How to get money by playing video games

This week, as the holidays are upon us, were going to tackle Christmas Quest, a point-and-click animated adventure game created by the staff at www.adventuregamers.com as a short, free, seasonal treat for Christmas 2005.  It was written by Jack Allin and Emily Morganti, with programming by Berian Williams, music by Robert Lacey, and art and animation by a six-person team.


The game was created using Chris Jones invaluable Adventure Game Studio, a creation tool and runtime engine without which many fine contemporary adventure games would not exist.  This game is meant to be a quick, entertaining play, but it looks and sounds very professional, something that would not have been possible on a limited budget without AGS to handle all the technical details.  And Mr. Jones has always made his tool available free -- a fine example of a generous spirit all year round.





As always, interested readers are encouraged to take on Christmas Quest before reading my notes below.  Its also free, and can be downloaded at AdventureGamers.com (click on the games title screenshot, the same image shown above, to download the installation package.)  Beyond this point, Ill be describing my complete experience with the game, and there are certain to be...


***** HO! HO! SPO!LERS AHEAD! *****


After we start a new game, a few screens of text (with voiced narration by Doug Tabacco) set up the plot -- were certain Santa Claus has delivered the Best Adventure Game Ever, and (compulsive sort that we are) we must solve some puzzles to restore the perfect holiday setting before we can sit down and indulge in all its Besty Everness.



We fade in on our living room on Christmas morning, with a wilting, unlit Christmas tree, a locked closet door with a keyhole, a star that has fallen off the tree, a fireplace, and a bulky, unattractive turquoise couch.  Theres also a staircase leading upstairs, but we cant make use of it -- "kinda defeats the purpose of coming down, doesnt it?"  And the power is out, so the tree lights and our trusty gaming computer are both out of commission.

Most of the items onscreen can be interacted with, though many of the responses are just for chuckles; for example, concerning the lit fireplace, "I really should have put this out last night.  Santa cant have been pleased."  The main character isnt voiced, but the writing is light-hearted and gently funny, with in-jokes tailored to people like me (us, I whisper conspiratorially to long-time GA40 readers.)  Just to set the tone, some of the Christmas cards on the mantle are from Sierras Ken and Roberta Williams, Steve Purcell/Lucasarts/Telltale Games Sam & Max, Sierras Gabriel Knight and friends, and theres a portrait of Lucasarts Green Tentacle on the wall.

Examining the presents under the tree yields a bulky, pink, unopened present, a multi-purpose Ulti-Pan, and a refusal to open a present that isnt for our hero ("What kind of a take everything that isnt nailed down klepto would take someone elses present?")  We can pick up the fallen star, but cant put it back on the tree just yet as it will just fall off the wilted treetop again.  We can take the empty glass of Santa milk milk for Santa, which the text reminds us is always useful in adventure games, just like a rope.  We can also acquire a candy cane ("not drawn to scale") from the tree.

We can open the window to the chilly, snowy outside world -- I was hoping we could catch enough falling snow in the pan or the glass to water the tree, but that didnt work out until I realized I was clicking on the Window and not the Snow.  Of course, we have to melt our glass of snow in the fireplace, and now we can water the tree, miraculously restoring its turgor pressure in the blink of an eye.

Now maybe we can get the star back on the tree... but, of course, now that the tree is standing upright, we cant quite reach its top.  We cant seem to move the couch or use the sticky candy cane to extend our reach.  We can, however, revisit a classic, oft-employed adventure gaming puzzle -- we can observe something is jammed in the locked closets keyhole, slip our brothers Christmas card under the closet door, then poke the blockage with the candy cane. ("Ever notice how the key always falls RIGHT on the paper?")

Unlocking the closet reveals "a circuit breaker, a goat, and enough cobwebs to knit a scarf."  We can just use the Darkness to turn the lights back on (having avoided the goat, as well as the grue alluded to earlier if we try to use the ulti-pan on the keyhole.)

