Monday 7 February 2022

"House Adventure" by Anonymous: A TRS-80 Model 100 Game


Similar to my last post about "Space Derelict" I recently converted another interesting and obscure text adventure program, but this time as a response to a request from someone who had wandered into my text adventure page:
Jim, I've got one more random game request that one of my cousins remembers playing. We believe we found the code here - http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXgamesXtrs80.html. It's under the first section on the page, and is called "House Adventure". Any chance it's an easy one to post for play on your emulator?


I converted this program to Micro Color BASIC from source from the Club 100 Library of text adventures link mentioned above.  As in my conversion of Space Derelict, I ended up making a lot of modifications to the program to make it more coherent. But for this one I also made changes to make it more forgiving/winnable/playable.  I think it had an excessively brutal level of expectation of a player's willingness to restart a game after losing or being put in an unwinnable position. This level was only justifiable in a time when programs were rare and hard to come by. It also simply had some bugs. Both of these reasons were possibly why my contact's cousin had been so frustrated/fascinated by the game to want to return to it all these years later.  But also, there was a swan of a game waiting to emerge, which I think must have also been a part of his captivation. So I don't feel bad about altering this old program from its original form.


It was only after a lot of bug fixing and conversion work and lots of frustrating hours trying to solve the game (using peeks at the code garnered from the conversion process) that I discovered via a comment by Strident on the CASA Adventure forum, that Gaming After 40 had done a walkthrough of the game: "Adventure of the Week: House Adventure (1983?)".  I had already fixed many of the oddities that he also had noticed, but his post put me on to a few more. Here's a list of the main changes that I made (and can remember):
  • I fixed the strange illogical wrap arounds in the map. They didn't seem to add anything to the game play, and if they were there as a way to create a surreal atmosphere it didn't work for me. It just made me feel like there were errors in the map info.
  • I also changed the game so that the player has 60 moves with the flashlight, not just 40, which would allow for a fairer exploration of the basement. Also, if you end up in the dark, you die less quickly, providing you with some possibility of making it out from memory after the lights go out.
  • Bugs relating to floating-point numbers being generated by the random number calls are also fixed.  This and the weird room wrapping makes me think this may have been a botched conversion.  Also, the messages seemed to be formatted for something like a 32 X 16 column screen and not the 40 by 8 screen of the Model 100, which makes me think it may have started life as a TRS-80 Coco program (or possibly for the C64 or Atari game). But I couldn't find anything like it in the 4 Rainbow Adventure books. One thing that speaks to it being a Coco or TRS-80 Model 1 conversion, is that the RND calls typically take the form of N=RND(1)*4-1 for floors (0-3) or magic words (0-3) and N=RND(1)*9-1 for one of the 10 rooms (0-9) on each floor.  On a Coco you'd get such numbers by doing RND(4)-1 and RND(10)-1. There is also one instance of RND(1)*10-1 for random room assignment.  I think the programmer didn't really understand the nuances of Microsoft's various random number generation conventions, which were different between the version of BASIC on the Model 100, and that of the Coco and Model 1. The programmer really shouldn't have kept the -1 in there, since, for example, RND(1)*4-1 would only result in integer values between 0 and 2, thus omitting the last magic word as a possibility. Instead, I changed these references to generate consistent 0-3 and 0-9 ranges where appropriate.  In certain instances, 0-8 was needed, such as to omit the possibility of  assigning monsters to the elevators (room 9 on each floor).
  • I corrected a few spelling errors.
  • Now when carrying the aluminum dime into a phone booth you are guaranteed to be transported to one of the other booths in the house, and therefore notice the magical effect. I think "phone nook" or "phone vestibule" might be a more accurate description of these rooms (old mansions have these), but I left it as "phone booth."
  • You now have a 5 item carrying limit, instead of 4, which means the game is no longer an endless slog of to-ing and fro-ing. You have to keep hold of the flashlight and its batteries (for the basement), which eats two items and later the dime (for using the phone booths to get to the 3rd floor), which only left 1 item space under the 4 item limit. Since you must usually also carry one item to complete a task, and there might be multiple tasks and sometimes multiple items in an area, you would have to make multiple tedious trips into an area just to bring items out after solving a puzzle to gain access to them. Seemed ridiculous, especially when some items (like the batteries) go inside another item.  Even the crazy map wrap arounds made little difference in regard to this problem. In terms of possible shortcuts they might save you one or 2 moves at best.
  • The awkward formatting of the final victory message is fixed.
  • The monsters can sometimes be relocated to the Foyer, which is where you can drop items before getting the key and transferring them outside for your points. Sometimes you can lose simply because a monster gets shifted to the Foyer and then it prevents you from picking up any of the items, including potentially the item that allows you to banish the monster if you didn't notice the monster before dropping that item; or if you carried it directly outside (where items disappear at random). It seems a real shaft that you can inadvertently take items outside and then lose access to them (are people stealing them?) and then realize you need them again because a monster got shifted into a room with another item in it and starts protecting everything there. This forces you to store things in the Foyer, just in case, and then once you do this and are hauling items there (all the to-ing and fro-ing) only to realize that a monster shifted in, and you are now stuck because you have just dropped an item needed to banish that monster.  Also, the fact that the items can create a list so long that they actually scroll the screen adds to this infuriating possibility.  So I added a scroll pause routine when the item list for a room gets long.  But I wonder whether it would be better to simply prevent monsters being shifted to the Foyer. The author certainly seems to have delighted in finding ways to foil the player's (tedious) efforts to collect treasures. 
  • Now the 3rd floor phone booth will always transfer you to another phone booth, even without having the dime, so you can't get trapped on the 3rd floor before getting the dime. This can happen if you get there by discovering and testing out the magical words, which can zap you to random rooms. Text adventures shouldn't just be about meticulously recreating movement patterns learned after continuous arbitrary failures. They should be about figuring out clues and solving puzzles while exploring.
I was tempted to correct the use of a garlic clove to scare the Werewolf away, but I did find a single reference online to Eastern European beliefs about garlic warding off all manner of evil creatures including werewolves. So perhaps this is a clue about the ethnic background of the programmer.  But as Gaming After 40 suggests, this is not "canon" in terms of broader popular culture.  Garlic and sunlight  (and flashlights?) are for vampires, wolfsbane or silver are for warding off werewolves.

