Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

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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Strident
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Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#1 Post by Strident » Tue Aug 30, 2022 12:20 pm

Doing a random database dive, to find the date for this Amiga game...
Castle Greystone
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C88 ... stone.html

I noticed it was by Scott Le Brun. Apparently Australian Scott Le Brun wrote various text adventure games, initially for the VZ200 and VZ300. This is his Amiga AMOS conversion of one of them. The 1992 date currently listed is for the Amiga version, although I would imagine the original was from about 1986/7.

He is Scott Le Brun of Wantirna, Victoria, Australia; a very active user and member of the Aussie VZ scene.

He ran the VZ Down Under (VeeZed Down Under) user group...
https://archive.org/details/hvvzug/hvvzug17/page/2/

"Scott Le Brun was a very prolific writer of adventure games for the VZ. In August 1986 he began publication of "VeeZed Down Under". Scott also ran monthly meetinfs from his home. Scott produced 13 editions before the illustrious Harry Huggins took over in September 1988."
from: https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 29/page/4/

If he was a "very prolific writer" of adventure games, then CASA is currently doing his work justice... only currently listing one title!

So, I'm currently looking for other references to his VZ200/300 games and also keeping my eye out for undocumented VZ200/300 text adventures in general, which we seem to be lacking details on.

I did find another Le Brun adventure...

"Adventure"
Type-in text adventure in LE'VZ 200/300 OOP
LE/VZ #10 - February 1986
https://archive.org/details/LE-VZ200-VZ ... 0/page/n1/
LE'VZ #11 - March 1986
https://archive.org/details/LE-VZ200-VZ ... 1/page/n1/

He appears to have "written" a game called Knight's Quest for the VZ300, which was an unofficial port of King's Quest... not currently sure which King's Quest yet.
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 7/page/n1/
"Another approach you could use is to play a game from a different type of machine until you have solved it, then write it for the VZ fom scratch. This was quite succesfully done by Scott Le Brun, who converted the game "King's Quest" for the VZ300, by completely rewriting the program code. The result was the program "Knight's Quest", which is considered to be one of the best adventures available for the expanded VZ300."

That article also mentions some other (probably not Scott Le Brun) adventures including The Thief of Baghdad, Silver Mountain (Probably from the Usborne book?) and The Curse of Merkfruit Lodge. None of which are documented on CASA. A trawl through those other issues of VZ Down Under would probably worthwhile. (I'll add it to my list to do)

(Talking of VZDU, though... Merfruit Lodge, is mentioned by David Wood (possibly its author?) in an article on M/L Routines in Adventure Games...
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 9/page/10/

This is part of an interesting series of articles on Adventure Writing...

https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 7/page/n1/
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 8/page/n7/
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 9/page/10/ *as above*
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 30/page/6/
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 31/page/n5
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 32/page/n9 )

Games by Scott Le Brun, but not text adventures...

Galactic Empires
https://archive.org/details/hvvzug/hvvzug17/page/14/

Monopoly
https://archive.org/details/HVVZUG_jour ... 19/page/n3

The above review mentioned that Scott's "VZ Down Under Software" was closing down (c.Jul/Aug 1988).

Later mentions of his Amiga venture, DiskRight Software...
https://archive.org/details/WorkbenchMa ... 8/page/n7/

(attaching a random mention of The Maze of Dead. Possible VZ adventure game.
https://archive.org/details/vzdu_newsle ... 5/page/n7/ )

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Garry
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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#2 Post by Garry » Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:09 pm

Holy mackeral. How do you dig up this stuff?

More rabbit holes to explore...

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#3 Post by Strident » Tue Aug 30, 2022 5:52 pm

Some of the VDU games catalogue, c.1988
vdu-1.PNG
vdu-1.PNG (14.62 KiB) Viewed 8468 times
vdu-2.PNG
vdu-2.PNG (15.35 KiB) Viewed 8468 times
Castle Greystone, Haunted Mansion and Knights Quest are text adventures, I believe.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#4 Post by Strident » Wed Aug 31, 2022 8:39 am

After making enquiries in the VZ community, there doesn't seem to be much of Scott's software archived.

