King Solomon's Mines
By Brian J. Betts
Published by Mountain Valley Software
Release Year: Nineteen Eighty Something
Version Played: Commodore 64
I couldn't find any documentation on this game so I'll just have to dive in blind having no idea what I'm doing. So I'll be in the perfect state of mind to role play a text adventure protagonist. While searching for box cover art and a manual, I did learn a little about the publisher, Mountain Valley Software. It's all anecdotal but those are the best kinds of facts, right?! This was my favorite fact about Mountain Valley Software from the website Alphaworks:
"The main thing that makes [Mountain Valley Software] adventure games so good is that they are easy to solve, you won't find yourself spending months on end trying to crack these adventures."
My first reaction was: "Oh Alphaworks! Using a comma where you need a semicolon?!" My less judgmental reaction (but still judgmental!) was, "Who spent months on end trying to crack a shitty 80s text adventure?" I understand spending a lot of time on an Infocom game because that Shakespearean jizz was full of puzzles that mostly made sense. Just about every other text adventure took place in a jungle (or traveling to a jungle) and 95% of all puzzles involved examining the right thing or searching in the right place to find the obvious item to use on the thing barring forward progress. They mostly all suck (which doesn't say much about my character and personality that I actually enjoy playing these stupid fucking wastes of time). I suppose "spending months on end trying to crack" an adventure really just means playing an adventure game for ten minutes before shoving it angrily on the shelf where it would sit for three more weeks before you saw your sibling had found it and somehow gotten past the point you were stuck, after which you went down into the basement and rocked in a dark corner for forty five minutes.
I may have needed to use a semicolon somewhere in that previous mess of a paragraph.
Having no documentation means having no backstory. But do I need backstory? Of course I don't! I'll just pretend I'm another amnesiac time traveler with zero executive function and a desperate need for a duffel bag.
By Brian J. Betts
Published by Mountain Valley Software
Release Year: Nineteen Eighty Something
Version Played: Commodore 64
I couldn't find any documentation on this game so I'll just have to dive in blind having no idea what I'm doing. So I'll be in the perfect state of mind to role play a text adventure protagonist. While searching for box cover art and a manual, I did learn a little about the publisher, Mountain Valley Software. It's all anecdotal but those are the best kinds of facts, right?! This was my favorite fact about Mountain Valley Software from the website Alphaworks:
"The main thing that makes [Mountain Valley Software] adventure games so good is that they are easy to solve, you won't find yourself spending months on end trying to crack these adventures."
My first reaction was: "Oh Alphaworks! Using a comma where you need a semicolon?!" My less judgmental reaction (but still judgmental!) was, "Who spent months on end trying to crack a shitty 80s text adventure?" I understand spending a lot of time on an Infocom game because that Shakespearean jizz was full of puzzles that mostly made sense. Just about every other text adventure took place in a jungle (or traveling to a jungle) and 95% of all puzzles involved examining the right thing or searching in the right place to find the obvious item to use on the thing barring forward progress. They mostly all suck (which doesn't say much about my character and personality that I actually enjoy playing these stupid fucking wastes of time). I suppose "spending months on end trying to crack" an adventure really just means playing an adventure game for ten minutes before shoving it angrily on the shelf where it would sit for three more weeks before you saw your sibling had found it and somehow gotten past the point you were stuck, after which you went down into the basement and rocked in a dark corner for forty five minutes.
I may have needed to use a semicolon somewhere in that previous mess of a paragraph.
Having no documentation means having no backstory. But do I need backstory? Of course I don't! I'll just pretend I'm another amnesiac time traveler with zero executive function and a desperate need for a duffel bag.
This is how the game starts. And no, my first move was not to shove the beads in my ass. That was my second move after picking them up.
Oh. And this is how the game ends:
I never did get the beads shoved up there.
The Alphaworks website was exactly right. I didn't spend any months at all cracking this adventure. I don't think I even spent a full hour on it! I wonder how much they had the gall to sell this game for?
