Mission X
By Walter Pooley
Published by Walter Pooley
Release Year: 1986
Version Played: ZX Spectrum
A part of me seems to think that on the day I die, I'll regret not playing as many text adventures as I could during my lifetime. That part of me is a huge idiot. I can't think of a worse way to spend my time and yet here I am again. I would probably get more enjoyment from a serious meth addiction. But every time I begin a new game, I convince myself that this one will be different. This time, the author will challenge me with their imaginative and mind bending puzzles. But even now, before I begin my journey into Mission X, I know I'm deluding myself. Right now, I'm eager for the fucking young piper on the Grecian Urn to belt out the sweetest tune ever heard to human ears. But in mere moments, I'm going to realize that this prick can't play a single note and will be horrified to watch as he shoves the pipe up his ass and jerks himself off.
That reminds me: I should review poetry!
Even after writing what I know will be the inevitable outcome of playing this game, I can't help but remain optimistic! At this very moment, I still think I can fire up this game and beat it in under an hour. I'm thinking, "I'm a fucking genius! Everybody except my mom says so! Although you know what I find weird? I have at least one friend who will describe me to other people as the smartest person he knows, and yet he disregards all of my political beliefs while worshiping Trump, the GOP, and FOX news! Can't he see what a mistake he's making by not listening to me?! I guess that's why he dropped out of high school, joined the army, got blown up in Iraq and is now idolized as a 'comedian' by patriots and Christians everywhere while I'm living the dream utilizing my Literature degree to make disgusting jokes about John Keats' poems for a few dozen readers online! He's such an idiot!" But in reality, ten minutes from now, I'm going to be enraged that the game expected me to "look under" a mountain to find the key to a door I couldn't see until I typed "search wall."
By Walter Pooley
Published by Walter Pooley
Release Year: 1986
Version Played: ZX Spectrum
A part of me seems to think that on the day I die, I'll regret not playing as many text adventures as I could during my lifetime. That part of me is a huge idiot. I can't think of a worse way to spend my time and yet here I am again. I would probably get more enjoyment from a serious meth addiction. But every time I begin a new game, I convince myself that this one will be different. This time, the author will challenge me with their imaginative and mind bending puzzles. But even now, before I begin my journey into Mission X, I know I'm deluding myself. Right now, I'm eager for the fucking young piper on the Grecian Urn to belt out the sweetest tune ever heard to human ears. But in mere moments, I'm going to realize that this prick can't play a single note and will be horrified to watch as he shoves the pipe up his ass and jerks himself off.
That reminds me: I should review poetry!
Even after writing what I know will be the inevitable outcome of playing this game, I can't help but remain optimistic! At this very moment, I still think I can fire up this game and beat it in under an hour. I'm thinking, "I'm a fucking genius! Everybody except my mom says so! Although you know what I find weird? I have at least one friend who will describe me to other people as the smartest person he knows, and yet he disregards all of my political beliefs while worshiping Trump, the GOP, and FOX news! Can't he see what a mistake he's making by not listening to me?! I guess that's why he dropped out of high school, joined the army, got blown up in Iraq and is now idolized as a 'comedian' by patriots and Christians everywhere while I'm living the dream utilizing my Literature degree to make disgusting jokes about John Keats' poems for a few dozen readers online! He's such an idiot!" But in reality, ten minutes from now, I'm going to be enraged that the game expected me to "look under" a mountain to find the key to a door I couldn't see until I typed "search wall."
The game's full title might be Welcome to Mission X: The Fate of the Earth is in Your Hands.
Look at those instructions! "Make the rest of your commands VERB–NOUN." Already I have evidence that the author is a complete jerk because I know I'm not supposed to insert a hyphen (unless it's an en dash (which it is in my rewriting of it!)) between every verb and noun! Why is Walter Pooley trying to confuse the player from the very start?!
Oh yeah. Walter Pooley is the name of the man I'm about to fucking hate.
The game begins with aliens abducting me. They give me a scroll described as metalic [sic] (remember that this adventure game was written before there were online dictionaries and nobody ever, in the history of everything, used a non-online dictionary (it's also possible that "metalic" is how it's spelled in British English but I can't find any proof of that using online dictionaries (but check out the difference between the UK and US pronunciations on the Cambridge Dictionary website. I think I might be offended!)).