He did write a two-part article on writing adventures in VZ Link, issue 21 and 22, that it might be useful to track down. (EDIT: Just downloading them now from the Internet Archive)

The second part is the most interesting of the two...
https://ia802307.us.archive.org/view_ar ... 0%2322.pdf

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#5 Post by Garry » Mon Sep 05, 2022 4:01 pm

I have typed in 'Adventure' by Scott Le Brun, so we now have two of his games. I've also submitted details for the database, screen grab, map and solution.

Here are the files for anyone that's interested. I've included a disk image and vz snapshot. They're both the same program. Download whichever one you prefer.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#6 Post by Strident » Tue Sep 06, 2022 8:52 am

Thanks for that Garry.

I've added various information on the VZ stuff that I've found to the database. Such as... https://solutionarchive.com/list/company%2C2147/

Hopefully scans of the earlier (Scott Le Brun era) VZDU newsletters will turn up at some point, as Baghdad/Silver Mountain/Merkfruit were apparently published as type-in listings there.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#7 Post by Garry » Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:29 am

'The Thief of Bagdad' was published in VZ Down Under, issue 1.

'The Mystery of Silver Mountain' was ported to the VZ200 and published in VZ Down Under, issues 4-8 with an update in 9, and VZ Link Newsletter, issues 11-15.

There are others. All details to be confirmed.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#8 Post by Strident » Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:44 am

Ah, I hadn't spotted Silver Mountain was in VZ Link as well (despite having the index document). I'm just looking at the listing now! Yep, definitely the Usborne game.

It looks like his Haunted Mansion was very heavily based on the Usborne Haunted House too.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#9 Post by Garry » Wed Sep 07, 2022 4:26 pm

I found another one. 'The Secret of Volcano Island' was written by Owen Ross and published in VZ Down Under #40. I've typed it in and played it through to the end. I'll write it up tomorrow night. For anyone that's interested, here's the disk image and vz snapshot.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#10 Post by Garry » Wed Sep 07, 2022 4:28 pm

And the other one. (Geez, it's hard to get attachments to work).

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#11 Post by Garry » Fri Sep 09, 2022 3:48 pm

Another one that you haven't mentioned is 'Scotland Yard'. I've seen this mentioned as an adventure a couple of times, but the convincing evidence for me was an ad in VZ Link, issue 21, June 1988, p.15. This lists 'Castle Greystone' for $12.50, 'Haunted Mansion' for $12.50, 'Knights Quest' for $15, 'Scotland Yard' for $6.50 and some non-adventure programs. More importantly, you can buy these four adventures on one tape or two disks as 'Adventurer's Collection' for $36.50. "Please make cheques and money orders payable to Scott Le Brun."

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#12 Post by Strident » Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:08 pm

Yeah, I have been wondering about Scotland Yard having looked through the same references. It's either going to be an adventure or a Clue/Cluedo "guess the murderer" game, I think. There was a Scotland Yard 2, as well.

I have seen Galactic Empires referred to as an adventure, but that is clearly contradicted from reviews etc.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#13 Post by jgerrie » Sun Sep 11, 2022 3:04 am

Thanks Gary (and Strident). Converted these to MC-10. If other stuff shows up for typing-in give me a shout and I'd be happy to do some of the labour.
Complete walkthrough vids (except the Volcano, which blew up just before I would have completed just because I tried typing "SCORE" before the "Q"--- wow what a brutally unforgiving game!).
https://youtu.be/Z8bcV2RMGuk
https://youtu.be/FvaXxuI3YnA

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#14 Post by Garry » Sun Sep 11, 2022 6:46 am

Hey, Jim. I downloaded your Area 51 for the VZ200, but it is corrupted. When you run it, it says "?UNDEF'D STATEMENT ERROR IN 1". Listing line 1 has a GOTO100, but there is no line 100. When I list the program, it ends in gobbledegook.

