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Colecovision Adam "Temple of Apshai Trilogy?"


ballyalley

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I have been playing the "Temple of Apshai Trilogy" for various systems over the past two weeks (Amiga, Atari 8-Bit and Commodore 64). I have been mapping the levels and posting graphics from the games in an AtariAge forum topic that I started. If you're interesting, you can read about it here:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/183584-temple-of-apshai-trilogy-maps/

 

I have seen references to the "Temple of Apshai Trilogy" for the Colecovsion Adam, but I have not actually been able to find this title. I HAVE found "The Temple of Apshai," but NOT the Trilogy. Does the Trilogy actually exist for the Colecovision Adam or was only the first Dunjonquest game released on disk?

 

I use BlueMSX for Colecovision emulation (and it works great), but I don't see any support for Adam emulation with this emulator. What is the best Adam emulator for Windows XP that will support the disk drive so that I can play "Temple of Apshai" (and the Trilogy too, if it exists).

 

Adam

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Temple of Apshai Trilogy was never developed for the ADAM, only the first game in the series was under development, and actually it was never completed by Epyx before they stopped further development of the game due the the ADAM's failure in the marketplace. Eventually a prototype/demo found it's way into ADAM Community and was made available for everyone as Shareware/Public Domain and the Disk Image is available all over the web.

 

BlueMSX only emulates the ColecoVision (although the authors have stated an interest in adding ADAM emulation), so as far as options you can use M.E.S.S. (pretty good ADAM emulation, although no saving back to the disk image is available) or your best option is ADAMem with ADAMem Manager. A tremendous Frontend was developed by Steve Pitman that allows users of Windows Vista and 7 to use ADAMem in those operating systems and it will also work in Windows XP... so I would go this route if I were you.

 

You can download Virtual ADAM v1.03 for the Download section at this location:

 

http://www.sacnews.net/adamcomputer/index.html

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Only the Temple of Apshai is available for the Coleco ADAM.

 

Nice work mapping the levels. I've been following your thread in the Atari 8-bit forum. The levels in the ADAM version appear to be identical (or very similar) to what you've mapped.

 

Here's the most complete disk image for Temple of Apshai. Temple of Apshai - Rev. 2 Patched a1.zip

It's version 2.1 and it's the only version where level 1 is playable.

 

 

I've got a gameplay video of the ADAM version. I started on level 2 and edited it to highlight the monsters. 13 types of monsters are included in the video.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLG7ziQMf-0

Edited by ed1475
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Nice work mapping the levels. I've been following your thread in the Atari 8-bit forum. The levels in the ADAM version appear to be identical (or very similar) to what you've mapped.

 

Just from watching your video I can tell where you are in the game, so the game sure is very similar. I have not yet played the Adam version of The Temple of Apshai, but it appears to be a cross between the original game and the game from the Trilogy. Is it written in BASIC, as the original game was written?

 

Here's the most complete disk image for Temple of Apshai.

 

That's for providing that-- it makes sifting through various versions unnecessary.

 

13 types of monsters are included in the video.

 

The monsters are animated more than in other versions of the game that I've seen. I wonder how come Epyx did away with the animated monsters in the Trilogy?

 

It's pretty fun seeing these different versions of the game!

 

Adam

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Temple of Apshai is a machine language program.

 

I have some Temple of Apshai knockoffs that were done in SmartBASIC and are surprisingly decent. Will have to look for them as I don;t remember of their titles.... I think one was called "The Black Dungeon of Midor".

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I finally got a chance to play the Adam version of Temple of Apshai a bit. As I observed from watching the video, this version of the game is rather different from the other versions of The Temple of Apshai that I've played. Your character gets tired VERY quickly in this game. This game is also FAR faster paced then I've seen on other systems. When I exited the level after just beating 16 monsters I had gained millions of experience points. I presume that this game, while playable, isn't NEARLY finished or is this hacked to make the game easier? I also was unable to save my character or game in progress. The game warns me that the disk is full.

 

Adam

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Cool findings re. the game and interested to hear what else you are able to come up with as I never did spend a lot of time playing around with it back in the day as I never seemed to be able to find the time to sit down and give these types of games the necessary play time.

