER HOSES, GREASE GUNS, ETC. THE EXIT IS ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE BUILDING AND LEADS ONTO A NORTH-SOUTH STREET. WHICH CAR WILL YOU DRIVE?
This is essentially a simulation game in the vein of Camel, The Oregon Trail, etc. where you are trying to get from point A to point B. Except if you don’t have the map which presumably came with the game, it’s super easy to get to lost trying to get from one coast to the other.
This is based on the ’76 movie and some of the vehicle choices seem to match what’s on the show.
(The trailer references It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World from more than a decade before, which is a comedy where people were racing across the country to find a treasure hidden at the Big W. This movie was also part of the trend invoking the brief fame held by Cannonball Runs, getting from one coast to the other coast of the US as fast as possible, like Will Wright did in 1980.)
I have no doubt there’s an “optimal” vehicle choice (they allegedly have different gas consumption and handling) but I wasn’t interested enough in the proceedings to figure out.
The basic idea is:
1. Type START to start your engine, STOP to stop.
2. Type a number to change your speed.
3. If something is a “sharp” curve the car’s speed needs to be fairly low (25, sometimes lower) or the car will slide.
4. You’ll lose a shocking number of tires to flats, you need to CHANGE TIRE when it happens.
5. At various gas stations you can BUY GAS, BUY OIL, or BUY TIRE. Make sure you buy more than one spare because of the aforementioned flats.
6. There’s the occasional police radar speed trap.
7. There’s the occasional other special encounter, like a school bus and a hitchhiker (who will, according to the source code, steal your car if you try to stop, but I was never able to get her to trigger).
YOU STOP FOR THE BLONDE. SHE GETS IN AND PULLS A GUN. SHE TAKES ALL YOUR MONEY AND YOUR CAR. YOU LOSE!
8. There’s a bit where it “goes dark” and you are supposed to type LIGHTS ON. It’s a car, after all, not the middle of a dungeon.
9. I’m not entirely sure if the map is bug-free; I managed to get to one point where it “overlapped” a road in a way that didn’t make sense, and I checked every route going west and all of them dead-ended.
(Orange is a gas station, red is a tire blow-out spot, blue is police radar.)
Despite the very mild gesture to special encounters this is entirely “simulation” gameplay without anything resembling a puzzle. However, it does get at something I’ve wondered, which is the Route to Adventure Without Adventure; that is, if we didn’t have Crowther/Woods or Wander, and we somehow got to an Adventure archetype, by what route would it come? By adding a map a game like Camel gets close to feeling like an adventure, maybe? However, that’s not what happened here as the author is clearly aware of adventures and adds a response to PLUGH:
MAGIC WORDS DON’T WORK HERE
It was worth spending the time here because of Uncle Harry’s Will, which is clearly playing with the same idea, but dumps the speed/gas simulation aspect.
UNCLE HARRY HAS DIED! UNCLE HARRY HASN’T BEEN HEARD FROM IN A NUMBER OF YEARS. HE WAS PRETTY MUCH A RECLUSE AND DIDN’T HAVE MUCH CONTACT WITH THE FAMILY. IT WAS SAID THAT UNCLE HARRY WAS RICH AND HAD HIDDEN A LARGE TREASURE WORTH MILLIONS.
WHEN THE LAWYER CALLED, HE STATED THAT YOU ARE THE LONE BENIFICIARY. HE ASKED THAT YOU COME TO HARRY’S HOUSE FOR A READING OF THE WILL. THE WILL WAS QUITE SIMPLE. IT STATED THAT THE MONEY WAS YOURS IF YOU COULD FIND IT. THE ONLY CLUES TO THE LOCATION WERE IN THE FORM OF A POEM. NO OTHER CLUES! NOT EVEN A MAP. I GUESS YOU’LL HAVE TO MAKE A MAP AS YOU TRAVEL.
Looking at 1981, the only other “rich person dies with an eccentric will” game is Stoneville Manor; the rich person in that game wasn’t technically our relative! So this is arguably the first “claim your inheritance” adventure plot (eventually followed by games like Hollywood Hijinx and The Mulldoon Legacy and…. IFDB lists 14 games and I’m pretty sure it is missing a few).
BEHIND THE WALL, BELOW THE RISE,
IN THE ROOM MY TREASURE LIES
IN ALL DIRECTIONS YOU SHOULD DRIVE
TO FIND IT, YOU MUST STAY ALIVE
ON YOUR WAY ACROSS THE NATION
YOU’LL HAVE NEED TO FIND A STATION
THE SMOKEY HILL WILL LEAD THE WAY
I KNOW YOU’LL FIND IT, COME WHAT MAY
FOLLOW THE SUN AT THE END OF DAY
TO GET ACROSS, YOU’LL FIND A WAY
STAY ON THE ROAD OF THE GOLDEN BAR
‘TILL YOU FIND THE PLACE WITH THE PARKED CAR
FOLLOW THE LION ‘TILL YOU FIND THE SCHOOL
CLIMB ON UP AND SEE THE JEWEL
FROM THE TOP YOU CAN SEE REAL GOOD
THE THING YOU WANT’S BENEATH THE WOOD
TAKE THE THING THAT YOU’LL FIND THERE
THEN GO AND SEARCH; YOU’LL KNOW WHERE
The big difference here between this wacky uncle and his later variants as that this one is asking you to drive cross-country. It’s possible R. L. Turner (and the fictional uncle) are fans of road rallies with a puzzle element. These are road races where the racers need to follow instructions and there are puzzles embedded within.
