In a sudden fit of nostalgia, I was motivated to find and replay Castle Adventure, one of the first computer games I ever played. This was sometime in the mid '80s, after my dad brought home an IBM 286 clone with a modem and started downloading all the shareware that BBSes had to offer. I quickly learned that while the game is now readily available online, it requires special configuration to run well in DOSBox. But conveniently someone, presumably also in a fit of nostalgia, ported the game to Windows in 2010, and that version runs just fine. (It also lets you choose between white, green, or amber for the single color the game runs in, depending on which kind of monochrome monitor you remember playing it on.)
You are represented by the ♣ symbol, because when you only have 128 characters you take what you can get. The game is a top-down action-adventure in which you have to find armor and weapons, fight monsters, collect treasures, and eventually locate the key to the gate that has you locked inside. It runs entirely in text mode, with simple graphics built out of ASCII characters. Further googling reveals that it was written entirely in BASIC by a guy called Kevin Bales, who was 14 years old at the time.
It's such a simple game and only takes about twenty minutes to play through (at least if you vaguely recall where everything is) but knowing that a kid wrote this, I am honestly impressed. I did some BASIC programming myself as a kid, and my recollection is that you could barely do anything and what you could do took forever. This game is complete and it's functional and it has a working text parser and inventory system, a pretty large map and a few clever puzzles, and I can only imagine the time and patience that went into it, probably over many long after-school afternoons.
A mosaic of screenshots shows the entire extent of the basement level, one of seven floors! It also has some spelling errors, which are lovingly reproduced in the Windows port. Endless replays of this game at an impressionable age are absolutely the reason why I still hesitate over the spelling of cooridor corridor to this day.
There's not much else to say about this game. I remember it and I'm pleased to know that other people also remember it and care enough to preserve it. My only complaint about the port is that it doesn't give you any aspect ratio options, so I guess it's up to you to bring your own 4:3 CRT monitor for historical accuracy.
I played the heck out of Castle Adventure back in the day! I just had a major game nostalgia conversation with a good friend about it, and Impossible Mission, the other day. So funny to see it pop up in my reading list too.
Ooh, Impossible Mission is one that I've heard of, but never played as a kid. I don't think it ever had a DOS release, and a PC was all I had then. But I'm sure I could emulate it now. :D
Oh, that’s AWESOME. I’m a little young for this era of computer gaming, but it’s so exciting to look back and see the roots of the simple 90s games that *I* grew up on.
Also, man, that kid is impressive. Talk about a labour of love,
I was a little young for it too, honestly! I remember a lot of games as being extremely complex and difficult and then when I replay them it turns out that's because at the time I was five. XD
Ha, that is so fun! There is something really appealing about those old computer games. The necessary simplicity maybe? Not super long ago I found that there is the old Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game available online now as well. That was the only video game I played back in the day. I took a stab at it and was amazed at how much I did not remember, lol.
Oooh, the text adventure? That one I have not played; I skipped a lot of text-based games that my dad had because I couldn't read or type well enough yet. I should check it out sometime.
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Date: 27 Jan 2023 10:23 pm (UTC)I didn't get a PC until around 90/91 and didn't have internet until late 96, so I missed a lot of this early stuff.
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Date: 28 Jan 2023 02:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 28 Jan 2023 09:49 pm (UTC)Also, man, that kid is impressive. Talk about a labour of love,
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Date: 29 Jan 2023 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Jan 2023 12:15 am (UTC)Not super long ago I found that there is the old Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Game available online now as well. That was the only video game I played back in the day. I took a stab at it and was amazed at how much I did not remember, lol.
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Date: 29 Jan 2023 03:38 pm (UTC)