Your mission is to recover a ruby that is being used in top secret government projects as a part in a laser projector.
"The ruby has been captured by a secret spy ring known as Chaos. We suspect they are under cover somewhere in this neighborhood. Good luck!"
Originally published in October 1980 for the TRS-80 by CLOAD magazine.
The game was later included in the Captain 80 Book of BASIC Adventures pp.225-233.
There is a version for PC, credited to the Members of the International PC Owners. The listing states that it was, "translated from TRS-80 version on CPMNET BBS by Pete Wohlmut 10-3-82". This GWBASIC version is bugged, but a fixed version is listed below.
At least two different versions exist for the C64. The C64 version has been adapted to make an unofficial version for Plus 4; see here.
There is an 1996 Inform port of the game, by J. Kevin Thomas. That version references the 1982 Wohlmut version, but lists the original game author as unknown, rather than Hugh Lampert.
Jim Gerrie has created a version of the game for the TRS-80 MC-10
The game has been ported to C by Willus.
Ported to the Amstrad CPC by Carsten Dost (SRS).
The original game has also been translated into French (MSX) and German (Atari).
[+] Users currently playing this game
Full of bugs, the PC port as well; I haven't checked the C64 version. I put together a debugged PC version which seems to run OK, but sadly the game is not really worth it.