Adventure Master

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Garry
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Adventure Master

#1 Post by Garry » Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:52 pm

I have recently been checking and updating my collection of Atari 8-bit games. During this process, I came across the three sample games included with Adventure Master.
  • 'Becca in Outlaw Cave' is an unfinished game written by Jean Craighead George. You can either follow the instructions in the user manual to finish it off as the author intended or finish it off yourself however you see fit.
  • 'Clever Catacombs' is a finished game by Adventure Master author Christopher Chance. As a sample game, I thought it would be easy to complete, but I've just spent a couple of nights and the whole of a long weekend trying to beat it. It's one of the hardest, most devious games that I've ever played, but I think this is primarily a combination of bad game design, lots of guess-the-phrase (not guess-the-verb, as you don't define verbs, only phrases) and shortcomings of the Adventure Master system. (I've submitted a map and solution for those that would like to try it.)
  • 'Wild Trails' is another unfinished game by Jean Craighead George. It is playable, but you are encouraged to finish it off yourself.
All of this got me wondering what other games are out there written with Adventure Master.

For the Apple II, I haven't found any.

For the Atari 8-bit, I've only found two (and know of one unreleased game):
  • 'A Christmas Eve Nightmare' by Dan R Johnson, published by the Page 6 public domain library.
  • 'The Wizard's Cottage' by Dan R Johnson, published by BRE software and also on DGS PD library disk #96.
  • 'Pirate's Booty' by Steven Bradbury, but this has never been released and I no longer have a copy of it.
For the Commodore 64, I've only found one:
  • 'Dracula's Castle' by Mario Müller
For the PC, I've only found one:
  • 'Ghostbusters: Basic Training' by David Zeiss.
I can't believe that this adventure authoring system was released for four platforms, yet there are only a handful of games. There must surely be others out there. Do you know of any dear readers?

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Strident
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Re: Adventure Master

#2 Post by Strident » Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:20 pm

I will also do a bit of research. I remember looking up some stuff about this system because of the link with the author Jean Craighead George.

Link to the existing tagged games, for reference...
http://solutionarchive.com/list/system%2C149/
...which you've already doubled.

Mocagh link, for reference...
https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?get ... master-alt

Are there any tell-tale signs that something is an Adventure Master game? Or is that system's games only going to be easily identified if the author mentions it?

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Re: Adventure Master

#3 Post by Strident » Mon Oct 03, 2022 1:31 pm

I see that Pirate's Booty, you've listed above, is mentioned here...
https://archive.org/details/atari_compu ... +master%22

A link to our previous discussion about this tool...
http://solutionarchive.com/phpBB3/viewt ... f=3&t=1639

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Re: Adventure Master

#4 Post by Garry » Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:19 pm

Ah, that's very interesting. I was the co-founder of ACE(NSW), although the other two "founders" quickly disappeared off the scene and left everything to me. However, we had a very good committee and everyone pulled their weight. I was the editor of the bimonthly newsletter (Inside Info) for the first dozen or so issues. I also formed an Adventure Special Interest Group and had a short adventure Q&A section in some of the early issues.

I tested 'Pirate's Booty'. I've still got the author's response to my feedback. Let's just say he wasn't very happy with the criticism. I created an enhanced version of it in Inform 6 a few years ago. This was based on my original map and playing notes. I must dig it out and finish it off, as the enhanced version is actually quite a fun game.

Regarding tell-tale signs, if you take a look at the screen grabs, you'll see that they've all got a colour bar separating the main display at the top and the two-line input area at the bottom. The top line of the input area is your previous command and the bottom line is your current command. If you can see it running, the text "dissolves" after you enter a command and "undissolves" (is that a word?) on each screen refresh. You can only see the results of the previous command on screen. There is no scrolling. There is no list of exits or list of objects. If there's an object in the room, it is shown at the bottom of the main display. I think this can only show one object. If you drop an object, it disappears, so you have to remember (or take notes) on where you've dropped something. As there is no inventory limit, it's best not to drop anything unless you need to.

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Re: Adventure Master

#5 Post by Garry » Mon Oct 03, 2022 2:22 pm

Thanks for the link back to the previous thread. I had completely forgotten about that. I have actually ported the game to PunyInform and renamed it, so as not to cause any confusion with the original, as it's very different.

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Re: Adventure Master

#6 Post by Strident » Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:31 pm

Useful and interesting information, thanks.

Mario Moeller, author of Dracula, was another of your compatriot iirc. Presumably his (Quilled) work made its way over to the UK thanks to Dorothy Millard & through the C64 PD scene.

Christmas Eve Nightmare was on one of the BRE public domain disks, like Wizard's Cottage. They have a "Dune" text adventure listed there as well which, I don't think, we have a listing for (if it is actually a text adventure).
bre-pd.PNG
bre-pd.PNG (178.34 KiB) Viewed 7060 times
Looking very quickly, Wizard's Cottage is at least as early as May 1989, going on BRE adverts.

Christmas Eve Nightmare is at least as early as 1989 on public domain disks too...
https://archive.org/details/SanLeandroC ... 05June1989

Sp, given your 1986 date for Wizard's Cottage, I'm guessing they'd been doing the rounds for some time.