 

The original prototype/demo/unreleased version as was obtained from Epyx was indeed buggy, but this mainly dealt with the inability to get it working on a disk, it was originally supplied on data pack, the save feature was a mess and there were a number of menu (especially at the start of the game) that were messed up. A programmer by the name of Joe Waters spent considerable time fixing these issues or most of them to get it to the state we now know. He actually lived in Albuquerque and released software for the ADAM under the Federation Software label and did the Temple hack and some others under the Falcon Federation Hack Group (or something like that) label, but I lost touch with him in the very early 90's.

 

As far as saving your progress, which emulator are you using? I'm pretty sure the version that was posted above should be the best available with the save feature corrected. If you are using MESS, you can't save due to incomplete emulation, you have to use ADAMem or Virtual ADAM. In Virtual ADAM, make sure to uncheck the option "Run copies of images" on the options screen before booting the game.

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The save feature doesn't work on any of the 3 disk images available. Version 2.1 makes level 1 playable.

 

For the 2 older versions:

1 version has the original copyrighted title screen. Another version has the "Phoenix Rev 2" title screen. Level 1 isn't playable on either of these 2 versions. Only levels 2 thru 4 are playable.

 

The 3rd version is the one I posted above. It's the version 2.1 Falcon Federation Hack version. It has the original copyright info but the bottom half of the copyright symbol is missing. All 4 levels are playable.

Edited by ed1475
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I still can't believe no one has tried to remake this game, or the Gateway to Apshai for modern PCs or mobile OSes

 

I was wondering about this myself. So many games have fan translations, but I haven't seen anything at all about The Temple of Apshai games. Isn't there a way to at least build the dungeons (perhaps I should say "dunjons")? I don't play modern games, but I imagine that there are editors that would allow a fan to do this. If nothing else, at least the dungeons could be created-- even if they weren't populated by monsters. It would be extremely neat to explore the dungeons in 3D. If someone went all-out and found a few artists, then the descriptions from the booklet could be used to make every room unique. This is all lots of work, which is why I suppose it hasn't been done before. Plus, it has been twenty-six years since the last Apshai release, which was the Trilogy, and even at that time the game was already six years old. How many people actually remember the game? I guess all it takes is one person to get the ball started...

 

Adam

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So many games have fan translations, but I haven't seen anything at all about The Temple of Apshai games.

 

I've still been looking through various versions of the Temple of Apshai Trilogy. Completely by accident I happened to come across a link to a remake of the game. I found this link AFTER I stopped looking for remakes of the game.

 

It turns out that The Temple of Apshai has been remade at least once. There is a fan-made module by a user called gotherthanthou35 that is available for the computer game Neverwinter Nights (which is a Dungeons and Dragon's game).

 

The description of the module says:

 

Remake of the classic game by EPYX from the early 80's. Arguably the first graphical CRPG. This is a classic dungeon crawl with some nice setup plot, but no real plot development in-game. The game works well single-player, and does not need a DM for multi-player. Mutliplayer should be set up for 1-party-only. It is not set up to have any PW support. You should start with a new first level character, possibly second if running an arcane spellcaster. The module will take you well into 4th level and possibly to 5th. Version changed to final as I have had over 100 downloads with no bug reports. I will still update this module if anyone finds problems.

 

Here is a link where you can download the Temple of Apshai module:

 

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Modules.Detail&id=3418

 

While I have plenty of experience playing D&D with pen and paper (over twenty years ago), I have very little experience with the computer games. The last one I really played at all was the Commodore 64 version of Pools of Radiance, but because of all the constant disk-swapping I didn't play it much at all.

 

Neverwinter Nights was originally released in 2002. The module for Temple of Apshai requires the game plus two expansions: Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. Luckily The Neverwinter Nights Diamond edition is available for $9.99 from Good Old Games (www.gog.com). This is a 2.1GB download. Here is a direct link to the D&D game:

 

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/neverwinter_nights_diamond_edition

 

Although I don't play new games like this, I MAY purchase this game just to play the Temple of Apshai module. However, I'm still busy mapping the Atari version of the game, so this may not happen at all. Is there anyone on this forum who plays this D&D game and can try this Temple of Apshai module and let us know if it is true to the original game?