Now we just need to get the tree topper back on the tree top.  This solution didnt occur to me earlier, but as were running out of options now it becomes obvious that we need to stack the portable pink present on top of the non-portable green present, and voila!  All three puzzles are solved and everything seems suitably cheery again:

 

The music shifts from a cheery, repetitive rendition of Deck the Halls to the more portentous Silent Night, we open the Best Adventure Game Ever, put it into the computer... and find out this was just Episode 1 of a projected Christmas Quest trilogy (which did in fact materialize in later years).  For the moment, its a happy ending, and a victory of sorts:





Christmas Quest was actually a little more challenging than I expected -- the contained space and limited number of items notwithstanding, I had to do a little more trial-and-error experimentation than I thought I would.  But its a pleasant, straightforward, and entertaining little game, and the perfect title to post about on Christmas Eve.  Ill likely be coming back to this series in years to come.

And thank you to everyone who visits and reads the Gaming After 40 blog; your comments are some of my favorite gifts of all.  Happy Holidays, everyone!

This week, we're playing another text adventure squeezed into the portable TRS-80 Model 100's LCD display --  Teeny Tiny Text Adventure, by Tim Ekdom, which appears to have been written specifically for this platform, probably around the mid-1980s though no date is given onscreen or in the code.  I'm playing it using the VirtualT emulator (fans of the Model 100 affectionately call it the "Model T," as it was the first mass-market portable computer.)



The intro text informs us that an old man has passed away with a million in cash and no heirs; in this game's universe, it appears, there's no established law regarding these things, so if the estate is in cash anyone is free to break into the house and take it.  So, yes, this is another find-the-treasure adventure.

Teeny Tiny Text Adventure is not difficult to finish, though there are some red herrings and efficient execution is important -- it's possible to finish the game without actually having to deal with encroaching cold, thirst, or darkness in under 40 turns, and it's not possible to finish beyond about 90 turns after darkness arrives.  I'll provide my walkthrough at the foot of this post.  The game is freely available at the Interactive Fiction Database, and I always encourage interested adventurers to experience these games firsthand.  In my playthrough notes below, there are certain to be...


***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****



The engine appears to feature a running clock, though this is just part of setting the stage as the actual clock time isn't tracked, and what really counts is the turns consumed.  The BASIC program devotes almost no memory to descriptions -- we begin with a flashlight and canteen in inventory, standing on a road.  This will be the last indication we get of what's in our inventory -- there's no command to check it -- and there isn't any indication of which directions we can go, so a little trial and error is needed for mapping.  We need to LOOK to see what's in the room, probably to help conserve screen space; on the Road, this reveals a gate, a wall, and a mailbox.  We also note that we have to type full words -- this game does not rely on partial-word parsing, very unusual for the time.

Let's start by doing the Infocom thing and OPEN MAILBOX -- There's something inside!, to nobody's real surprise.  Another LOOK reveals it's a key, and we can TAKE KEY (GET KEY doesn't work.)  We can't go any way but North, but that way The gate is shut.  UNLOCK GATE and OPEN GATE fail, along with USE KEY, and while I'm trying to PUSH or PULL the gate instead, already It's getting dark.  I finally discover that we can CLIMB GATE, which I should have thought of several moves earlier, and probably would have had I tried to EXAMINE GATE, which reveals that It's padlocked, but not too high.  So EXAMINE and LOOK are distinct verbs here, good to know.

North of the path is the front porch of the house -- and my flashlight is already getting dim, so I'll probably have to restart soon.  But while it lasts, we'll note that the porch features a door and a window.  The key we have doesn't fit the door, but the porch is wide and circles the house proper.  On the east side we find some firewood and an ax, and the back side of the house has a door that we can UNLOCK with the key.  Meanwhile, we're getting thirsty, and cold.

Entering the back door, we find ourselves in the kitchen, which contains a cupboard, fridge, sink, stove, and some stairs.  There's also a living room south of the kitchen, where we can open the front door in case a quick escape is needed.  So the interior of the house, so far at least, is not very large.  But my flashlight has gone out and it's too dark to see the contents of these rooms now, so I'll restart after mapping and otherwise fumbling around for 90 turns.

