Occasional ramblings on games, generally retro related
When my parents brought home a ZX81 one day (complete with wobbly 16K RAM pack, of course) I discovered the joy of programming. But it wasn't until I got my hands on a ZX Spectrum that my obsession with games really began, which continued with the C64, Amiga, right through to this day. The 80s and early 90s were an amazing time for games, not just for the games themselves but for the fascinating people behind them - it was truly a time of pioneers and creativity.
I myself have spent the last (almost) 20 years working in the games industry on all manner of platforms, most recently iOS. Ziggurat Development Ltd is my company here in NZ that provides contract programming services.
While digging through some boxes of old Stuff from the attic I came across a couple of solution books for the adventure games "Corruption" and "Fish!" by Magnetic Scrolls. I got these directly from Magnetic Scrolls, and they're far superior to regular old walkthroughs as they include location maps, hints for specific situations along with the step by step solutions.
Finally! I've been waiting for this one for a while: "Full Throttle Remastered" has been released for iOS. The iPad has become my adventure gaming device of choice (aside from 8bit text adventures, and I'm trying to figure out a solution for that), so it's great to see another LucasArts classic on the platform.
Not only that, but to coincide with the release Double Fine have slashed the prices of "Grim Fandango Remastered" and "The Day of the Tentacle Remastered" - both highly recommended and absolute bargains at this price.
Back in 1987 I ordered a copy of the classic adventure "Guild of Thieves" along with my Amiga 500. Included in the game's package was a copy of "What Burglar?" magazine, and an advert for a mysterious "Confidential" club. Well, that's how I remember it - looking through the box now I don't see such an advert in there, though there is an offer to write in to Magnetic Scrolls to receive some swag. Or maybe there was a card/form that I filled out and posted. At any rate, I joined. This turned out to be the Special Reserve mail order club founded by Tony Rainbird, and "Confidential" was its magazine.
The mag was actually really good - always full of interesting articles, with a focus on adventure games. I'm pretty sure I still have every copy, so over the coming weeks I hope to scan them all in.
The PDF of the first issue can be downloaded here.
Contents:
Way back in the mists of time (well, 1982) my parents took me and my sister out of school for a few months to embark on a trip around the UK, Europe and the US. For the European leg we jaunted about in a campervan, staying at campsites (and occasionally on roadsides) along the way. My memories of that time are sadly vague - my main recollection is the ridiculously rough toilet paper that one had to endure in the bathrooms. I’m talking really rough. Like coarse sandpaper. I forget what town it was, but I actually kept a piece of it in my jacket pocket to remind me of the horrors, and it was still intact when we got home.
The setting for this game is based on an actual German campsite the creator(s) spent time at during their formative years, and there is a nice nostalgic feel to it all. Along with the disk (in a rather nicely decorated sleeve), the package includes a campsite newsletter, a beer mat, a lump of charcoal wrapped in foil, a peppermint teabag and, yes, a piece of camp toilet paper (though an acceptably soft piece - I guess the world has progressed... or maybe we were staying at the wrong campsites). Unsurprisingly, one should read through the newsletter as it does contain some important clues.
The adventure begins with the player waking up in a dark hut with a terrible headache, and it soon becomes apparent that your friends and the camp staff have all disappeared. Looks like it’s going to fall on you to figure out what happened to them.
Developed by TUGCS (The United German Commodore Service) using the “D42 Adventure System” for FORUM64’s 2015 Adventure competition, the game was picked up for a proper release by Protovision. Rather than the player entering text commands, there are a small number of actions, some of which take one or two objects to act on. This certainly reduces the frustration of trying to guess specific words on top of tackling the puzzle at hand, but there are some weird inconsistencies (e.g. in one puzzle it was surely possible to both move or open a particular object, but only one verb was accepted).
Each location is accompanied by a picture, the quality of which varies a bit, but overall they’re good. Adding to the atmosphere is the sound - both FX and some decent tunes. I got the impression these are significant, but I must admit I could never quite figure out in what way.
One of several amusing Bush related jokes.
I found the humour to be rather fun. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it is very German, and often reminded me of amusing things my German friends say. I suspect there are number of in jokes that completely passed me by - it was always hard to tell if I was missing something or whether the translation didn’t quite work. There are a tonne of 80s references, most of which I’m pleased to say I got.
The game is unforgiving, and makes no bones about it. In fact, soon after you start it nudges you to perform an action and then gleefully points out you should’ve saved before hand. That’s not the last time you can do something which seems innocuous, yet will eventually prevent the game from being completed.
Due to the graphics and sound, moving between locations always incurs a disk load, and with the game split between two disk sides this can be a bit tedious. I first fired it up on one of my real C64s, but soon switched to an emulator, bumping up the CPU speed during loads.
I’ve played a fair number of adventure games in my time (though I don’t consider myself an expert), and there were a small number of - in my opinion - completely baffling puzzles. I managed to get quite someway into the game before throwing up my hands and searching the internet for hints. The funny thing is that even having discovered a walkthrough, the fact that it was in German combined with said puzzles not making much sense, there was still plenty of figuring out to be done.
Perhaps the biggest annoyance is that the exits of some locations don’t make any geographic sense - e.g. you go north, then continue north, and end up back where you started.
Gripes aside, there is a lot of enjoyment to be had here. Given that this was a compo entry, I was impressed as to the number of locations and general quality of puzzles.
I love the fact that in this day and age a C64 adventure was created and sold in a package with Infocom-style “feelies”… It’s even more impressive considering that this is a translation from the German original.
Verdict
👍"The Camp" can be purchased direct from Protovision.