And that's the problem with 80s text adventures right there! If it's unreasonably difficult due to nasty tricks by the writer like accepting only one obscure verb when multiple synonyms should work, or designing a seemingly dead end area where the solution to the final puzzle is hidden in a direction that's a primary intercardinal direction after the game has taught you through example after example during the main part that the game only accepts cardinal directions, or creating a wisdom system that won't let you complete the final puzzle unless you've done exactly everything right in a way that's more right than the official solution that came with the game, or the documentation creates the verb "lin" for "look inside" which says (to me!) that the parser only accepts two words (or why the need for such a lame creation?) when you have to eventually "look under trolley" at some point (so why not create the verb "lun"?!), I'm going to criticize the shit out of the game and point out how it's the worst garbage in the universe and I'm worse than that for willingly playing the stupid piece of shit. Or it's going to be so easy and over with in an hour or less, I'm going to be pissed off over how much money I spent on a game that has no replay value! Thankfully, the Internet has established a practically God-given right to play these games for free without compensating anybody for their work! So I don't mind when I actually play an easy-to-beat game!
That's about it for praising the game though. "It was beatable! -- Grunion Guy." Slap that on the back of the box that I can't find any evidence of! But the worst offense in this game isn't that you trade anal beads with some pygmies to get the axe they probably depend on to live in the jungle. No, the worst offense is one that many text adventure games of the day perpetrated on young, unsuspecting, dull-witted boys and girls: the titular location isn't actually part of the game! These fucking adventure games loved to proclaim "KING SOLOMON'S MINES!" or "AZTEC ADVENTURE!" or "AZTEC ADVENTURE II!" or "FRANKIE GOES TO JUPITER!" (fucking Jupiter man! Doesn't that sound super exciting! Well fuck you! Because what it actually is is searching a crashed spaceship to rebuild your stupid Commodore 64 computer, sucker!). The covers were exciting paintings showing some archaeologist or astronaut or colonial capitalist tomb robber having the greatest adventure as they discover treasure after alien treasure! And then the game usually starts in a fucking living room somewhere with the parser saying, "Oh boy! Time to get to Aztecipiter's Mine!" So the game becomes mostly about preparing for your journey, the troubles you have on the journey, and your eventual arrival at the exciting place the game promised where you discover nothing but the end screen. "YOU FOUND THE PLACE YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO BE ADVENTURING! GOOD JOB, STUPID!"
Being that I have no cover art or documentation for this game, it might be unfair to label it one of those games. It might have been completely honest about the mission. "Find King Solomon's Mines but don't think you'll be adventuring in them! Oh no! You know how the journey is like 80% about the journey and 15% about the destination and 5% trying not to eventually hate your travelling companions? Well this journey is 100% about the journey! So, like, you know, 20% more than usual! Fuck the destination. Only idiots care about where they're headed."
Oh wait! I forgot I had more praise! This game doesn't even understand the verbs "examine" or "search" so it was truly a unique experience! Although most of the "search or examine" puzzles were just replaced by "look or dig" puzzles. I should probably put quotation marks around the word "puzzles" too but I didn't want to overuse them more than I already have. You still had to move the occasional thing to find the occasional other thing though. So, really, the puzzles were still about locating the hidden thing you needed that wasn't too terribly hidden and extremely obvious where to use after you found it. Probably the toughest puzzle in the game was having to look in the box twice to find the bullets under the fish. That one had me stumped for like three minutes.
SCORES
Game Title: Misleading. You're in King Solomon's Mines for maybe two rooms. And you don't even get a picture of the treasure!
Puzzles: You feed things, kill things, dig for stuff, move stuff, and look at stuff. I guess you use some clues to get through the desert areas. But that's not solving a puzzle. That's following directions.
Gameplay: The user interface was pleasant. The map was fairly linear so the solution to each puzzle was fairly obvious.
Graphics: Surprisingly effective for the limiting pixel sizes. But then the Commodore 64 was the computer to beat when it came to graphics for many years.
Concept: A favorite among interactive fiction writers. Why write a story that can take place in an exciting location when it can take place on the journey to that location!
Fun Time: About an hour. It never grew old and the art was cute to look at. I particularly liked the skeleton that I kept thinking was a flashlight.