I also did a bunch of alterations to the arrays to consolidate them into one single multidimensional array to make the game save feature work on an MC-10.  So if you want to use that feature you will have to use Tamer's VMC10 emulator rather than the online MC-10 emulator, which doesn't support file saving.  Here’s a link to the VMC10 repo:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IZ7z84dlKLHu8IBOzNpFKbX4N3C03r8I/view?usp=sharing

It contains all the MC-10 programs including all the text adventures displayed on my rare text adventure page:

http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/Home/jgames_TextAdventures.html

It also includes HOUSE.C10, in the JimG directory in the “Cassette” directory.  You can just launch vmc10.exe from the directory that you unzip the repo to and then can play any of the files in the Cassette directory.  Type RUN to launch the game after CLOADing it.

My version of House Adventure should be more coherent and forgiving than the original, but it is still a  tough adventure. I have played it to completion (see the video above--spoiler alert), so I know that it can be resolved. If you need help, then the Gaming After 40 walkthrough on his blog will get you through. He also outlines many of the bugs and weirdness that you need to remedy to get the original program to run on the TRS-80 Model 100.

I'd like to thank my informant for putting me on to the game. Strident and the other archivists over on the CASA text adventure site realized the the game wasn’t catalogued when I posted about it, so his suggestion was helpful for bringing it to their attention.

HOUSE can be tried online here, although you won't be able to use the helpful game save feature (saving is not supported by the online emulator): http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/MC10/JG_MC_Text_Adventures.html

Jim Menick's "Space Derelict" (1984)


Strident over on the CASA Text Adventure archive was doing a little research into Jim Menick, an author of a type-in how-to book "Basic Adventure and Strategy Game Design" from 1984. He mentioned that the book was published for the Apple II and TRS-80, but that there didn't appear to be any playable version of the game on the archive or anywhere out there on the Net. There was also supposed to be a version for the IBM PC Jr. but the demise of that machine apparently took that edition with it.

Strident posted a place to get a scan of the TRS-80  version of the book:

https://archive.org/details/Basic_Adven ... lications/

Garry, another frequent contributor to the Classic forum on CASA and a typer-in and fixer of games, already had the game in progress.  He noted that there weren't any copies of the Apple version of the book available in scanned form online, but that he had started converting the TRS-80 listing into working code.  It was specifically programmed for the TRS-80 Model 4, which presented some problems, as that was a rather unique later version of the TRS-80 Model 1 line.  For example, it had an 80 rather than 64 column screen.

I decided to take a look at the TRS-80 scan, and realized it was pretty clear. Most of the source code listing could be easily copied from the PDF without too many errors, so I undertook to convert it into an MC-10 program. But first I had to get it back into a readable form for its original TRS-80 Model 4 form as printed in the book. For those interested a fairly bug free version can be found (DERELICT1.TXT) on my Github.

https://github.com/jggames/trs80mc10/tree/master/quicktype/Text%20Adventures/Derelict

However, if you want a fully debugged version, it would be better to dig up Garry's conversion.  Also, my version had to condense some of the descriptions in order to get it all to fit in 20K.  I don't think anything critical has been omitted and in some cases the descriptions are perhaps even a little clearer and more elegant (a conceit on my part, I'm sure, but hey, it was a lot or work converting the program).  However, I did make one stylistic change that actually takes a little more space, which was to get rid of all contractions in the robot's responses.  Real robots and Androids, as commander Data teaches us, don't use contractions.