This time, I pick up the ax and the firewood before entering the house, and observe that the living room has a bookshelf, a desk, and a fireplace.  I try to MAKE FIRE, which the parser doesn't understand, and LIGHT FIRE -- With what?  DROP FIREWOOD puts the firewood in the fireplace, though this isn't clear until we EXAMINE FIREPLACE to see that it now contains the firewood.  We still don't have anything to light it with, though.

We can OPEN DESK to discover a computer -- though examination reveals only that it's not a portable (pity those poor owners of systems other than the exalted TRS-80 Model 100!)  Going back to the kitchen, we can open the cupboard and fridge to find a knife and a pot; the stove can't be opened, and there's a bug here, as if we repeatedly open the cupboard and fridge we can create infinite knives and pots.  There's nothing in the pot, either, although the descriptions are so limited it could in fact be a fridgeload of cannabis.

Heading down into the cellar, we find a shelf and a workbench, containing a lantern and a screwdriver respectively.  It seems these items aren't portable, until I realize there's a limit on how many items we can carry -- the parser just responds with You can't do that if we try to take anything after we've reached our maximum encumbrance. 

And now I'm in the dark again -- restarting, I test the directions in the living room to find a bedroom to the west, with a western closet and northern bath. 

The closet contains a safe, a coat and some stairs leading up to the attic.  The safe has a combination lock, but we're not prepared to open it, and we can't take the coat to protect us from the cold... oh, wait, we can't TAKE COAT but we can WEAR COAT.  We can open a box in the attic to find some magazines -- back issues of Portable 100 magazine, which we can READ to no obvious effect.

The bedroom contains a bed and a chest -- we can EXAMINE BED to learn it has a mattress, EXAMINE MATTRESS to see something underneath it, and then... after some trial and error... LIFT MATTRESS to discover a paper, which reads 11-6-23.  We can now go the safe and simply TURN DIAL (this only needs to be done once, though we can do it indefinitely) -- no number specifications are required after we've read the paper -- to OPEN SAFE.  Of course, my flashlight dies again right at this point, so we're on to another restart.

This time, I manage to open the safe and find a moneybag inside!  Well, an empty moneybag, as it turns out, made of heavy nylon.  The bathroom sink contains water, and the toilet can be opened but is fortunately empty.  The bedroom chest can't be opened yet, as a drawer is stuck, but the screwdriver from downstairs allows us to discover -- some smelly sox.  And we can't DRINK WATER from the sink, we need to use our canteen, though darkness always seems to set in before thirst overtakes us anyway so this isn't our primary concern.  I also discover that we can use the ax to CHOP WINDOW on the front porch and enter the living room that way, but this alternate route doesn't open up any new avenues.

What else?  EXAMINE FIREPLACE mentions its large chimney, and EXAMINE CHIMNEY reveals that The flue is blocked.  EXAMINE FLUE reveals that it contains a bundle, which is a heavy nylon bag, just like the moneybag.  Trying to make off with our ill-gotten gains, however, we find we can't CLIMB GATE, as the bag is too heavy.  We can try to THROW BUNDLE, but it just ends up on this side of the gate, and even after the bundle is out of inventory we can't climb over the gate, probably due to a logic bug.  We have to drop everything but the bundle in order to be able to climb over the gate again.

Is this the victory condition?  Apparently not.  We haven't opened the bundle yet -- we can't simply OPEN BUNDLE -- to confirm it's a treasure.  We can CUT BUNDLE using the knife from the kitchen, but of course my flashlight has died again and it's too dark to see what we've actually accomplished by doing this.  Trying again, I manage to CUT BUNDLE -- OPEN BUNDLE also works if we have the knife in hand -- only to find that it's another empty moneybag?  But it seemed so heavy when we examined it earlier!  Ah, the money has fallen out -- and we can't take it now, because It's scattered all over.

