C64: Text only adventures

This is an old article I wrote for an online magazine. It was back in the dot.com boom, just before everything went bust. Those were the days. Getting paid for everything you wrote online.

C64: Text only adventures
We’d bought the Commodore 64 machine second hand at a garage sale on a Saturday morning in Newcastle, back in the mid-eighties. Mum had something weird against joysticks which meant our Commodore 64 had to be played with the arrow keys and space bars. The no joystick thing really sucked. She probably thought they were satanic. She thought everything was satanic.

The computer was dirt cheap – no box no manuals – just the chords, keyboard and a few blank cartridges of which the labels had fallen off. Most of the cartridges were educational programs but one – one was a game. We were stoked.

Who knows exactly how my younger brother, eight, and myself then ten, managed to rig the C64 up to the television. Pure luck. The chord didn’t quite fit our television the way that it should have (despite sticky tape and bits of cardboard) and there was only one channel that the machine agreed with, dad’s beloved Channel 2.

The reception was godawful. The worst sketchy snowy screen signal you could ever imagine. Every time you moved the keyboard or the cables, the signal would drop out completely. What’s more, whenever we’d finish with our trusty C64 we’d have to tune Channel 2 back into the ABC for dad. You can imagine how often we didn’t do this and how much trouble we’d be in every time the nightly news wouldn’t appear on time.

However despite the shonky connection, the C64 was a much needed break from the only other electronic game we owned at the time – which was the infamous Pong.

Each afternoon after school we’d crouch on the floor in front of the television. Like right in front because the chords were short. We were so close that the screen would swirl with colours. We’d diligently go through the painstaking task of tuning the C64 into the television. There were no seek buttons, just a black ridged wheel and a lot of winding with the thumb. Once we had a signal up, we’d load in the only game cartridge that we had – and woah! The game was an adventure text-only game called Pirate Adventure We had no idea.

Pirate Adventure was the craziest, hardest, weirdest game that I ever did and ever have played. The game had a white screen with coloured instructions and descriptions that would pop up onto the screen. We’d follow these instructions by typing back noun and verb only words. It was sheer guess work. And it would take days to progress through the game.

Let me fill you in exactly:

Game:
Location: forest
Obvious exits: North, South, East, West

You can also see: Trees

A voice BOOOOMS out:
Welcome to Adventure International’s Pirate Adventure! You must find the 3 hidden Treasures and store them away! Say: ‘score’ to see how well you’re doing!
Remember you can always say `HELP`

Game:

I’m on the shore of a lake.
Obvious exits: North, South, West
I can also see: Water – *Golden Fish*. Rusty axe (Magic Word ‘Bunyon’ on it). Sign says “No swimming allowed here”.
Ok.
Tell me what to do:

US:
Get axe

Game:
Ok.
Tell me what to do:

US:
Go west

Game:
I’m in a sunny meadow.
Obvious exits: South, West, East
I can also see: Large Sleeping dragon. Sign here says “In many cases mud is good, in others…”
Ok
Tell me what to do:

US:
Kill dragon

Game:
It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Maybe if I threw something?…
Ok.
Tell me what to do:

Us:
Throw axe

Game:
In 2 words, tell me at what.. like: At Tree
Ok.
Tell me what to do:

US:
At dragon

Game:
Ok I threw it. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all.

US:
Help

(and we all know that ‘help’ never really helps)

Fifty zillion hours later, we managed to get on a raft and head over swampy murky waters. There was a pirate, there was also buried treasure and there was an annoying parrot.

But after six months of ‘go west’, ‘go north’, ‘climb tree’ and ‘eat that fucking parrot’ commands later, we tired of the not-meant-for-under12s game. We never did find that treasure. We tried other cartridges that were purchased from both garage sales and K-Mart to try and quail our growing frustration over Pirate Adventure. Unfortunately our aging machine was rarely compatible with the easier to find newer games. And on the odd occasion that a non text game did work…? We’d lose because we couldn’t work the arrow keys on the keyboard fast enough.

What a strange surreal world those early C64 text only adventure games were. The hours of wracking your brains, punching in commands and receiving infuriatingly cryptic commands on the TV screen.

Come to think of it, the early C64 text only games were not such a far cry from current Saturday nights in loud music venues.

Mobile beeps: “I’m here”… “Where?”… “Up the back”… “I am up the back”… “Near the bar?”… “No the other side”.. “But I am on the other side”… ‘What other side?”… “Look left”…”I am I can’t see you”… “Well look the other way then”…