Ship of Doom
By Charles Cecil
Published by Artic Computing
Release Year: 1982
Version Played: ZX Spectrum
There's an elephant in the previous information dump that I only want to discuss so that nobody thinks it was a typo: the publisher named themselves "Artic Computing." Wait. What? Just in case I'm dumber than I thought I was, I decided to Google the word to see if it actually means anything. Dictionary.com says it's short for "articulated vehicle." Okay, great. I suppose I can see practically nobody ever talking about articulated vehicles so much that they need to shorten the word to "artic" while then never having to explain what that meant when the people they're talking to say, "Wait. What?" On the other hand, Dictionary.com goes on to give a "historical example" of "artic" being used in Parrot and Company by Harold McGrath: "'And fifty quid for me,' added Warrington, smiling, though his eyes were as blue and hard as Artic ice." Well then. That's cleared that up!
By Charles Cecil
Published by Artic Computing
Release Year: 1982
Version Played: ZX Spectrum
There's an elephant in the previous information dump that I only want to discuss so that nobody thinks it was a typo: the publisher named themselves "Artic Computing." Wait. What? Just in case I'm dumber than I thought I was, I decided to Google the word to see if it actually means anything. Dictionary.com says it's short for "articulated vehicle." Okay, great. I suppose I can see practically nobody ever talking about articulated vehicles so much that they need to shorten the word to "artic" while then never having to explain what that meant when the people they're talking to say, "Wait. What?" On the other hand, Dictionary.com goes on to give a "historical example" of "artic" being used in Parrot and Company by Harold McGrath: "'And fifty quid for me,' added Warrington, smiling, though his eyes were as blue and hard as Artic ice." Well then. That's cleared that up!
I might not be in the right mood for this.
As the protagonist of the titular Ship of Doom, I must release my ship from the "graviton beam" that sucked it onto a battle cruiser flown by aliens that use other sentient races as slaves. A "graviton beam" is simply a more serious tractor beam. To help me with my mission, I have a "pet android" named Fred.
If that's the case, why did the documentation say Fred was a "pet android" and not a "fuck toy sexbot"? Anyway, I can't wait until later!
This game was published in 1982 so the locations are bare and the parser is terrible and descriptions are practically non-existent. It's what I would expect from a 1982 game even though my brain is screaming, "Zork I came out in 1980! This game came out two fucking years later! How was there still an audience for this minimalist garbage when Infocom was out there swinging its huge fucking dick in everybody's faces?!" My brain is an asshole who ruins everything good in my life so just ignore it and let's try to stay positive with this one!
Getting through the first level of the ship didn't take long but not because it was easy. I think I got extremely lucky. At one point you find a sonic screwdriver. Not being a Doctor Who fan (mostly because the theme song scared the shit out of me as a kid (opening credits of another show that scared the fuck out of me: Tales from the Dark Side)), I had no idea how it was meant to be used. But I did assume that to use it, I would say things like "use screwdriver" and "smell screwdriver" and "insert screwdriver." It's what I would do if I had a fat kitty. I would say, "Kitty! Come eat more food!" But according to Charles Cecil, he would say, "Fat! Come eat more food!" Because in his game that my brain wanted to describe as "fat and stupid" but which I'm currently above calling it, Charles wants the player to refer to the sonic screwdriver as a sonic. So you have to say "drop sonic" or "lick sonic" or "remove sonic."
Some of the smarter readers might be thinking, "Well, shouldn't that have been obvious when you tried to 'get screwdriver' and couldn't? Didn't you realize you had to refer to it as a 'sonic' when you typed 'get sonic'?" And to them, I'd like to say, "Astute point, person who doesn't yet know the whole story but still feels the need to gotcha me." When you find the sonic screwdriver, it's just a rod in need of a battery. So you say 'get rod' and then 'insert battery' and now you've got a sonic screwdriver in your inventory. I think I realized I had to refer to it as a 'sonic' when I tried to drop it for some reason.
Once you've figured that out, it's just a matter of getting even luckier and discovering that to use the sonic screwdriver, you have to type 'point sonic.' I'm sure all of the Doctor Who fans are now rolling their eyes and snorting, "Obviously!"
