Best 16K Text Adventures

General software. From trouble with the Banyan Tree to OCP Art Studio, post any general software chat here. Could include game challenges...
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Pick your favourite:

Poll ended at Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:00 pm

Adventure
1
14%
Adventure 200
0
No votes
Adventure A: Planet of Death
3
43%
Death Reprieve
0
No votes
Dr. Bongo's Safari Park
0
No votes
Dungeon
0
No votes
Hells Bells
0
No votes
Historia Interminable, La
1
14%
Hunt the Wumpus
0
No votes
Krago Castle
0
No votes
Mines of Saturn
0
No votes
Ptarmigan
0
No votes
Return to Earth
0
No votes
Time Machine
1
14%
Time-Line
0
No votes
Zolan
1
14%
 
Total votes: 7

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spider
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Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

Yes really! :lol:

There are not actually that many once you sift through them a bit, anyway:

I'm going to exclude: Most book and magazine type-in's with this, sorry, simply as they tend to be a bit too small. Also excluded are MIA files for obvious reasons! On a positive point, I am including home-brew though where there is a download, files listed without a download here for whatever reason I've excluded.

Just seems half sensible to do it that way to allow everyone interested to sift through them without too much brain-ache. :D

I gave some thought to excluding those that were only ever released as part of a compilation however decided to include them in the end as it would be slightly unfair to not list them.

Apologies if anything has been missed out. I nearly included Inca-Curse for instance, then realised after closer inspection despite it being a small game it won't 'sit' in a 16K Speccy etc.


The poll itself is set to run for two weeks (expires 2nd/3rd September depending on your timezone) and the ability to change your vote is enabled. Slight twist here in that you can vote for two instead of one, no real reason for this other than you can.

Enjoy ?

Adventure
Image

Adventure 200
Image

Adventure A: Planet of Death
Image

Death Reprieve
Image

Dr. Bongo's Safari Park
Image

Dungeon
Image

Hells Bells
Image

Hunt the Wumpus
Image

Krago Castle
Image

La Historia Interminable
Image

Mines of Saturn
Image

Ptarmigan
Image

Return to Earth
Image

Time Machine
Image

Time-Line
Image

Zolan
Image


Enjoy ?
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spider
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

I missed the post (posted and deleted) so no idea what that was about. No point PM'ing the author :) If its gone its gone hehe. I actually have noted a phpbb bug now too but that's something for annoying someone else about on a different forum another day perhaps.

Back on topic: I should probably point out here, the only one of these I've really played is AdventureA , I recall buying it and AdventureB (Inca-Curse)*** , 'back then' . I still have the latter but not the former, not sure what happened to it. At that time I was slightly disappointed in them somehow although I had seen 48K adventures by then with *shock horror* actual graphics!

*** Sadly this is excluded as it won't run on a 16K machine , not without modification at least.

Talking very briefly of graphics, I think any 16K text adventure where the author has included even a small sprinkling of graphics for an occasional location should probably be applauded in most cases due to the general memory limits in place anyway. Same could well be said where the game has a different charset too - again a very nice touch for a 16K game imo. :)

Oh as per the original post a few are awol simply as there's no download link here, either its MIA or its only available on a third party site. I did include a couple of games that were compilation only releases rather than stand-alone though given there were not that many once I'd been through them...
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Juan F. Ramirez
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

I voted for the only I've ever played of the lot: Planet of Death. It was one of the first text adventures in english I played (or I tried to do something! ;) ).

A bit off-topic (sorry!): Speaking of these Artic adventures (A, B, C, ...) I just checked them in the archive and realized there's an Adventure H: Robin Hood (I thought they stopped at Adventure G!). Unfortunately there's only a Z80 file, no inlay and no instructions...
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

Thanks. :)

Adv H is quill built so I guess it only half counted as part of that series ?

I did look at it previously (about a year or two ago) , the problem being although its quite easy to reconstruct the Basic and loader/game code and 'make a tape image' , there is a USR in it to do 'something' , in effect there are four code blocks loaded. I think its reasonably safe to assume something like this:

CB1
CB2 = Screen$
CB3 = Game code OR char set
CB4 = Char set OR Game code

CB3/CB4 , just seems common on how some did it back then.
CB2 , as people would not want to wait too long for their pic!
CB1 , mystery. Suspect despite the message initially upon Basic running it was likely some Artic 'banner' perhaps. Its overwritten with game code though in the snap.