Oh yeah. Walter Pooley is the name of the man I'm about to fucking hate.
The game begins with aliens abducting me. They give me a scroll described as metalic [sic] (remember that this adventure game was written before there were online dictionaries and nobody ever, in the history of everything, used a non-online dictionary (it's also possible that "metalic" is how it's spelled in British English but I can't find any proof of that using online dictionaries (but check out the difference between the UK and US pronunciations on the Cambridge Dictionary website. I think I might be offended!)).
Sorry to have to break it to you, Earth: you almost certainly will not be adding "Member of the Galactic Federation" to your CV.
After reading the scroll, I instantly know everything about the members of the Galactic Federation that I need to know. When they arrive on a planet to greet a new member, they painstakingly begin to search and examine everything in the location they land. After they've stolen everything in the area that isn't nailed down, they try walking in every cardinal direction, just to make sure they haven't missed any immediately apparent exits. Sure, they sometimes break their noses on the obvious wall blocking access to the north but how else are they going to know for sure that the wall is real or that there isn't a door that they hadn't noticed before or if a ladder existed there that couldn't be seen and couldn't be climbed and only allowed a person to use it if they resolutely walked "North"? I'm also going to assume that, even though gathering everything in the area that isn't nailed down is a standard aspect of their behavior, none of them will have arrived with a sack or a backpack or a duffel bag. They'll just walk around juggling eighteen different objects while poking and prodding everything they see.
I'm also going to assume that the only person in the Galactic Federation is Dorothy Millard.
I've written a lot of jokes that I knew were targeted at a small number of people but that Dorothy Millard joke might be my most abstruse joke yet.
Digression that actually has something to do with this topic: I just found myself getting annoyed that I sat down to get on the computer and then realized I had to stand back up to turn on the fan. It's probably this petty level of resentment against physical exertion which drives my love of text adventures. I don't physically have to do anything in those! I just tell my stupid adventure avatar what to do and the avatar does it! Well, sometimes the avatar does it. Most of the time, the avatar says, "Sorry, I don't understand that," or "I don't understand what you want me to do," or "You want me to move this stack of papers so you can more clearly see the thing I've noticed is under it? But how, exactly? No, I can't push it or pull it or move it aside or blow it down or burn it or take it or remove it. But maybe keep trying the synonyms and eventually I'll do that totally obvious thing you want me to do! I'm so dense sometimes!"
The alien's test takes place in a fake English village on another planet. After exploring a little bit, I wind up inside a church with a plastic bucket full of pig food.
I'm also going to assume that the only person in the Galactic Federation is Dorothy Millard.
I've written a lot of jokes that I knew were targeted at a small number of people but that Dorothy Millard joke might be my most abstruse joke yet.
Digression that actually has something to do with this topic: I just found myself getting annoyed that I sat down to get on the computer and then realized I had to stand back up to turn on the fan. It's probably this petty level of resentment against physical exertion which drives my love of text adventures. I don't physically have to do anything in those! I just tell my stupid adventure avatar what to do and the avatar does it! Well, sometimes the avatar does it. Most of the time, the avatar says, "Sorry, I don't understand that," or "I don't understand what you want me to do," or "You want me to move this stack of papers so you can more clearly see the thing I've noticed is under it? But how, exactly? No, I can't push it or pull it or move it aside or blow it down or burn it or take it or remove it. But maybe keep trying the synonyms and eventually I'll do that totally obvious thing you want me to do! I'm so dense sometimes!"
The alien's test takes place in a fake English village on another planet. After exploring a little bit, I wind up inside a church with a plastic bucket full of pig food.
Maybe my avatar will understand what I mean if I'm more specific?
Nope. Although I can't be entirely sure until I try entering every synonym for "jerking off."
I spend the next hour or so searching the alien test village and solving puzzles that range from "show cross" to an evil skeleton to "vault chasm" to get across a chasm to "examine table" to find the lamp and matches necessary to get in several dark places. While a few items necessitate looking more closely at things (like when I found dynamite in the wardrobe and then typed "examine wardrobe" to suddenly notice the cloak as well), Mr. Pooley doesn't abuse it as badly as that Creighton guy did in Meltdown (at least not yet! I'm still not finished, so you never know).