Getting through the first level of the ship didn't take long but not because it was easy. I think I got extremely lucky. At one point you find a sonic screwdriver. Not being a Doctor Who fan (mostly because the theme song scared the shit out of me as a kid (opening credits of another show that scared the fuck out of me: Tales from the Dark Side)), I had no idea how it was meant to be used. But I did assume that to use it, I would say things like "use screwdriver" and "smell screwdriver" and "insert screwdriver." It's what I would do if I had a fat kitty. I would say, "Kitty! Come eat more food!" But according to Charles Cecil, he would say, "Fat! Come eat more food!" Because in his game that my brain wanted to describe as "fat and stupid" but which I'm currently above calling it, Charles wants the player to refer to the sonic screwdriver as a sonic. So you have to say "drop sonic" or "lick sonic" or "remove sonic."
Some of the smarter readers might be thinking, "Well, shouldn't that have been obvious when you tried to 'get screwdriver' and couldn't? Didn't you realize you had to refer to it as a 'sonic' when you typed 'get sonic'?" And to them, I'd like to say, "Astute point, person who doesn't yet know the whole story but still feels the need to gotcha me." When you find the sonic screwdriver, it's just a rod in need of a battery. So you say 'get rod' and then 'insert battery' and now you've got a sonic screwdriver in your inventory. I think I realized I had to refer to it as a 'sonic' when I tried to drop it for some reason.
Once you've figured that out, it's just a matter of getting even luckier and discovering that to use the sonic screwdriver, you have to type 'point sonic.' I'm sure all of the Doctor Who fans are now rolling their eyes and snorting, "Obviously!"
Apparently, I'm in a Japanese horror movie.
For now, I'll ignore the little girl because while you can kill her to keep her from strangling you, you can also apparently fuck her later, according to Fred. I know that's wrong and disgusting! I would never actually do that if I were a humanoid trapped on a slave ship who just thawed a little girl from a block of ice! But this is a stupid text adventure from 1982 that responds to me attempting to fuck things with a response that I find hilarious! Plus the little monster wants to kill me! If we can't do terrible and depraved things to psychotic murder children in a fictional situation like this, I don't want to live!
I'm really beginning to find Fred disturbing and gross!
Moving on from that unfortunate digression, it's time to explore the second level of the alien ship with Fred, the horny android! Luckily for Fred, he's about to get his nut on. Maybe then he'll stop thinking about fucking freshly defrosted little murder girls.
You know what I'm about to type next, right?!
Oh, so now we're suddenly going to start referring to it as a "screwdriver"?!
The second level introduces a few new characters: the fuckbot, an android repairing his ship, a human strapped to a table, a barmandroid, and a hostile little prick of an alien who chases you around trying to shoot you in the face. The best way to deal with everybody you meet in this game aside from the barman is to kill them. Yes, you're only the hero of this story because the story is told from your point of view. You're actually a monster whose android sidekick constantly reminds you that, later, when you get home, you can fuck all the little girls you want. Your character is a real shining example of humanity in this one.
The little alien that tries to kill you sometimes does. It's completely random. And even if you kill him first, he'll return to take shots at you over and over again. While that doesn't affect the experience of a player using a Spectrum emulator in this day and age, I imagine it truly pissed off kids who had to reload the Goddamned game from cassette after every time they died.
The final puzzle in the game is a lift activated by three buttons. I don't think anything clues the player into what order to press the buttons to arrive at the control room where you can release the graviton beam but it didn't really matter. Using the only math I remember from calculus, I know that means there are only six combinations. Also maybe I learned factorials in Algebra. After pressing the button, you have thirty moves to escape because the button was apparently a combination anti-graviton and self-destruct mechanism. One of the other combinations on the lift gets you pretty close to your ship so even that wasn't much of a puzzle. In the end, I escaped with Fred the Android to continue pursuing our depraved machinations across the solar system.
The little alien that tries to kill you sometimes does. It's completely random. And even if you kill him first, he'll return to take shots at you over and over again. While that doesn't affect the experience of a player using a Spectrum emulator in this day and age, I imagine it truly pissed off kids who had to reload the Goddamned game from cassette after every time they died.