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Re: Adventure Master

#7 Post by Garry » Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:25 am

Mario Moeller (presumably a different person to Marius Müller) lived in Victoria, Australia at the time. His full contact details are given in a couple of his games, including Dracula's Castle. He appears to have been very friendly with Dorothy Millard. They collaborated on a couple of games and seem to have been associated with the same Commodore user group. Although many of their games were public domain, they both had games published by The Guild.

The 'BRE' in 'BRE Software' stands for 'Brad Roltgen Enterprises'. You may see games as being published by either one, but it's the same guy.

'A Christmas Eve Nightmare' is known to have been published on BRE Software public domain disk #158 and Page 6 public domain library disk #109. If we could establish when these disks were first released, we would have an approximate publication date. It was most likely written around the same time as 'The Wizard's Cottage' and this was 1986 (according to the title screen).

'The Wizard's Cottage' is known to have been published on BRE Software public domain disk #81 and DGS public domain library disk #96.

The Dune text adventure in the advert you showed is actually 'World of Dune' by Brian S Green. This was written using The Wizard and is already in the database. 'World of Dune' is known to have been published on BRE Software public domain disk #98 and Page 6 public domain library disk #177.

For anyone that's interested, the Page 6 public domain disks can be downloaded from https://www.page6.org/pd_lib/pd_lib.php.

I'll keep digging.

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Re: Adventure Master

#8 Post by Garry » Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:42 am

I didn't expect this. BRE Software is still around. They have a web site at https://www.bresoftware.com/
Who is BRE Software?

BRE Software was founded in 1986, initially selling computer software and supplies, BRE Software began buying and selling used video games in 1989 and has been a pioneer in the used video game industry.
The advertisement from Antic in 1990 lists their address as Fresno, California and the web site gives the address as Fresno, California, so it's surely got to be the same company. No sign of any old public domain software on their web site, though.

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Re: Adventure Master

#9 Post by Alastair » Wed Oct 05, 2022 11:01 pm

Garry wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 7:42 am
I didn't expect this. BRE Software is still around. They have a web site at https://www.bresoftware.com/
I'm getting an expired security certificate so for anyone interested I suggest using http://www.bresoftware.com/ instead, although there is not much there.

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Re: Adventure Master

#10 Post by Garry » Thu Oct 06, 2022 12:45 am

No, not much there of relevance to us. They only deal with retro games for games consoles. The retail arm was sold off a few years ago, but the wholesale arm appears to be still operational. Some of the BRE Software Atari 8-bit and ST public domain disks have been archived, but they're pretty hard to find.

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Re: Adventure Master

#11 Post by df » Sun Oct 09, 2022 9:41 pm

Strident wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 3:31 pm

Mario Moeller, author of Dracula, was another of your compatriot iirc.
Oh wow, thats a name I've not heard in a long time! I remember playing The Dare after reading about it in ACAR, I believe Mario co-wrote it with Dorothy.
-- Stu / DF --
-- Mountain Valley + Softgold Adventure Fan --

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Re: Adventure Master

#12 Post by Strident » Sun Oct 09, 2022 10:23 pm

df wrote:
Sun Oct 09, 2022 9:41 pm
Oh wow, thats a name I've not heard in a long time! I remember playing The Dare after reading about it in ACAR, I believe Mario co-wrote it with Dorothy.
Ah. that's useful because a quick look at the game shows it was published first in Australia by Base 7 Software and a magazine search shows that they also first published Mario's Stowaway... so those details can be added to the site too.

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Re: Adventure Master

#13 Post by Garry » Tue Oct 11, 2022 3:30 pm

For anyone that's interested, I've played the three Adventure Master sample games, as well as 'Gh0st Busters: Basic Training' for the PC and submitted maps and solutions for all of those.

I've also found another Atari 8-bit game by browsing the thumbnails at Atarimania. It's called 'The B.A.S.I.C. Adventure' by Peter J Fazio. I had it on my list of games to submit, so I'll do that shortly.

I then browsed the thumbnails at gamebase64 and found two more C64 games. These are 'The Bunker' by Randy Esposito and 'The X-Rated Adventure' by an unknown author. I can't download the former because of that friggin' 8bitfiles ftp site that never seems to work. Fortunately, I already had the latter, so I'll update details on these as soon as I get a chance. Incidentally, where's a good place to download C64 files nowadays?

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Re: Adventure Master

#14 Post by Strident » Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:59 pm

I still use the 8bitfiles ftp site. The problem isn't the site itself, but the fact that direct FTP support has been removed from all the major browsers. So I just manually browse into it using Filezilla. (Usually if a game is on the C64 sites, it'll be on the Internet Archive, which is often a nice, quick way to play the game due to the built-in emulator)

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Re: Adventure Master

#15 Post by Garry » Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:36 am

That's what I do, but ftp://8bitfiles.net seems to be offline or something. FileZilla tries to connect three times, but each time it says "Connection established, waiting for welcome message..." followed by an error message "Could not connect to server". Is there some secret that I'm unaware of? For example, do I have to enter a username and password?

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