Eventually, I get outside of the alien simulation and find myself in the alien's city. It's not long before I'm offered the chance to make one of my fetishes come true.
Eventually, I get outside of the alien simulation and find myself in the alien's city. It's not long before I'm offered the chance to make one of my fetishes come true.
I wonder if I can get a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for what I'm about to do.
After discarding the gloves, cross, and bucket because they were of no use to me or the dead naked guard anymore, I made my way into the alien building where I found a ship. I could escape back to Earth and prove to the aliens that we were ready to be a part of the Galactic Federation! Except I didn't have the co'ordinates [sic] to pilot the ship and every time I launched it, I wound up lost in deep space. Up until this point, the game had been relatively easy. But I wasn't going to be stymied by my first real roadblock! I just needed some time to think about the problem. It's probably super easy peasy! Like maybe looking under the ship to find the co'ordinates!
I'm convinced nobody can solve a text adventure game in the modern day. We're too impatient while simultaneously having all the answers to everything right at our fingertips. So how long am I supposed to exist as a person who can't find the coordinates back to Earth? How many times should I go through the game examining and searching every object in every description, or trying to move in every compass direction, whether or not they're listed in the room description? Am I stubborn and tenacious? Or am I just wasting the precious scant moments of my dwindling, finite life? And how angry am I going to be when I finally do read Dorothy Millard's walkthrough (I'm sure she's written one for this!) to find out that the coordinates were buried in the muddy field but I couldn't find them because I didn't use the correct synonym for "dig"?!
What's truly galling is that I thought I was going to beat this fucking game. I made it all the way to the fucking ship, for Christ's sake! I figured out to go "up" even when the choice wasn't given. I figured out to take the cloak off before attempting to kill the guard. I figured out to "show cross" to defeat the skeleton. I even examined the bucket after feeding the pigs to find the stupid cross hidden in it! And even though I know the thing I'm missing isn't going to be something logical which I could have figured out, I still can't bring myself to look at the hints! Nothing feels worse than getting that first hint in an adventure game and subsequently thinking, "I COULD HAVE COME UP WITH THAT! FUCK EVERYBODY!" Not even the death of my loving, wonderful grandparents could compare with that!
And yet...what am I doing otherwise? I'm sitting here rereading the most boring alien abduction story ever written. I could be rereading Shakespeare but instead I'm rereading Walter Pooley's sparse and misspelled description of a fake English village built by aliens.
Did you catch that I wrote "I could be rereading Shakespeare"? As if I've ever read any of it before! But it made me sound smart, right?! I also like to quote it to people to impress them when I'm at a bar. I'll sidle up to some hot looking young person and say, "Out vile jelly!" And they'll be all, "Oh, you're a fan of King Lear, are you?" And I'll be all, "I'm totally into Goneril, if you get my meaning!" They don't get my meaning and usually wander away before I can do my Othello speech: "My fault is not that I did not love wisely but too well! See? I'm passionate! Killing my love due to jealousy over an imagined slight is a positive attribute! You should always trust the racist who hates you and loves your lover over the person who would do anything for you out of love and affection!"
If Shakespeare had written his plays as text adventure games, nobody would ever figure out what he wanted the player to do to solve each problem.
Juliet lies dead before you. What do you do now, Romeo?
>perform CPR
Sorry, I don't know how to do that.
>check pulse
Sorry, I don't know how to do that.
>fuck Juliet
Sorry, I don't know how to do that.
>wait
Time passes.
>wait
Time passes.
>wait
Time passes.
>wait
Time passes.
>kill myself
You drink the poison and die just seconds before Juliet wakes up from her self-induced coma. Upon discovering your dead body and the empty vial of poison, she makes out with you for a bit while the dead eyes of your rival Paris watch and judge. When she's had enough, she finally plunges a dagger into her breast and ends it all. You scored 100 out of 100 points! Congratulations!
Fine! I give up! Earth isn't going to get to be a member of the Galactic Federation! Yet another text adventure game from the eighties has beaten me! I'm fucking humiliated. If only I could view this defeat as me not being able to read the mind of Walter Pooley. But no. I can only see it as my intellectual inability to solve the rational and logical puzzles created by a genius puzzle-maker. And he bested me. Good job, Walter Pooley.