One more try!  Well, a few more tries... it doesn't seem like having the moneybag in hand lets us bag the money when we open the bundle, and we have to have the knife in order to open it.  Maybe we need to drop the moneybag before we open the bundle... nope.  Aha!  We have to FILL MONEYBAG to pick up the money.  But now we're too weighed down to get over the gate, even if we drop everything else?  Ah, what didn't work earlier with the bundle is the right thing to do with the bagged money -- we can THROW MONEYBAG over the gate, and then CLIMB GATE... to mildly praised victory!


Teeny Tiny Text Adventure lives up to its name, although looking at the BASIC code it could have been even tinier -- navigation is implemented using if-then logic, even though there appears to be a map data array constructed, so some memory is wasted by the design.  But it was a fun little game to play through -- the red herrings and time pressure raise the stakes a notch, and it was a pleasantly brief experience.  My walkthrough is below.

*** WALKTHROUGH *** (below the fold)


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This week, were entering the Horror House, another contest entry from The Rainbow Book of Adventures, published in 1983 as both a magazine-style "book" collecting the type-in listings and a collection on tape or disk, ready to run.  This adventure was written in BASIC by Robert W. Mangum II.




I couldnt initially get the game running on the VCC CoCo emulator running Disk Extended Basic -- I was stuck on a series of flashing pink and green screens, which I was supposed to use to select one of the available text mode color sets.  Starting the program up with RUN 5 instead skips over a POKE command that may have been the source of my problem, skips the authors time-consuming title screen, and gets us underway more quickly. 

Horror House is a text adventure/RPG hybrid -- several screens of instructions establish that were exploring a monster-infested house, where we have to PUNCH or HIT the monsters to defeat them without running out of hit points ourselves.  Our health regenerates at 1 point per ten turns, and every 50 turns one of the monsters is reincarnated.  After all the monsters are vanquished, were told that the computer will be destroyed by an explosion.  Scary!  We can also REST once to regain all of our HP and reincarnate all of the monsters.  The parser vocabulary is helpfully displayed, limited to MOVE/PULL/PUSH, PUT/LEAVE/DROP, N/S/E/W for navigation, INSERT, LOOK, REST, and GET/TAKE.


This ones actually fairly fun to play -- success is partially random due to the combat-heavy gameplay, but its a pleasant diversion and I wouldnt discourage anyone from trying it out.  As always, my further notes here will detail my entire experience in the Horror House.  So if you want to experience it firsthand, step away and go do so, because otherwise you will be subjected to the comprehensive...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! *****



As the game starts up, it becomes clear that the rooms are very generic, with no descriptions of specific locations -- we have to differentiate rooms based on the exit list and any objects that happen to be present, so mapping is a necessity.  The first room has exits to the north and west, and we can see the closed, locked door we just came in through.  We cant KICK DOOR or OPEN DOOR, and if we try to PUNCH DOOR, IT IS NOT HERE.  HIT DOOR suggests that YOU MUST HAVE THE SWORD, so finding that may be our most pressing need at the moment.

Theres a hideous statue in the room to the west; we can MOVE STATUE to find a blue coin underneath it, but the statue also comes to life!  Fortunately its not a very formidable foe -- it kept missing me while I slowly PUNCHed it to death.  And we might as well TAKE BLUE COIN (TAKE COIN doesnt work, the parser considers it to be a BLUE COIN and not a COIN.)

North of the entrance is a room with exits in all four directions.  Heading east and south, we discover a room with a vending machine and a giant crab.  The crab is a more formidable foe -- I had to fight pretty hard and lost about a third of my health before killing it.  The vending machine reads, "DRINK CREATURE COLA."  I tried to INSERT BLUE COIN, but while the machine accepted it nothing seemed to happen as a result.

Theres nothing in the room to the west of the four-way room, and the north exit leads to a T-shaped room with exits east and west.  East is a bedroom, where I run into the giant crab again.  After killing it, we can MOVE BED to find an exit to the west, leading to a gargoyle.  Hes a pretty tough customer, so Ill gamble and try leaving the gargoyle room to the north -- the monster doesnt actually block our way, so were free to explore some more.