And that's the problem with 80s text adventures right there! If it's unreasonably difficult due to nasty tricks by the writer like accepting only one obscure verb when multiple synonyms should work, or designing a seemingly dead end area where the solution to the final puzzle is hidden in a direction that's a primary intercardinal direction after the game has taught you through example after example during the main part that the game only accepts cardinal directions, or creating a wisdom system that won't let you complete the final puzzle unless you've done exactly everything right in a way that's more right than the official solution that came with the game, or the documentation creates the verb "lin" for "look inside" which says (to me!) that the parser only accepts two words (or why the need for such a lame creation?) when you have to eventually "look under trolley" at some point (so why not create the verb "lun"?!), I'm going to criticize the shit out of the game and point out how it's the worst garbage in the universe and I'm worse than that for willingly playing the stupid piece of shit. Or it's going to be so easy and over with in an hour or less, I'm going to be pissed off over how much money I spent on a game that has no replay value! Thankfully, the Internet has established a practically God-given right to play these games for free without compensating anybody for their work! So I don't mind when I actually play an easy-to-beat game!
That's about it for praising the game though. "It was beatable! -- Grunion Guy." Slap that on the back of the box that I can't find any evidence of! But the worst offense in this game isn't that you trade anal beads with some pygmies to get the axe they probably depend on to live in the jungle. No, the worst offense is one that many text adventure games of the day perpetrated on young, unsuspecting, dull-witted boys and girls: the titular location isn't actually part of the game! These fucking adventure games loved to proclaim "KING SOLOMON'S MINES!" or "AZTEC ADVENTURE!" or "AZTEC ADVENTURE II!" or "FRANKIE GOES TO JUPITER!" (fucking Jupiter man! Doesn't that sound super exciting! Well fuck you! Because what it actually is is searching a crashed spaceship to rebuild your stupid Commodore 64 computer, sucker!). The covers were exciting paintings showing some archaeologist or astronaut or colonial capitalist tomb robber having the greatest adventure as they discover treasure after alien treasure! And then the game usually starts in a fucking living room somewhere with the parser saying, "Oh boy! Time to get to Aztecipiter's Mine!" So the game becomes mostly about preparing for your journey, the troubles you have on the journey, and your eventual arrival at the exciting place the game promised where you discover nothing but the end screen. "YOU FOUND THE PLACE YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO BE ADVENTURING! GOOD JOB, STUPID!"
Being that I have no cover art or documentation for this game, it might be unfair to label it one of those games. It might have been completely honest about the mission. "Find King Solomon's Mines but don't think you'll be adventuring in them! Oh no! You know how the journey is like 80% about the journey and 15% about the destination and 5% trying not to eventually hate your travelling companions? Well this journey is 100% about the journey! So, like, you know, 20% more than usual! Fuck the destination. Only idiots care about where they're headed."
Oh wait! I forgot I had more praise! This game doesn't even understand the verbs "examine" or "search" so it was truly a unique experience! Although most of the "search or examine" puzzles were just replaced by "look or dig" puzzles. I should probably put quotation marks around the word "puzzles" too but I didn't want to overuse them more than I already have. You still had to move the occasional thing to find the occasional other thing though. So, really, the puzzles were still about locating the hidden thing you needed that wasn't too terribly hidden and extremely obvious where to use after you found it. Probably the toughest puzzle in the game was having to look in the box twice to find the bullets under the fish. That one had me stumped for like three minutes.
SCORES
Game Title: Misleading. You're in King Solomon's Mines for maybe two rooms. And you don't even get a picture of the treasure!
Puzzles: You feed things, kill things, dig for stuff, move stuff, and look at stuff. I guess you use some clues to get through the desert areas. But that's not solving a puzzle. That's following directions.
Gameplay: The user interface was pleasant. The map was fairly linear so the solution to each puzzle was fairly obvious.
Graphics: Surprisingly effective for the limiting pixel sizes. But then the Commodore 64 was the computer to beat when it came to graphics for many years.
Concept: A favorite among interactive fiction writers. Why write a story that can take place in an exciting location when it can take place on the journey to that location!
Fun Time: About an hour. It never grew old and the art was cute to look at. I particularly liked the skeleton that I kept thinking was a flashlight.
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