Now to see how he did his trick and take a look at the hint sheet that came with the game.
I'm convinced nobody can solve a text adventure game in the modern day. We're too impatient while simultaneously having all the answers to everything right at our fingertips. So how long am I supposed to exist as a person who can't find the coordinates back to Earth? How many times should I go through the game examining and searching every object in every description, or trying to move in every compass direction, whether or not they're listed in the room description? Am I stubborn and tenacious? Or am I just wasting the precious scant moments of my dwindling, finite life? And how angry am I going to be when I finally do read Dorothy Millard's walkthrough (I'm sure she's written one for this!) to find out that the coordinates were buried in the muddy field but I couldn't find them because I didn't use the correct synonym for "dig"?!
What's truly galling is that I thought I was going to beat this fucking game. I made it all the way to the fucking ship, for Christ's sake! I figured out to go "up" even when the choice wasn't given. I figured out to take the cloak off before attempting to kill the guard. I figured out to "show cross" to defeat the skeleton. I even examined the bucket after feeding the pigs to find the stupid cross hidden in it! And even though I know the thing I'm missing isn't going to be something logical which I could have figured out, I still can't bring myself to look at the hints! Nothing feels worse than getting that first hint in an adventure game and subsequently thinking, "I COULD HAVE COME UP WITH THAT! FUCK EVERYBODY!" Not even the death of my loving, wonderful grandparents could compare with that!
And yet...what am I doing otherwise? I'm sitting here rereading the most boring alien abduction story ever written. I could be rereading Shakespeare but instead I'm rereading Walter Pooley's sparse and misspelled description of a fake English village built by aliens.
Did you catch that I wrote "I could be rereading Shakespeare"? As if I've ever read any of it before! But it made me sound smart, right?! I also like to quote it to people to impress them when I'm at a bar. I'll sidle up to some hot looking young person and say, "Out vile jelly!" And they'll be all, "Oh, you're a fan of King Lear, are you?" And I'll be all, "I'm totally into Goneril, if you get my meaning!" They don't get my meaning and usually wander away before I can do my Othello speech: "My fault is not that I did not love wisely but too well! See? I'm passionate! Killing my love due to jealousy over an imagined slight is a positive attribute! You should always trust the racist who hates you and loves your lover over the person who would do anything for you out of love and affection!"
If Shakespeare had written his plays as text adventure games, nobody would ever figure out what he wanted the player to do to solve each problem.
Juliet lies dead before you. What do you do now, Romeo?
>perform CPR
Sorry, I don't know how to do that.
>check pulse
Sorry, I don't know how to do that.
>fuck Juliet
Sorry, I don't know how to do that.
>wait
Time passes.
>wait
Time passes.
>wait
Time passes.
>wait
Time passes.
>kill myself
You drink the poison and die just seconds before Juliet wakes up from her self-induced coma. Upon discovering your dead body and the empty vial of poison, she makes out with you for a bit while the dead eyes of your rival Paris watch and judge. When she's had enough, she finally plunges a dagger into her breast and ends it all. You scored 100 out of 100 points! Congratulations!
Fine! I give up! Earth isn't going to get to be a member of the Galactic Federation! Yet another text adventure game from the eighties has beaten me! I'm fucking humiliated. If only I could view this defeat as me not being able to read the mind of Walter Pooley. But no. I can only see it as my intellectual inability to solve the rational and logical puzzles created by a genius puzzle-maker. And he bested me. Good job, Walter Pooley.
Now to see how he did his trick and take a look at the hint sheet that came with the game.
So far, so good! I figured all of this out easy!
According to the list of main objects, I found them all. So that means the coordinates must be something I can figure out logically? I tried "earth" and "X" and "Sol" and "Home" and "England" and "Upton" but none of them worked. And I don't remember anything in the game that looked like coordinates.
And then I get to the clue that tells me where to find the coordinates to Earth and I fucking kill myself. No, no. That would be letting Walter Pooley off the hook. Instead, I'm going to hunt him down so that I can spit on his shoes (or his grave, if he's not with us anymore). This motherfucker. This fucking Goddamned fucking motherfucker piece of shit. The fucking motherfucking balls on this asshole.
