Adventure by Program Power - 2

After some time spent reacquainting myself with this game, I was able to make good head-way in solving the puzzles in the adventure, but I ran into a brick wall trying to get the game to recognize a successful completion of the game (see below).

In terms of first impressions, the text looks a little harsh as it is output entirely in capital letters, making for rather tiring reading for long stretches. Words also occasionally wrap off the end of one line to the next which looks a little sloppy.

Text display: all text is in capitals, with words occasionally breaking
across lines - such as "WEST" in the first location of the game.

I'll look at enhancing the program code to improve this.

The game itself keeps a running score (which you can check using SCORE) which starts at 100 points and decreases by one point for each turn taken, hence encouraging the game to be completed in the minimum number of turns. Although not specified in the game instructions, to receive maximum points for each treasure found you place it in the Left Luggage office which is found near the beginning of the game (a treasure is worth 50 points when carried, and 100 points when stored in the office).

As well as a number of "typical" puzzles found in adventure games of the time (e.g. bunch of keys to open a locked door, axe to kill a spider) there are also some which are original to the game. One which is probably most memorable among people who have played the game, is how to get past a fierce rat which blocks your way later in the game. The solution involves calling an owl to do the dirty work for you, but it it doesn't like the light of your lamp!

The game has its fair share of red herrings. For example, there are also several objects found lying around which in fact have no use in the game. These include a red scarf (at the beginning of the game), a wicker cage and even the dragon. Particularly nasty is the desert landscape location past the dragon, from which there is no escape as all exits lead back to itself (and the use of the command GO BACK, which is recognized elsewhere in the game, is disabled deliberately for this location). While these add somewhat to the atmosphere, they also lead to a lot of wasted time. At least the lamp never runs out of oil...

Apparently the cassette inlay text boasted of this adventure  having "over 100 locations" in the game, but there are in fact exactly 63.

The one fatal flaw with the game, after playing through as far as possible, is that there is no end-game sequence. I  had to dig into the code to convince myself! Even after successfully finding the princess and carrying her back to the Left Luggage office, nothing happens and you are left wondering what to do. To make matters worse, if you drop the princess at any location in the game - including the Left Luggage office - you are told she "runs off into the dark" and she is placed back in the middle of the caverns again. This must have been immensely frustrating to anyone making it this far, and I can only think that it was an oversight that an end-of-game message was not implemented.

Let's set the princess down - this should be the end of the game...
Oh no! The princess runs off into the dark!

However, this offers the opportunity to create an enhanced version of the game by adding my own end-of-game check and message - and at the same time tidying up the text presentation on the screen.