 

Adam

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  • 10 years later...
On 7/5/2011 at 2:47 PM, ballyalley said:

Although I don't play new games like this, I MAY purchase this game just to play the Temple of Apshai module. However, I'm still busy mapping the Atari version of the game, so this may not happen at all. Is there anyone on this forum who plays this D&D game and can try this Temple of Apshai module and let us know if it is true to the original game?

I own this (Neverwinter Nights) and by now there is even an enhanced edition.  I'll have to try this module out!

 

Also, I bought a giant box of Coleco stuff, with two (seemingly broken) Adams and a ColecoVision, plus a ton of tapes.  On one of these tapes was written 'Temple of Apshai' so I went looking to see what the state of this game is.  It's obviously not an official version, but anyone actually know how to transfer a tape to a disk image/sd card?  So far all I have is the AtariMax SD cart for it, and am waiting for the Fujinet for it, as I figure that could replace the disk drive need.  I'll let the tape sit on my counter until I can get that.  Would be cool if I found a random dev version.  Still need to look through the other tapes, there were a ton of them.  At least I know the tape drive works, as I played Donkey Kong Jr. through it.

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On 6/29/2011 at 8:58 PM, ed1475 said:

Only the Temple of Apshai is available for the Coleco ADAM.

 

I guess cartridge version was never released then? Bummer..

 

On 6/29/2011 at 11:32 PM, ballyalley said:

I finally got a chance to play the Adam version of Temple of Apshai a bit. As I observed from watching the video, this version of the game is rather different from the other versions of The Temple of Apshai that I've played. Your character gets tired VERY quickly in this game. This game is also FAR faster paced then I've seen on other systems. When I exited the level after just beating 16 monsters I had gained millions of experience points. I presume that this game, while playable, isn't NEARLY finished or is this hacked to make the game easier? I also was unable to save my character or game in progress. The game warns me that the disk is full.

Is this something Team Pixelboy or Collectorvision might be interested in fixing/finishing and releasing on a cart? That would be awesome... Maybe replace the footsteps with some ambient dungeon noises. If not how about a Colecovision version of Rogue! New we're talking, serious I'd love both!

 

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30 minutes ago, Zeptari1 said:

I guess cartridge version was never released then? Bummer..

Curious what the req differences would be between the Adam and ColecoVision.  Just started getting into the Adam, and other than graphics and sound, storage choices seem to be the biggest bump (and likely memory).  Is there save capability with the CV? 

This game really should get finished.  It seemed more real time than the other versions... almost more Gauntlet-like.

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6 hours ago, leech said:

Also, I bought a giant box of Coleco stuff, with two (seemingly broken) Adams and a ColecoVision, plus a ton of tapes.  On one of these tapes was written 'Temple of Apshai' so I went looking to see what the state of this game is.  It's obviously not an official version, but anyone actually know how to transfer a tape to a disk image/sd card?  So far all I have is the AtariMax SD cart for it, and am waiting for the Fujinet for it, as I figure that could replace the disk drive need.  I'll let the tape sit on my counter until I can get that.  Would be cool if I found a random dev version.  Still need to look through the other tapes, there were a ton of them.  At least I know the tape drive works, as I played Donkey Kong Jr. through it.

Congrats on the ADAM and CV pickup... lots of good things happening for both systems.

 

The ToA copy you have on data pack is most likely what the User's Groups and Mail Orders sold BITD, but you never know so keep it safe until it can be copied/backed up to an image file.

 

The AtariMax Ultimate SD Cart is only for use with ROM image files of cartridges so at least with that you can play Gateway to Apshai. It won't work with disk or data pack image files.