I could build an 'almost correct' tape file though. I'd really to be accurate want to look at half a dozen other Artic releases to see about this banner thought, would say same if author had any other titles up (they don't) to check their 'basic loader style' for want of a better expression. :D
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Morkin »

...That Time Machine location graphic.. :lol: Not sure the screenshots have added much to this poll, lol...

Planet of Death is the only one I've played I think, though I didn't realise there was a 16k version of the 'original' Adventure.

I didn't mind the lack of graphics for some old adventures but found myself a bit disappointed with the lack of atmospheric descriptions, and with some clunky/limited parsers. I guess it's easy to forget quite how little actual usable RAM you have to play with on the 16k machine.
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8BitAG
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by 8BitAG »

spider wrote: Wed Aug 21, 2019 11:27 am Adv H is quill built so I guess it only half counted as part of that series ?
I wouldn't really count "G" or "H" as part of that series... "G".. Ground Zero, which was also Quilled, was written independently of Artic... in fact, the author had planned to sell his house to fund the publication of the game. (And move his family into a flat over a shop where he could sell future games!)
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Kweepa »

You're missing a bunch of 16k adventures from the crap games competitions! :)
For example three of the four adventures I wrote in 2013 fit in 16k.
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

Kweepa wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2019 7:58 am You're missing a bunch of 16k adventures from the crap games competitions! :)
For example three of the four adventures I wrote in 2013 fit in 16k.
I had to work from both here and WOS listings and (try) to include what I could, I nearly chopped out anything that was not a stand-alone release rather than being in a commercial compilation but thought against it.

Sorry if anything is missing :oops: :(

Twas a bit tricky/fiddly to do as it was! :D
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Foxbat_25 »

I was wondering, is there a Spectrum emulator that'd allow these 16k adventures to be played on a mobile phone? Because it looks like the kind of thing that'd be cool to play at any time and place rather than in front of a screen; I mean, I'd like to play them on my Spectrum as well, but I'd be quite rad if I could get my retrogaming fix even on a trip or on a bus!
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

Foxbat_25 wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2019 3:56 pm I was wondering, is there a Spectrum emulator that'd allow these 16k adventures to be played on a mobile phone? Because it looks like the kind of thing that'd be cool to play at any time and place rather than in front of a screen; I mean, I'd like to play them on my Spectrum as well, but I'd be quite rad if I could get my retrogaming fix even on a trip or on a bus!
Any Speccy emulator that is mobile capable would work for these and other games.

Not having a smart phone (v. happy personally with a basic text/calls phone) I'm unable to recommend anything for you sorry, but I'm sure others can. :)
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by R-Tape »

Kweepa wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2019 7:58 am You're missing a bunch of 16k adventures from the crap games competitions! :)
For example three of the four adventures I wrote in 2013 fit in 16k.
As the host for that year, I can vouch that Collateral Damage was far too good for the CGC. As is, I voted for Adventure A.
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

Problem I partly had was the fact that "Machine Type" is not always populated :( aka "ZX-Spectrum 16K" , so it was a bit difficult.

Apologies for anything missing as I say, it took long enough to actually compile/write the post etc etc :oops:
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by R-Tape »

spider wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2019 9:30 pm Problem I partly had was the fact that "Machine Type" is not always populated :( aka "ZX-Spectrum 16K" , so it was a bit difficult.

Apologies for anything missing as I say, it took long enough to actually compile/write the post etc etc :oops:
The SC search doesn't include the 'IS_CRAP' flag by default, and they aren't marked as 16K anyway—so you've absolutely nothing to apologise for :D I just thought Kweepa's game was worth a mention.
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Morkin »

I voted for Planet of Death, Adventure being #2 for nostalgic reasons. I had a try at a few of the others but wasn't drawn to them particularly.

OK, so who voted for Time Machine? :o I was forced to try it just out of interest.