Were in another T-shaped room, and east/southeast down a bit of a hall I encounter a minotaur... and a sword!  Killing the minotaur takes a little bit of time, and these random battles prove to be rather comical, as both the player and monster spend a lot of time missing each other, with both combatants much less competent than fantasy lore would have one believe.  The sword bears the legend, "MONSTER SLAYER," just in case we didnt think to use it that way.

Theres a computer in a room to the south, and while were pondering that, A SNAKE JUST ENTERED ROOM!  It seems some of these monsters are of the wandering variety.  The computer is a 64K COLOR COMPUTER.  I try to READ COMPUTER, and the parser takes it as REST, so I am back up to full health but all of the monsters are alive again.  Curses!

Well, Im not really trying to kill all of the monsters yet -- Im just trying to map the place out.  I find a room on the west side of the house containing a rat and a cassette tape.  Killing the rat isnt too difficult, and well TAKE CASSETTE; its labeled 5452532D3830, which if we assume these are two-character hexadecimal ASCII codes, translates to... TRS-80.  So its not much of a clue.

There are some suspicious holes in what appears to be a 6 x 5 map on my graph paper, so its not too surprising that when we INSERT CASSETTE in the computer room, a new exit opens up to the east.  We meet a goblin here, another toughish customer to dispatch, and can wander into the southern central area of the map to meet a zombie guarding a gold coin.  Im not sure if were supposed to want these treasures, but we might as well take it along after dealing with the walking dead.

Theres only one room we havent explored yet, it appears, in the southeast corner of the house, where an orc lives.  None of these monsters are too difficult to kill, but we do have to be careful as some of them can do a fair amount of damage if by chance they connect with an attack.  Weve explored the map, as far as I can tell, so its time to wander around and kill all of the beasties.

It appears that the living statue does not return to life after being terminated, or else it wanders off after its reincarnated.  I do meet a new monster -- a skeleton in the vending machine room I managed not to run into before.  I dispatch it, and the giant crab, without too much trouble, and then run into the rat again.  This time I get it down to 1 hit point, and it runs away!  When I catch up with it, its in the same room as the zombie and the gargoyle, and together they manage to overpower me before I can kill them all.

Trying again from the beginning -- theres no SAVE GAME in this brief adventure -- I kill the statue and gargoyle by punching, then use the sword to slay the minotaur, the statue (again, it does indeed reincarnate), the snake, the rat, the goblin, the orc, and the zombie.  Im missing the crab and the skeleton, I think.  While looking for them, I find and kill the rat again, and the minotaur again, and the crab, and the minotaur a third time, and the crab a second time.  It appears that the monsters are not forced to actually navigate the maze, but can reincarnate at any random location.

So where is the skeleton?  While Im looking for it, I find a PILE OF JUNK has materialized in one of the rooms, and LOOK PILE reveals a red coin.  Ah, this is the computer room!  So we must have destroyed all of the monsters, and the computer has exploded as promised.  Can we open the closed door by the entrance now?  Nope.

What else?  I am not seeing any monsters lately, so I think we have indeed dispatched them all, even though I never ran into the skeleton this time.  Lets try putting all three coins into the vending machine... and yes, A KEY FALLS TO THE FLOOR.  (We cant see it in the room if we LOOK after this happens, but we can still TAKE KEY successfully.)

Now we just have to INSERT KEY at the closed door, with no pesky monsters bothering us on the way there, and we can escape to victory!



Horror House isnt much of an adventure game, but it makes effective use of limited computing resources to present a simple, entertaining monster hunt.  The battles are randomized enough to provide some close calls and drama, and the timed reincarnation of the monsters makes the final leg of the trip fairly tough, though the final journey to victory is comparatively relaxing once all the monsters are dead.  Not a lost classic, but Mr. Mangums game is fun and certainly not terrible by magazine type-in standards.