Did you do this one yourself or did someone else port it? If you did it yourself, do you have a clean copy?

I have struck similar problems with a few of the other VZ200 programs, specifically 'Down Under' by Chris Brunner, 'Dracula's Castle' by David Boggs (but this isn't an adventure, so I'm not worried about this one), 'Die Flucht von Burg Grauenstein' by unknown author (part 2 crashes the emulator) and 'The Quest' by C Kenyon. I think there may have been one or two others, but I managed to get them working after a bit of hacking.

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Re: Scott Le Brun & VZ200/300 text adventures

#15 Post by jgerrie » Sun Sep 11, 2022 8:08 am

Code: Select all

0 CLEAR400:CLS:PRINT"AN ADVENTURE BY JIM GERRIE"
1 PRINT"FOR THE VZ200/300":PRINT:F$="FENCE (WITH HOLE)":GOTO100
2 DATA "COW SKULL","NOTE","BASKET","SIGN","FENCE","SNAKE"
3 DATA "CAR","DESERT","TRUNK","ALIEN SKELETON","SKULLS"
4 DATA "CAR (GRAY SEDAN)","HIGHWAY (LONELY)"
5 DATA "DESERT (VAST & EMPTY)","DESERT (VAST & EMPTY)"
6 DATA "FENCE (RAZOR WIRE)","SCRUBLAND (ROCKY)"
7 DATA "SCRUBLAND (ROCKY)","FENCE (BARBED WIRE)"
8 DATA "BUILDING (OUTSIDE)","BUILDING (INSIDE)"
9 DATA "LABORATORY (MEDICAL)"
10 DATA "N","S","E","W"
11 DATA "GET","SEARCH","KILL","READ","THROW","SWAP","DRIVE"
12 DATA "SNAKE BITES!","ITS SKULL IS AS BIG AS A COW'S"
13 DATA "OK","NOT POSSIBLE","*US ARMY-KEEP OUT*"
14 DATA "FENCE SHORTED","'GO WEST YOUNG MAN'"
15 DATA "AN ALARM SOUNDS","SOMEWHERE NEAR AREA 51"
16 DATA "NOTHING FOUND","VROOM!"
20 C1=1:CC=32
21 IF MID$(M$,CC,1)="" THEN GOTO 24
22 IF MID$(M$,CC,1)=" " THEN GOTO 24
23 CC=CC-1:GOTO 21
24 PRINT MID$(M$,C1,CC-C1):C1=CC+1:CC=C1+31
25 IF C1<=LEN(M$) THEN 21
26 RETURN
100 DIM A$(4,11),L(11,4),O(11),F(11),C(11)
101 FOR A=1 TO 4
102 FOR B=1 TO 11
103 READ A$(A,B)
104 NEXT
105 NEXT
106 L=1
107 M=9
108 FOR A=1 TO 11
109 READ L(A,1),L(A,2),L(A,3),L(A,4)
110 NEXT
111 FOR A=1 TO 11
112 READ O(A),F(A)
113 NEXT
114 C(6)=6
115 C(10)=11
116 D=5
117 S$="YOU SEE:"
200 PRINT A$(4,M)
201 IF M=1 THEN GOTO 900
202 PRINT "LOCATION: "A$(2,L)
203 PRINT S$;
204 FOR T=1 TO 11
205 PRINT " ";A$(-(C(T)=L),T);
206 NEXT
207 PRINT
208 M$="CARRYING:"
209 FOR T=1 TO 11
210 M$=M$+" "+A$(-(C(T)=-1),T)
211 NEXT
212 GOSUB 20
213 PRINT "WHAT NOW";:INPUT I$
214 V=0
