Game Review: Classic Adventure (Commodore 16, Melbourne House)

I’ve always been fond of text adventures and once I started my journey into home computing, it was the first genre I delved into thanks to the Adventure series from Scott Adams. While many of those were converted over to the Commodore 16, Mastertronic didn’t dip their toes into the genre although Melbourne House which they took over did release a conversion of one of their early titles, Classic Adventure…

Background

While published by Melbourne House, Classic Adventure was developed by Abersoft and first published for the ZX Spectrum originally under the name Adventure 1. Although first released in 1982, the origins of the game atually date back to the 1970s with Colossal Cave Adventure written by Will Crowther and Don Woods. While not an official port, Classic Adventure is based on what many consider to be one of the first games in the genre.

It starts off simply enough, leaving you out in the open air on a road, near a stream, forest and a non-descript building and from there you’re on your own. You’re left to your own devices to discover a hidden laybrinth of caves, find treasures while avoiding any hazards that lurk within, and return them safely to the building.

You Can’t Do That…

The whole premise of playing a text adventure is interacting with the game’s story by typing in commands and directing your character to further the game’s narrative. While Infocom were regarded as being one of the master’s of the genre with their complex parser allowing a wide range of complex sentences and options for what you could type in, Classic Adventure is the complete opposite.

Moving around is simple enough using the normal N, S, E and W options and you get pick up objects using the standard GET and DROP commands. But things soon fall apart after that point. Basic commands that you would expect to work just don’t and all you are presented with is the response “I CANT” to pretty much everything you try.

The final frustration with the interpreter is that you’re unable to USE or EXAMINE items in your posession or anything that you see around you. So when it comes to any item you encounter in the game, what you see in the basic item name is generally what you get to know about it.

We’re On A Road To Nowhere…

One of my biggest pet hates in text adventures are game maps that make no sense. I experienced this with the second game in the Questprobe series, Spider-Man when you explored the series of airducts inside the Daily Bugle building. I never thought I’d say it, but Classic Adventure is even more frustrating.

First, when it comes to the location descriptions, the majority of them give absolutely no indication whatsoever as to the directions of travel that are available to you. All you get is a basic description of the location and that’s it so it’s a case of trial and error to find out which way you can go. But once you do find a direction that you can go it, it gets more frustrating…

It’s quite possible to walk in one direction endlessly and have the map wrap on you several times. But then you can find yourself going west to one location, go east to explore somewhere else, and then upon heading west once more you find yourself somewhere completely different as if the map has re-designed itself while you are walking. This makes parts of the game frustrating in ways I haven’t seen in any other text adventure before and it becomes a case of luck more than anything else that you’ll arrive where you want to.

Language Woes

Compared to other versions of the games, this one is cut down somewhat with rather brief location descriptions which doesn’t help when it comes to giving a good sense of your surroundings. It could be argued that compromises had to be made to fit the game into 16k, but both of the Questprobe releases worked well enough and the first five of Scott Adams games were written to fit into a 16k cartridge on the Vic 20.

But it’s not just the locations themselves that are the problem. There are spelling and gramatical errors throughout (the “I CANT” message, for example), poor punctuation and a game engine that seems to struggle in the way items and locations are described as you can see in the screenshot and how it describes the changes to the grate once it is opened. All of these provide unwanted distractions from the game.

Playability

I genuinely wanted to enjoy Classic Adventure, but found myself thwarted at every opportunity by the parser and illogical mapping. Of the two, I felt that the parser was probably the biggest issue as I was never fully sure whether I was trying to do something that I simply couldn’t or if I was just using the wrong commands and just needed to find the right words to use.

The situation I mentioned earlier with the grate is a perfect example. In most adventures if you encounter something that is locked and you are carrying a set of keys, your first response would be to use the keys or unlock the grate. Instead just having the keys in your inventory is enough to solve the puzzle but this leaves you feeling rather unsatisfied as a player as if all the work is being done for you.

Graphics And Sound

It’s a text adventure so there’s nothing really to talk about here. Classic Adventure is played in complete silence, there are no graphics whatsoever, and even the text is displayed using the C16’s default colour palette so absolutely no effort was put into the presentation whatsoever.

Overall

Yes, this is an Adventure but it certainly isn’t a Classic. Considering the fact that this was released at what would have been regarded as a full price point, this really wasn’t worth considering. There were far better interactive fiction titles released for the C16 not only with better gameplay, but of a higher standard on every level – parsers that you didn’t have to fight with, stronger puzzles, and maps that made sense. One to avoid unless you need to have a complete collection.

* * *

You know what we think but why not share your thoughts on this game! Let us know what you think of it in the comments below, or add your own score using the slider in the summary box at the top of the review!

Please follow and like us: