Advent 101
The second game is always the hardest, in a hobbyist's career.
Welcome to Advent 101!
Have you ever heard of Colossal Cave, or Adventure, the (generally considered) first text adventure game in the history of videogames?
Have you tried playing it, only to find it too hard for you?
Well... try this version!
- Random maps! And you contribute to the randomness!
- Ultra-simplified parser: you press one key, a whole word comes out (à la ZX Spectrum)
- Less than 26 verbs and less than 26 objects. You can easily list all the recognized verbs
- An auto-map feature! A magical live map which you'll have to find!
- Usually the game can be solved in one hour!
This game is the result of a long tour-de-force porting exercise from Colossal Cave Adventure 101, a simplified version of Crowther & Woods' classic game made by J. Alan Henning, written in the BASIC dialect of Lowres Coder, a fantasy console that doesn't exist anymore (squashed years ago by a certain fruit-shaped company).
CREDITS
- Original development by Willie Crowther, 1976
- Greatly expanded by Don Woods, 1977
- Streamlined with random maps and new puzzles by Jeffrey Henning, 2017
- Ported to C64 XC=BASIC 3, bug-fixed and further touches by JJFlash, 2023
- XC=BASIC 3 by Csaba Fekete, 2022-2023
Thanks to Diduz for his research on unscrollable lines on the C64.
This game has many, MANY more moving parts compared to my previous game, Superchase Remix. So expect a few updates to fix bugs in the next few days or weeks (I'm hoping for some bug reports here).
This game is open-source! See it here!
Download
Install instructions
You can quickly try the game thanks to LVLLVL, even though it's not the best experience (sounds come out late and not always right). You can also try the game on mobile, it's not that comfortable though.
The best way is to download the PRG file above and loading it into your favourite C64 emulator, or - even better - a real machine.
Development log
- Sensei noticed me!48 days ago
- Why, oh why, did I work on this?Jul 06, 2023
Comments
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Play it online, downloaded it for the VICE, all worked super. I loved it in every minute! Thanks for this version!
p.s. You made me play this game! This was the first time because I was too lazy and too afraid to play the "original" one.
Thanks <3
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This feat of mine has received so little love, so your words are like balm to my wounded soul! 😄
Yeah, there's no limit to lazyness, that's why I really appreciate you managed to take some time and effort to try this! 🙏
This is really good! I had a lot of fun completing it (120 out of 125 points), both on VICE and TheC64.
The combination of automap + fast keybindings (for a limited set of actions) makes a complex game incredibly smooth, user-friendly, fast and immediate. Bravo. The only gripe I have is that the gameplay system is so effective that I stopped reading the room descriptions: I just moved through the maze using the automap and solving puzzles. I began to live the game as a limited graphic adventure / puzzle game. :-P So a bit of the IF charm was lost there, but it's a wonderful experience to introduce players to the magic of this milestone.
I wonder if playing this could be propaedeutic to face the 3D remake: as far as I know, Roberta Williams kept the remake as difficult as the original game. Completing your Advent 101 could serve as a general compass to face the nightmare! I took some notes and I'll try to apply some of this puzzle knowledge to the full experience. Who knows? Maybe you've just created a training dojo for oldschool adventure gaming!
:-D
Well, thank you so much for all the time you've dedicated to my little game and for your comment!
Yeah, not reading the "room" descriptions anymore and focussing on the "roguelike" map is something I do myself when I play this.
One has to admit, though: the original Colossal Cave hasn't got much of a story either, so I think you could end up doing basically the same there as well.
I'm sorry you missed the last 5 points, there's a little colourful & "soundful" effect if you go full score. I'm curious now about what you could have missed... A puzzle? A treasure?
Yes, it's an extremely simple game, hence the name "Advent 101", it's really the "basic basics" of a text adventure game :D
If you're interested in the 3D remake, go for it! You'll find a few puzzles you've seen here, while you definitely won't see others (certainly no Harry Potter references :D ).
Yeah, Roberta Williams kept as much as she could of the original text adventure, and if you ask me, that's a downer. The game definitely needed some adaptation, it's just so silly in so many places...
Very impressive. You're taking quite large steps in your game development journey! :) I've heard of both Colossal Cave -- Sierra (huge fan of their King's/Space/Police Quest series) folks just re-released a 3D VR version of it -- and Adventure from the Atari 2600. But have never played either.
Hey there again!! :)
Yeah, too large steps, I'm afraid! But when I began this one I couldn't see in what kind of maze I had thrown myself into. Then I had to finish this for my own mental sanity...
The main thing is the compiled BASIC dialect I'm using: strings aren't its forte (they're limited to 96 characters), so I had to write a "data compiler" to allocate strings in memory (while slightly compressing them in the process) in FreeBASIC.
Yeah I knew about the 3D/VR remake, in fact I had just began the project when it came out and I got a little "depressed" while wondering if anybody would be now interested in a simplified demake of Colossal Cave Adventure, I got stalled for a couple of months because of that.
You didn't even play the Atari 2600 Adventure? Then you must be pretty young, I envy you! 😁