215 O=0
216 FOR T=1 TO 11
217 IF LEFT$(I$,LEN(A$(3,T)))=A$(3,T) THEN V=T
218 IF RIGHT$(I$,4)="BOOT" THEN O=9
300 E$="SCORE:"
301 A$="ALIEN SKULL"
302 IF RIGHT$(I$,LEN(A$(1,T)))<>A$(1,T) THEN GOTO 400
303 O=T
304 IF T=11 OR T=1 THEN 310
305 GOTO 400
310 IF LEFT$(I$,4)="SWAP" THEN V=10:O=1
320 IF LEFT$(I$,6)="SWITCH" THEN V=10:O=1
330 IF LEFT$(I$,8)="EXCHANGE" THEN V=10:O=1
340 IF LEFT$(I$,7)="REPLACE" THEN V=10:O=1
350 IF LEFT$(I$,3)="USE" THEN V=10:O=1
400 NEXT
401 S=S+1
402 M=4
403 IF V>0 AND V<5 THEN GOTO 500
404 IF V=5 THEN GOTO 600
405 IF V=6 OR V=7 THEN GOTO 700
406 IF V>7 AND V<11 THEN GOTO 800
407 IF V<11 OR L<>1 THEN GOTO 200
408 M=11
409 D=D-1
410 I$=" "
411 V=0
412 IF D=1 THEN GOTO 500
413 IF L<>1 OR A$(1,1)<>A$ THEN GOTO 200
414 PRINT "YOU ESCAPE AND EXPOSE THE SECRET";
415 PRINT "OF AREA 51 TO THE WHOLE WORLD!"
416 FOR T=1 TO 6
417 READ A
418 SOUND INT(A/8),4
419 NEXT
420 PRINT E$;INT(28/S*100)
421 END
500 IF LEN(I$)>1 THEN GOTO 200
501 M=3
502 OL=L
503 L=L(L,V)
504 IF L>0 THEN GOTO 200
505 PRINT "YOU WERE CAUGHT BY THE MILITARY POLICE!"
506 EF$(1)="AFTER USING YOUR BODY TO SHORT"
507 EF$(1)=EF$(1)+"  THEIR ELECTRIC FENCE!"
508 PRINT EF$(-(OL=8 AND V=3))
509 END
600 IF C(O)<>L THEN GOTO 200
601 IF O=6 AND C(3)<>-1 THEN GOTO 200
602 M=3
603 C(O)=-1
604 IF O<>4 AND O<>10 THEN GOTO 200
605 L(5,3)=6
606 A$(2,5)=F$
607 IF O=4 THEN GOTO 200
608 L(11,1)=0
609 L(11,2)=0
610 L(11,3)=0
611 L(11,4)=0
612 M=8
613 GOTO 200
700 M=4
701 IF O<1 OR O>11 THEN GOTO 200
702 M=10
703 IF O(F(O))<>L THEN GOTO 200
704 M=3
705 C(F(O))=L
706 IF O<>6 AND O<>10 THEN GOTO 200
707 M=1
708 IF O=6 THEN GOTO 200
709 M=2
710 GOTO 200
800 M=5
801 IF O=4 AND V=8 THEN GOTO 200
802 K=C(O)
803 M=4
804 IF K<>-1 THEN GOTO 200
805 M=7
806 IF O=2 AND V=8 THEN GOTO 200
807 M=3
808 C(O)=L
809 IF V=9 AND O<>6 THEN GOTO 200
810 T=L(8,3)
811 L(8,3)=9
812 M=6
813 IF V=9 AND L=8 THEN GOTO 200
814 C(O)=K
815 L(8,3)=T
816 T$=A$(1,1)
817 A$(1,1)=A$
818 M=3
819 IF L=11 THEN GOTO 200
820 A$(1,1)=T$
830 M=4
900 IF M>1 THEN GOTO 200
901 END
904 DATA 2,2,5,3,2,2,5,3,3,3,1,4,3,3,3,3,2,2,0
905 DATA 1,7,6,6,5,7,6,8,7,7,6,0,7,7,6,10,8,0,0
906 DATA 11,9,10,10,10,10,4,0,1,0,1,0,5,0,0,4,6
907 DATA 6,0,2,0,1,0,3,11,10,0,0,73,134,119,134,154,134

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