 

I do not recall if the ADAM version of ToA is hardcoded to load from a specific drive be it data pack or disk. IIRC it was coded properly or hacked so that you can copy it between those different media and it will still work properly. Once you get an SD Drive:

 

MicroFox VDD - http://ann.hollowdreams.com/

 

ADE - https://github.com/Kalidomra/AdamNet-Drive-Emulator?fbclid=IwAR0YMIc-HI1ACdwOVlT82DCEd-uvHy6YFMc4ZmYyyv3831fkkQofSKySsGA

ADE Build Video -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcOPctXP788CkTiQR_9CtWQ

 

or wait for FujiNet, there are plenty of utility programs available to copy media onto an SD Card in an image file.

 

For now, emulation can get you started. Try ADAMem SDL with the ADAMem Manager Frontend or Virtual ADAM v1.03. ColEm and CoolCV also support the ADAM, but to varying degrees.

 

www.adamarchive.org

www.ColecoAdam.net

 

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17 minutes ago, NIAD said:

Congrats on the ADAM and CV pickup... lots of good things happening for both systems.

 

The ToA copy you have on data pack is most likely what the User's Groups and Mail Orders sold BITD, but you never know so keep it safe until it can be copied/backed up to an image file.

 

The AtariMax Ultimate SD Cart is only for use with ROM image files of cartridges so at least with that you can play Gateway to Apshai. It won't work with disk or data pack image files.

 

I do not recall if the ADAM version of ToA is hardcoded to load from a specific drive be it data pack or disk. IIRC it was coded properly or hacked so that you can copy it between those different media and it will still work properly. Once you get an SD Drive:

 

MicroFox VDD - http://ann.hollowdreams.com/

 

ADE - https://github.com/Kalidomra/AdamNet-Drive-Emulator?fbclid=IwAR0YMIc-HI1ACdwOVlT82DCEd-uvHy6YFMc4ZmYyyv3831fkkQofSKySsGA

ADE Build Video -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcOPctXP788CkTiQR_9CtWQ

 

or wait for FujiNet, there are plenty of utility programs available to copy media onto an SD Card in an image file.

 

For now, emulation can get you started. Try ADAMem SDL with the ADAMem Manager Frontend or Virtual ADAM v1.03. ColEm and CoolCV also support the ADAM, but to varying degrees.

 

www.adamarchive.org

www.ColecoAdam.net

 

Awesome!  Thanks for the links.  There are a bunch of tapes I haven't even gone through.  But seeing as how I have seen about the tapes will just go poof if you have them in the deck when you turn the printer on... I've been extra paranoid about that!  Is there any reason to get the 512kb ram upgrade for it?  From what I saw that was the biggest memory upgrade.  Anyhow, I should likely start a new thread about this... but it looks like I did get a lot of original software, like CPM, and a couple copies of the Net Link software.  I should probably try some troubleshooting of the two Adams, one turns on, but outputs nothing.  The other I can't even get a light on the keyboard... such an odd system...

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The same eBay seller also makes and sells a 1Mb Memory Expander!

 

A 64K Memory Expander is plenty good for the largest majority of ADAM owners. Going with a 256K ME or larger also requires the additional purchase of a Slot #2 interface card that provides the necessary Memory Addressor so that the ADAM can see the extra expansion RAM above 64K.

 

Yeah, start a new thread…

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  • 2 years later...
6 hours ago, RGDiRocco said:

image.thumb.png.70ba3cc20d448de321eea753cdbcaf54.png

Man, you are digging deep into old threads on here!

 

Nice job on the Epyx box although ColecoVision should be changed to Coleco as we are dealing solely with and ADAM program on DDP/Disk.

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Coleco Temple of Apshai was one of my favorite games when it came out.   Nothing like trying to be very careful at the later levels and you get jump scared when a vampire pops up and...  like lightning, tracks over to you in a millisecond and you die.  Fun times.... never did figure out what some of the items do...  Did someone ever decompile this or come up with a better manual to describe each item, etc?

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1 hour ago, OriginalJohn said:

Coleco Temple of Apshai was one of my favorite games when it came out.   Nothing like trying to be very careful at the later levels and you get jump scared when a vampire pops up and...  like lightning, tracks over to you in a millisecond and you die.  Fun times.... never did figure out what some of the items do...  Did someone ever decompile this or come up with a better manual to describe each item, etc?

I think you're confusing Gateway to Apshai with Temple of Apshai (which to my knowledge was never released).

 

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