Good old Scott Adams Adventures

[mizapf]

When we recently discussed Infocom adventures, I felt like trying Zork and those other games again. But before, I thought, why not give those old adventure games a try, those from Scott Adams. Where we, in today's world, a confronted with games of dozens of gigabytes and most complex gameplay (playing Fallout 4 right now), it's somewhat a nice break to try to solve Pirate's Adventure.

 

I know there are a lot more games for the Adventure module (I even wrote an own one with the Adventure Editor), but I'm limiting myself to the "classic" series from Adventureland to Golden Voyage.

 

Did you play all those games in the past? Try them. And don't look for walkthrus (they are out there, of course); it is possibly to solve them by guessing, trying, combining.

 

I just completed "#5: The Count", which I found best so far. Next is "#6: Strange Odyssey".

[AMenard]

It's on my bucket list.

[digdugnate]

oh my gosh, i LOVE the Scott Adams adventures. Those are some of the titles I look back the mostly fondly playing as a kid growing up- my dad and aunt both were OBSESSED with them too.

 

I've completed recently:

 

Adventureland

Pirate's Adventure (this was the first one I finished as a kid)

Voodoo Castle

Mystery Fun House

The Count

Ghost Town (this was a tough one!)

 

i think my aunt managed to finish all the games- some of these are just straight-up DIFFICULT in my opinion, hehe. I have a notebook with maps and notes to myself as I played through them. I think my favorites were probably Adventureland and Mystery Fun House.

[digdugnate]

this is for the TRS-80, but you can also see a Basic listing of the source loader and stuff for Pirate's Adventure.

 

https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1980-12/1980_12_BYTE_05-12_Adventure#page/n195/mode/2up

[mizapf]

The Count had some particular fun factor with the limited time. You had to figure out the correct sequence of actions, and also a location where you could store your objects safely so that you could not be robbed.

 

Pirate's Adventure was most likely the first one for everyone of us, because it was packaged with the Adventure module. I think the next one I got was Savage Island.

 

I remember when I first played Savage Island 1, this was very frustrating, because if you did not have the right idea, Hurricane Alexis swept you off the island, and the game was over. Interestingly, this is his wife's name. :-)

 

BTW, I did not notice that typo in the splash screen until today! You know which one?

[digdugnate]

The Count had some particular fun factor with the limited time. You had to figure out the correct sequence of actions, and also a location where you could store your objects safely so that you could not be robbed.

 

Pirate's Adventure was most likely the first one for everyone of us, because it was packaged with the Adventure module. I think the next one I got was Savage Island.

 

I remember when I first played Savage Island 1, this was very frustrating, because if you did not have the right idea, Hurricane Alexis swept you off the island, and the game was over. Interestingly, this is his wife's name. :-)

 

BTW, I did not notice that typo in the splash screen until today! You know which one?

yup! Adam must have had quite the adventure

[Vorticon]

I got stuck on Pyramid of Doom. Need to go back and give it a shot again!

[majestyx]

I liked them back in the day because I was very limited on funds and the fact that they were so difficult, they kept me busy on the computer until I gave up in frustration. Good stories they were not, but if you view them for what they are - scavenger hunts with many nonsensical and illogical puzzles with a penchant for sadism in their ways of killing you off at a moments notice - then they were okay, but they just don't hold up once you realize how pretty much the same they all were, with about the only thing changing being the level of torture you want to put yourself through. I played the original run of them and even have my solution to Return to Pirate's Isle a few places on the internet. I also played his Questprobe series which I had on the Apple ][ which was again, the same old game engine with added graphics. About the only one I look back on with any sense of nostalgia is RTPI, if only for how long it took me to solve it.

[BassGuitari]

I try to play through these blind, but I always get stuck.

[Shift838]

I got stuck on Pyramid of Doom. Need to go back and give it a shot again!

 

yes, Pyramid of Doom gave me some issues but i was dedicated and at the time it was the only adventure game I had so I got through it.

 

I'm mapping out a new Pyramid of Doom sequel right now.

[+adamantyr]

I enjoyed the old Scott Adams text adventures a lot! I even have Scott Adams on my FB friends list.

 

I remember making a breakthrough when playing Mission Impossible, encoded in ROT13:

 

Ba zl bja, V qrpvqrq gb oernx gur jvaqbj ol guebjvat gur gncr erpbeqre ng vg. V jnf fb fhecevfrq jura V glcrq "OERNX JVAQBJ" naq vg fnvq "Jung qb lbh jnag gb oernx vg jvgu?" naq V fnvq "JVGU GNCR" naq vg jbexrq!

 

I played and won most of them, I was proud of winning Golden Voyage all on my own without any hint books, or having watched the Sinbad movie it copied stuff from.

 

The only one I NEVER could win was Savage Island. Besides being so vague on what exactly you were doing and why, the game had so many "Oops you died" at random moments. That was the only one I ever used the hint book for, and even THAT didn't help.

[mizapf]

At the end of Savage Island 1, you got a passcode. Savage Island 2 started in the "dead" state, and only with this passcode, you were able to continue. The "ugly" thing was that there were actually two passcodes, depending on whether you had a particular item in your inventory at the end of SI1.

 

It is too long ago for me to remember how I solved it. It is quite likely that at some point I either looked into the program file, or I used Weiand's Adventure Editor.

 

I think the only adventure where I was even less successful was Deadline from Infocom: I never solved it, although I had the original package with all physical hints.

[+adamantyr]

Knight Ironheart is the hardest of all. I studied the code in the adventure editor and I still couldn't win the blasted thing.

[digdugnate]

i forget which adventure it was originally for me, but Adventureland stands out as one most recently that has some pretty obtuse solutions (and subsequent deaths), lol.

 

i've seen spots on the 'net where you can get a command-by-command solution, but i guess i'm too stubborn for my own good and i'm going to solve it myself, dang it!

[mizapf]

I don't remember which adventures I could solve on my own, back in those days when I was a teenager. Therefore I have a very bad feeling about looking for a walkthru on the Internet, since that could prove that I, getting closer to my 50ies, start losing some capabilities. This is not an option. Not yet.

[Vorticon]

On 6/12/2018 at 12:09 PM, Shift838 said:

 

yes, Pyramid of Doom gave me some issues but i was dedicated and at the time it was the only adventure game I had so I got through it.

 

I'm mapping out a new Pyramid of Doom sequel right now.

I finally broke down after 30+ years and looked up hints for it. I was primarily stuck on the iron statue and quite honestly the solution was incredibly unintuitive and non-sensical. All the other puzzles made some sense and were solvable with some logical thinking, but not this one, and I could have tried for another 100 years and not found a solution on my own. Now I am weary of investing time on playing the other Scott Adams adventures for fear of hitting similar snags. There is nothing more frustrating to me than illogical puzzles...

Rant over