ADAM Computer Game of the Week #07

[NIAD]

Addictus

by Reedy Software (1989)

 

&

 

Brainstorm

by Steve Pitman Software (1990)

 

No Extra Hardware Requirements

 

This week, I give you not one, but two, Tetris clones that were developed for the ADAM Computer a little more than a year apart. Along with the great ColecoVision title Kevtris, I think everyone will now have enough versions of Tetris to keep themselves busy with!

 

I am missing the manual for Addictus, but game play is identical to Tetris and the controls are as follows:

 

LEFT & RIGHT ARROW KEYS = left and right movement

DOWN ARROW KEY = drop piece into place

SPACEBAR = pause

ESCAPE/WP = restart

CLEAR = clear high score list

 

The instructions for Brainstorm are built-in to the game or can be viewed in SmartWRITER. Brainstrom adds a nice twist to the normal Tetris clone with the addition of letters in the falling blocks that may or may not be part of a phrase that needs to be solved as well... Hangman or Wheel of Fortune style.

 

Addictus will work with all ADAM Emulators, but you can't save your high scores in MESS due to incomplete emulation. Brainstorm will only work with ADAMem/Virtual ADAM.

 

Enjoy!

Addictus (1989) (Reedy Software).zip

Brainstorm (1990) (Steve Pitman Software).zip

[King_Salamon]

Brainstorm is an interesting twist to Tetris... if I had an Adam, I would definitely give that one a try! (And no I don't do emulators on the PC thing)

 

And thanks for continuing to share these games with us... back in the Adam days I didn't know there was that much software for the system!

[NIAD]

Brainstorm is an interesting twist to Tetris... if I had an Adam, I would definitely give that one a try! (And no I don't do emulators on the PC thing)

 

And thanks for continuing to share these games with us... back in the Adam days I didn't know there was that much software for the system!

It's too bad you don't do emulators... but understandable.

 

Yeah, there was actually quite a bit of software developed by "homebrewers" for the ADAM... some every bit as good as software released commercially for other 8-bit systems of the time. Three programs come to mind that were released in 1987 that really accelerated and vastly improved software development for the ADAM and they were: PowerPAINT, SpritePOWER and Clipper all developed by Digital Express. Not only did you get these great graphics design programs, but also all the necessary programs/routines and instructions for using the files created by these programs in SmartBASIC.

 

I've only been highlighted the standard Operating System (E.O.S.) software, there was tons and tons of CP/M software available or converted to ADAM CP/M format as well and with the addition of an 80 column card and hard drive... you had yourself a very potent business computer as well. I still recall a users group meeting were one of our members brought in a suped-up ADAM that included such programs as WordStar, dBase, Write Hand Man, SuperCalc, etc. that he used to run his business.

[newcoleco]

I've heard about Addictus when I was at an ADAMCon convention and I've heard about the competitions done of this game during past conventions. The champion of Addictus was always the same person, a woman (old lady) who is also very good at SmartLogo.

[King_Salamon]

Yeah I guess I was swept up in the Commodore 64 craze when I was younger. I had tons of software for that machine. Bard's Tale 1 to 3, Deathlord, Wasteland... all those and soo much more. Come to think of it, I must have had more software on that system than I ever had time to play it all... lol. And then I discovered friends who made 'copies' and then I got to try thousands of games.

 

I had one friend who had the Adam and when I went to his house, we played Colecovision games on it... I don't recall even playing anything that required the Adam. I guess that's where my blindness to Adam software comes from.

 

Your description of the guy with the suped up Adam reminds me of a fellow who had a suped up 64 which he used to run a bbs. I went to his place on several occasions and he had quite the extensive collection of C64 toys. (Man talk about more software than you'll ever play in your lifetime!) Back then, the thought of using these machines for business purposes was beyond foolish! lol I wanted to visit the next new world or discover the next boss/character/town whatever it was. Business use? bah! lol (I had a friend whose family bought an IBM PC Jr... he told me of all these games that they could get... never saw a single one on that computer... it did have TRON on the screen (now I understand it to be a programming language.. or something lol) and at the time I thought it was the game!

[NIAD]

I've heard about Addictus when I was at an ADAMCon convention and I've heard about the competitions done of this game during past conventions. The champion of Addictus was always the same person, a woman (old lady) who is also very good at SmartLogo.

I think that Addictus competition was held at ADAMcon 02 in Toronto and/or ADAMcon 03 in South Bend and the winner was Mrs. Clee. Funny you bring up SmartLOGO as she was and still is one of the foremost experts (probably in the world) on that programming language and still to this date has continued giving LOGO seminars at the yearly ADAMcons.

 

While I never delved to deeply in LOGO programming (just enough to assemble public domain volumes with menus and testing contributions we recieved at the users group), many people have stated that the ADAM version is on of the best versions developed for any computer. Two other ADAMites come to mind that wrote numerous articles on programming in SmartLOGO that were carried in numerous newsletters as well and they were Ron Mitchell (still active on the Wedn. chats) and Ricki Gerlach.

[NIAD]

Yeah I guess I was swept up in the Commodore 64 craze when I was younger. I had tons of software for that machine. Bard's Tale 1 to 3, Deathlord, Wasteland... all those and soo much more. Come to think of it, I must have had more software on that system than I ever had time to play it all... lol. And then I discovered friends who made 'copies' and then I got to try thousands of games.

 

I had one friend who had the Adam and when I went to his house, we played Colecovision games on it... I don't recall even playing anything that required the Adam. I guess that's where my blindness to Adam software comes from.

 

Your description of the guy with the suped up Adam reminds me of a fellow who had a suped up 64 which he used to run a bbs. I went to his place on several occasions and he had quite the extensive collection of C64 toys. (Man talk about more software than you'll ever play in your lifetime!) Back then, the thought of using these machines for business purposes was beyond foolish! lol I wanted to visit the next new world or discover the next boss/character/town whatever it was. Business use? bah! lol (I had a friend whose family bought an IBM PC Jr... he told me of all these games that they could get... never saw a single one on that computer... it did have TRON on the screen (now I understand it to be a programming language.. or something lol) and at the time I thought it was the game!

I got swept up in the C=64 craze as well especially since all my friends had one and there was a video store close by that rented C=64 software, or should I say games! While I enjoyed the system and playing all the hundreds of games I had for it, I would actually say playing all the games became second fiddle to figuring out how to break the protection and copy it to add to the collection. A couple years ago, I downloaded a large archive of C=64 software and I swear there are disk images of game compilations that I assembled back in the day.

 

Eventually though, most of my friends moved on to the Amiga but I didn't follow and kept chugging along with my ADAMs... escpecially since I started working at a computer store where an ADAM Users Group was operated out of.

Edited February 8, 2011 by NIAD