As already mentioned, both the graphics and the program are... err... BASIC - a lot of DRAW & PLOT:

Image

Having said that... I actually quite enjoyed it..! It's quite simple but reasonably slickly programmed for a 16K BASIC game; the parser is pretty quick (roughly Quill-speed) and there are even a few verb synonyms - the author has certainly thought about this a bit. There are a few traps/red herrings but otherwise it's not too difficult to complete. There are a few restrictions, like each location only being able to hold one object, and it's not going to make my top 2 but kudos to the programmer for fitting it into 16K. A short but fairly entertaining game.
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Curious why the program featured such graphics, a non-graphics option was something many adventures included -> more memory for the adventure
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

R-Tape wrote: Sun Aug 25, 2019 9:37 pm The SC search doesn't include the 'IS_CRAP' flag by default, and they aren't marked as 16K anyway—so you've absolutely nothing to apologise for :D I just thought Kweepa's game was worth a mention.
lol :lol:
Yes as I say I tried to include what I could reasonably find but I half knew there would be a file or three missing, usually the case. :)

Thanks! :D

Morkin wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:02 am OK, so who voted for Time Machine? :o I was forced to try it just out of interest.
I did ;) Simply as the author had included a few graphics, in the vaguest sense of the word but graphics none the less.

Morkin wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:02 am Having said that... I actually quite enjoyed it..! It's quite simple but reasonably slickly programmed for a 16K BASIC game; the parser is pretty quick (roughly Quill-speed) and there are even a few verb synonyms - the author has certainly thought about this a bit. There are a few traps/red herrings but otherwise it's not too difficult to complete. There are a few restrictions, like each location only being able to hold one object, and it's not going to make my top 2 but kudos to the programmer for fitting it into 16K. A short but fairly entertaining game.

It does play half decently despite its limitations as you've noted.
Juan F. Ramirez wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 7:58 am Curious why the program featured such graphics, a non-graphics option was something many adventures included -> more memory for the adventure
I would speculate this because they are 16K they are likely early games (but not always) and it seemed about 50/50 if early-ish games had any pics at all, and the fact they have added a random sprinkling of graphics to what would otherwise be plain text adds to the erm 'value' I guess. Moreso with being a 16K game, by this I mean if there were two versions of the same you'd probably expect the 16K to be text only and the 48K to have a few location pics, that kind of thing.

I do see what you're saying though. :) Although I think with some of these submissions memory was not that tight, certainly not on all of them at least.
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

When I was about to vote, my first option was going to be Time Machine because I thought it was the Brian Howarth adventure (Digital Fantasia):

Image

Quite an interesting adventure I played a lot back in the day. I used to get lost in a forest, IIRC.

Hence my surprise when I clicked on this thread's game.

Anyway, apart from the graphics ;) I think I should give it a try! :)
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

When I was about to vote, my first option was going to be Time Machine because I thought it was the Brian Howarth adventure (Digital Fantasia):

Image

Quite an interesting adventure I played a lot back in the day. I used to get lost in a forest, IIRC.

Hence my surprise when I clicked on this thread's game.

Anyway, apart from the graphics ;) I think I should give it a try! :)
Yes there's at least that one as well, had a bit of confusion with it myself when searching. :) The 'design' of the one you've posted a pic of I did look at the series, the 'game engine' is similar to the Adventure International one (Gremlins etc) , would actually be interesting to get ahold of that for creation purposes but I think I read somewhere most of the games are hardcoded in bit by bit I think rather than having many tools.

Something I do want to look into actually. I normally turn the keyboard click off with these too (small poke) as its quite annoying.
Last edited by spider on Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Best 16K Text Adventures

Post by spider »

I went through these of these and where I could , created a walkthrough / .rzx and submitted it. Summary being as follows:

Adventure - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Adventure 200 - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Adventure A: Planet of Death - .rzx already present by Robert Maines
Death Reprieve - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Dr. Bongo's Safari Park - Needs an .rzx at some point
Dungeon - Needs an .rzx at some point
Hells Bells - Needs an .rzx at some point
Historia Interminable, La - Needs an .rzx at some point
Hunt the Wumpus - Needs an .rzx at some point
Krago Castle - Needs an .rzx at some point
Mines of Saturn - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Ptarmigan - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Return to Earth - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Time Machine - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Time-Line - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me
Zolan - No .rzx was found, created and submitted by me

:)

Some of the 'not done' ones are only on a compilation release and also there is a lack of hints/tips for them, never mind a solution! Having said that those that are absent some are in Basic so it should not be that difficult to erm 'obtain hints' via Basic viewing if needed.
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