Garry notified me of a couple of bugs from his early notes. "In line 13130, '3180' should be '13160'. In line 6570, '5760' should be '6760'." I had already found the 6570 bug but not the other one. I also found an error in 5950, where it should print the A$(19) message instead of the one listed.  Garry also found another bug he notified me of later on, which  prevented you dropping anything: "In line 6570, '6950' should be '6590'."  I had already fixed this bug in the midst of my rationalization of the code to shrink its size to fit in 20K for the MC-10.

We both ended up tearing out our hair because we couldn't get past one of the first puzzles.  You get fried going into a room in the early stages that you clearly need to get into (you can see into it from a prior room).  Turns out that you have to be carrying a pentagon and a crystal, which together form a telepathic device for opening doors.  You have to "think open" in rooms with locked doors while carrying both items.  This includes the room you get fried going into.  But by using the telepathic pentagon and crystal doors will open (or in the case of that room, disengage whatever safety device that is frying anyone who enters.  In other cases you must "click" the pentagon.

I realized there was a walkthrough provided by Menick on pages 21-22 of his book that describe this, but it was not entirely clear. He also provides a map, with numbered rooms.  To get into room 5 (the frying room) you have to THINK OPEN or SAY OPEN in room 11 (the one where you can see into 5). You have to be carrying the pentagon and the crystal you can get from room 7 (by clicking the pentagon) for this to work. Menick admits in his walkthrough that this "mind trick" is a bit of a devious puzzle, although there are some clues.  For example, when you carry the crystal into the hologram you get a subliminal message saying "THINK HUMAN."  But I think there might be an error with the messaging in room 11. Menick's walkthrough description indicates that the player should be able to LOOK OBJECT and see that the burnt metal thing in room 5 is a fried robot. I think this is supposed to be your warning to stay back, but it didn't work on my version. But I can't be sure if that was a result of my conversion hacking or not.  In any case, I fixed it in my version so that you can LOOK OBJECT and see the fried robot.

Despite its relatively small size as an adventure there are lots of puzzles in this game and (as was typical) more than a few sudden deaths.  Menick tried to provide many synonyms (some of which I had to remove to save space) but there are still a few guess-the-verb situations.  There is a lack of abbreviation for things like INVENTORY and the non-standard directions like NORTHEAST. 

There were a few elements of descriptions that Menick mentions in his walkthrough but which don't appear in the actual game, such as the climbing ropes in the exercise room. They're not in the description, but if you CLIMB ROPE, you die (clumsy robot?).  CUT ROPE will allow you to get piece of rope if you have found the knife, but all this serves no purpose, as the rope element is a red herring.  I added the ropes to the gym description in my version.

It was like Menick was still tweaking the code when it went to press, or perhaps he only hurriedly converted it from Apple BASIC. Strident mentioned that he found biographical info on Menick that indicated that he was primarily an Apple user. This seems likely as the TRS-80 code is quite simplistic, and as a result, a little bloated. It was tough getting it down to under 20K.  I had to convert the room messages being loaded from disk, which relied on creating a special data file, and simply make them all into DATA statements.

But on the whole, I quite liked the creepy space derelict story and the robot-at-your-command idea that Menick uses to allow you to explore the ship at a distance. When the robot dies you just get a chilling repeated "END TRANSMISSION" message. The bugs were not of the game breaking type, just annoyances that somewhat spoil an otherwise neat little game. For example, you could press the green button to open the door into the ship without having pressed the black button to close the outer door without triggering explosive decompression. Menick sets a variable AL=1 for when the outer airlock door is closed, but he doesn't use again. I changed that. Now its black before green and you're keen, green before black you ain't coming back. I know the ship has air because there are footprints in dust on the floor and things aren't floating in a vacuum, etc.

The book is a little turgid, but having written some turgid pedantic books myself I'm not going to be overly critical.  And most of the how-to books of the time were like this. The code was very simple, which is perhaps justified for its pedantic purpose. Multiple repeated IFs for everything, including the handling of every movement. I've seen games with 3 times as many rooms and messages but about the same byte count because not all of it was eaten up by program commands (so many IFs!). Still, a neat premise that actually works out well for a little 8-bit BASIC adventure of the time period. However, I think Menick is a better fiction author than an elegant coder, although he gets the job done.  And he does suggest in the book that it is up to the reader to take the programing further.  I think I've fixed most of its annoyances in my version, so I took his advice.

Thanks to Strident for the original suggestion and to Garry for all the debugging tips.

Now I might take a crack at his five person poker game in the second half of the book, which is a demonstration of the "strategy" part of his title.  Converting "Space Derelict" was a fun little exercise in bringing an old program back to life from digital oblivion.  Perhaps his poker program might demonstrate some interesting elements of early AI programming.  He does mention that he tried to give all of the opponents playing styles from different people he actually knew.  I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime if you want to help bug test/try out DERELICT it can be played in Mike Tinnes online emulator here:


If I can get hold of Menick, I will hopefully be able to arrange permanent access to the program from my site.