Towards the end of 1983, I wrote several text adventure games for the Commodore VIC 20. Inspired by the classic Commodore released cartridge-based text adventures by Scott Adams, especially AdventureLand and Pirate Cove, I started programming my series.
I had grand plans to release dozens of text adventures and started drawing maps, planning gameplay and puzzles and learning to code, but soon I realised that fitting a text adventure into 3.5K of memory was hard, very hard. I thought it would be impossible.
After a few months, learning to code and trying everything I could to fit a game into such a small amount of memory I finally completed two games, although I started work on a 3rd but gave up on the VIC and moved to the C64 and released Ship Wrecked a few years later.
Adventure #1 – Pirate House
Adventure #2 – Sunken Treasure
I released both of these titles limited numbers via mail order but never kept a fully working copy. As time went on the only thing that remained were my handwritten notes, code scribbles and sketched maps.
For many years now, I’ve wanted to re-create these all but forgotten relics of the past. With the release of THE64 (full-size replica of the Commodore 64 and VIC 20), I thought now was a great time to do so.
So I started translating my handwritten notes, coding them into the VIC and of course, fixing the now apparent errors that weren’t so obvious 37 years ago I ended up with a complete re-creation of Sunken Treasure.
I used only 94 lines of BASIC code fitting into the VIC 20’s 3.5K memory, with only 11 bytes free. It was a real challenge when I was much younger, and even now working with such tiny amounts of memory is like working on a very complicated puzzle.
Using the popular verb/noun input of the time and only working off the first three letters in each word the interpreter handles a vocabulary of just 14 words.
Vocabulary:
north, south, east, west
inv, get, drop, quit
throw, row, chop, unlock
look, examine
You play by typing English words (list above) into the input field, such as NORTH to move north, INV to see what you are carrying, QUIT to end the game etc.…
It might have taken 37 years, but I’ve finally released my VIC 20 text adventure, and for anyone interested it’s freely available for download here where you can run it on an emulator, THE64 (replica) or even a real VIC 20.
And you never know, if I get some more free time I’ll re-create Pirate House as well, then I’d like to complete the other never released titles.