The final puzzle in the game is a lift activated by three buttons. I don't think anything clues the player into what order to press the buttons to arrive at the control room where you can release the graviton beam but it didn't really matter. Using the only math I remember from calculus, I know that means there are only six combinations. Also maybe I learned factorials in Algebra. After pressing the button, you have thirty moves to escape because the button was apparently a combination anti-graviton and self-destruct mechanism. One of the other combinations on the lift gets you pretty close to your ship so even that wasn't much of a puzzle. In the end, I escaped with Fred the Android to continue pursuing our depraved machinations across the solar system.
What sort of adventure is Adventure D? NAMBLA Meeting of Mystery?
SCORES
Game Title: If the actual title is "Adventure C", then it's a rubbish title. But if it's "Ship of Doom", it's also a rubbish title. I would have called it "Fred and His Master Fuck the Solar System."
Puzzles: Most of the puzzles are easily solved due to the small amount of inventory objects you can find. I suppose realizing you needed to refer to the "sonic screwdriver" as a "sonic" was unfair but I somehow figured it out. After that it was just a matter of deflecting a beam of light with a torch and melting some laser bars with the fuckbot's vanity mirror and you were pretty much done!
Gameplay: This game is probably how most people familiar with text adventures of this era remember them. Sparse descriptions and a lot of guess work to figure out the correct "verb noun" combination to use inventory objects. Most of the rooms are described with one word that doesn't affect the game at all until you're in the "pit room" and you guess that maybe throwing the grappling hook you've made might work there. Also, murdering the poor android who just wanted to work on his ship to get a necessary object helped me realize my character was inherently an evil jerk and it wasn't just me and my suggestions that he fuck the little murder girl.
Graphics: None!
Concept: I don't think the concept was really thought through too much. If Paul Hollywood were judging this text adventure, he'd slice it in two and then poke the middle to show that it was still raw inside. I mean, it's a slave ship that captures your ship and the first room you enter upon boarding the slave ship is the reception room. The aliens are just all, "Welcome aboard, soon-to-be-slaves! Have a nice look around! Please don't thaw out the murder girl or release the madman strapped to the table. Unless you get off on strangulation! But then if you get off on strangulation, why not just visit the Android Pleasure Room? Fuckbot 2000 knows sixty-two ways of pleasuring her suitors!"
Fun Time: I think I beat this game in less than an hour. Most of that hour was enjoyable because of all the characters I met whom I could try and fuck.
Game Title: If the actual title is "Adventure C", then it's a rubbish title. But if it's "Ship of Doom", it's also a rubbish title. I would have called it "Fred and His Master Fuck the Solar System."
Puzzles: Most of the puzzles are easily solved due to the small amount of inventory objects you can find. I suppose realizing you needed to refer to the "sonic screwdriver" as a "sonic" was unfair but I somehow figured it out. After that it was just a matter of deflecting a beam of light with a torch and melting some laser bars with the fuckbot's vanity mirror and you were pretty much done!
Gameplay: This game is probably how most people familiar with text adventures of this era remember them. Sparse descriptions and a lot of guess work to figure out the correct "verb noun" combination to use inventory objects. Most of the rooms are described with one word that doesn't affect the game at all until you're in the "pit room" and you guess that maybe throwing the grappling hook you've made might work there. Also, murdering the poor android who just wanted to work on his ship to get a necessary object helped me realize my character was inherently an evil jerk and it wasn't just me and my suggestions that he fuck the little murder girl.
Graphics: None!
Concept: I don't think the concept was really thought through too much. If Paul Hollywood were judging this text adventure, he'd slice it in two and then poke the middle to show that it was still raw inside. I mean, it's a slave ship that captures your ship and the first room you enter upon boarding the slave ship is the reception room. The aliens are just all, "Welcome aboard, soon-to-be-slaves! Have a nice look around! Please don't thaw out the murder girl or release the madman strapped to the table. Unless you get off on strangulation! But then if you get off on strangulation, why not just visit the Android Pleasure Room? Fuckbot 2000 knows sixty-two ways of pleasuring her suitors!"
Fun Time: I think I beat this game in less than an hour. Most of that hour was enjoyable because of all the characters I met whom I could try and fuck.
Funny stuff. I remember playing this years ago. Doesn't the android blow a fuse at some point? Hope you do some more reviews
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteI keep meaning to get back here and do more reviews but I got stuck on one of those "over 900 locations" games which really just means "this game is bland and boring and won't hold your interest!" Maybe I should just randomly choose a new game to get back into the routine.