Here’s an example of an easy gimmick: a misspelled street name. Let’s say that your current Route Instruction is “Turn right at Smith” when you come to Smyth Street. According to the General Instructions, the word “Smith” must appear on a sign where you do this Route Instruction, but the word “Smith” does not appear on the “Smyth St” sign.
I have no idea if Uncle Harry’s Will is really following this tradition (which includes straight puzzle hunts), because I still have yet to get that far. The map alone is a serious time investment; there are multiple connected towns and a freeway to map out, and finally one-way exits make sense. You spend most of the time in your car, although you can LEAVE CAR to enter locations on foot. The only adventure I’ve played that I can think of that’s remotely comparable is Amnesia (1986), which put in every intersection in Manhattan.
Rather like Amnesia, most locations in Uncle Harry’s Will are bare-bones. Amnesia doesn’t make the player map things out, but we have to. Driving onward!
YOU ARE ON MAIN ST. IN THE TOWN OF EASTPORT
MAIN RUNS NORTH-SOUTH
>N
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF MAIN AND FIR
>E
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF DOCK AND FIR
>N
YOU ARE AT THE CORNER OF DOCK AND PINE
>W
YOU ARE AT THE INTERSECTION OF MAIN AND PINE
>N
YOU ARE AT THE EASTPORT ZOO. THE ZOO IS CLOSED
Before driving away too far I should mention there’s a by-foot location right where you start in the town of Eastport: you can walk up to a house which is locked and the game asks for a key you don’t have.
>LEAVE CAR
OK, YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR CAR
>W
YOU ARE ON THE STEPS LEADING TO A WALKWAY UP TO THE FRONT PORCH THE WALKWAY HAS A WIRE FENCE ALONG BOTH SIDES HERE
TO THE WEST IS THE FRONT PORCH
>W
YOU ARE ON THE WALKWAY AT THE BASE OF THE FRONT PORCH STEPS LEAD WEST TO THE FRONT PORCH ANOTHER WALKWAY LEADS NORTH AROUND THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE
>W
YOU ARE ON THE FRONT PORCH THE FRONT DOOR IS TO THE WEST TO THE EAST STEPS LEAD DOWN TO A FENCED WALKWAY
>W
YOU HAVE NO KEY
I can give the starting town at least, which has no items to nab.
However, the freeway (which you can see a part of) makes things very confusing, as it is possible to have it merge with an existing freeway without it being clear.
YOU ARE ON A NORTHBOUND FREEWAY
>N
YOU ARE ON A NORTHBOUND FREEWAY
THE FREEWAY PASSES THROUGH MOUNTAINS HERE
>N
YOU ARE ON A NORTHBOUND FREEWAY
>N
YOU ARE ON A NORTHBOUND FREEWAY
THERE IS AN EXIT TO THE NE AHEAD
>NE
YOU ARE AT THE CORNER OF PARK AND OAK
(In the clip above, we landed back in the starting town, but it wasn’t clear that’s what was going to happen until I tried the exit, and sometimes exits just lead to more freeways.)
Here are some highway rooms where I’m fairly sure I did a loop and have some duplication:
Taking Route 60 south from Eastport I was able to find a dirt road with a chainsaw, my first item.
YOU AT THE END OF THE ROAD
THERE ARE CUT TREES EVERYWHERE
THIS IS AN OLD LOGGING CAMP
THERE IS A CHAINSAW LAYING NEAR A LOG HERE
Further down there’s the town of Baycity where I was able to find a shovel in an old hardware store and a ferry ticket in the dump. Everything seems to be totally abandoned.
The abandonment (so far) means no police radars, but I did find a spot that clearly invoked Gumball Rally with a flat tire trying to go west from the starting town.
YOU ARE ON FORD ROAD
THERE IS A BRIDGE TO THE WEST
THERE IS A LOUD POP! YOU HAVE A FLAT TIRE!
>CHANGE TIRE
YOU HAVE NO SPARE TIRE
THERE YOU SIT WITH A FLAT TIRE!
AND NO SPARE! NEXT TIME, GET MORE SPARES!
READY
Well. I would buy one if I could find a store with living people! I’m sure they are somewhere. This seems to now be treated more like a puzzle than a simulationist checkbox.
I’ll try my best to get more of a full map next time and maybe reckon with the poem. Even with the abandoned towns this could end up being a neat idea but the number of rooms (over 300, according to the advertising) is overwhelming.
At least the reward ought to be better than a gumball machine! Although I could see the plot having a twist at the end.
Renga in Blue 