Okay. Wait. Before I explain his impudence, let's go back to the title page of the game:
And then I get to the clue that tells me where to find the coordinates to Earth and I fucking kill myself. No, no. That would be letting Walter Pooley off the hook. Instead, I'm going to hunt him down so that I can spit on his shoes (or his grave, if he's not with us anymore). This motherfucker. This fucking Goddamned fucking motherfucker piece of shit. The fucking motherfucking balls on this asshole.
Okay. Wait. Before I explain his impudence, let's go back to the title page of the game:
See that bit that lists directions? N.S.E.W.U.Up and D.Down? See that shit? See how he's made the fucking rules right up front?! That little bastard. That inhumane monster. That fucking piece of excrement!
To explain to those of you not too familiar with text adventure games: some games accept NE, SE, SW, and NW while others don't. Because of this title page and because you never encounter a listed exit in one of those directions, I, obviously, assumed the game didn't bother with them. And the game doesn't. Except in one fucking location where, suddenly, you can go NE.
If you go N, E, or W here, you just wind up back in this area of desolation. If you go S, you're back on a rocky slope. But if you happen to choose to go NE, guess what?! You get the clue to beat the game!
So there it is. A near impossible puzzle. At least for modern text adventure players who expect some semblance of order in the game world! I can see eventually trying to go NE here back when the Internet wasn't available and you'd spent your last pound ninety-nine on this game and it was all you had to play. But being that this is near the end of the game and it has trained you to ignore the diagonal compass points, it's a pretty shitty move on Walter's part. This was Walter Pooley shoving his pipe up his ass and jerking himself off while I watched. I fucking knew from the beginning that this bastard was going to trick me! And I fell for it again! How many writers have done this too me by this point in my life? Too many to simply say shame on me! I think it's to the point where I have to say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me an infinite number of times, I guess I'm super sexually into being fooled."
Anyway, that's the end of the game. All I needed were these secret coordinates to keep me from ending the game lost in deep space. So good job, Walter Pooley. You beat me unfair and circular. You're a cunt.
Grade: B-. Look, it wasn't that terrible of a text adventure. Aside from one puzzle, I had no problem with any of it. You might realize by this game and last game's grades, I'm grading on a curve that you can't yet comprehend. This game was almost pleasant compared to what some sadistic text adventure writers have put me through (especially since, after reading Dorothy's walkthrough and the hints provided with the game, Walter programmed in lots of synonyms. There were really no "guess the verb" puzzles in this one. Although there was that "guess the direction" bullshit). I think the guy who made the Saw movie franchise was inspired by playing text adventures in the 80s. Besides, I probably should have solved this one if I'd acted more like the members of the Galactic Federation I described near the beginning — "After they've stolen everything in the area that isn't nailed down, they try walking in every cardinal direction, just to make sure they haven't missed any immediately apparent exits." Sure, I didn't say the also search every primary intercardinal direction as well but that was the fault of my own lack of imagination. I'm sure they would have done that or else they wouldn't be in the Galactic Federation, right?! I'll know better next time!
Anyway, that's the end of the game. All I needed were these secret coordinates to keep me from ending the game lost in deep space. So good job, Walter Pooley. You beat me unfair and circular. You're a cunt.
Grade: B-. Look, it wasn't that terrible of a text adventure. Aside from one puzzle, I had no problem with any of it. You might realize by this game and last game's grades, I'm grading on a curve that you can't yet comprehend. This game was almost pleasant compared to what some sadistic text adventure writers have put me through (especially since, after reading Dorothy's walkthrough and the hints provided with the game, Walter programmed in lots of synonyms. There were really no "guess the verb" puzzles in this one. Although there was that "guess the direction" bullshit). I think the guy who made the Saw movie franchise was inspired by playing text adventures in the 80s. Besides, I probably should have solved this one if I'd acted more like the members of the Galactic Federation I described near the beginning — "After they've stolen everything in the area that isn't nailed down, they try walking in every cardinal direction, just to make sure they haven't missed any immediately apparent exits." Sure, I didn't say the also search every primary intercardinal direction as well but that was the fault of my own lack of imagination. I'm sure they would have done that or else they wouldn't be in the Galactic Federation, right?! I'll know better next time!
