 )L                                                                 has some of them as well.
     Now, if someone would only come out with a decent flight simulator!! 
 
ostile aliens and creatures of unspeakable horror?  Well, f ADVENTURE GAMES FOR ADAM 
           By Stan Wong
   From the Edmonton ADAM Users Group newsletter, the ADAM's LEAF.  Distributed by ADAM News Network.
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   How many times have you sat at your desk at work or at school and wished that you were off in a distant galaxy fighting off hostile aliens and creatures of unspeakable horror?  Well, for those of us who own computers, these fantasies are only a keyboard away.
   Adventure games form a unique genre that allows the player to more fully participate in the game than most of your run-of-the-mill shoot 'em ups.  Some are all text and allow you to assume the key character in a story. Others combine text with animation.  But the key difference between these games and others is that strategy is a major factor in winning the game.  It is brains and not reflexes that save the day.  And there is also the role-playing aspect of these games.  Whether the scenario is set in deep space or back in the distant past, YOU become the hero.  You make the decisions that will either spell glory or death for your character.  This is why people find these games so captivating.
     Unfortunately, as owners of a discontinued computer system, we are limited in the number of adventure games available.  Many of the highly acclaimed third-party games, such as the Ultima series, Bard's Tale, Phantasie, etc., are simply not produced in ADAM format. So what are our alternatives?
     We are fortunate in that the original Adventure game is available for us in CP/M.  This is the grand-daddy of them all.  This is the first all text adventure game that places the player in a huge cavern and challenges him to make his way through, capture all the treasures and stay alive.  This game was the forerunner of the Zork series.  Adventure has a simple parser that understands two word sentences ie. a verb and a noun. It is full of puzzles and surprises and can keep one occupied for hours.  It is public domain and can be picked up through almost every ADAM users' group.
     Speaking of all text adventures, since ADAM is a CP/M computer, we do have access to the best text games around. I am, of course, referring to the Infocom series.  Most of their classic games are available in CP/M format which can be converted over to ADAM CP/M format (for example, by Canada Remote Systems) for a small fee.  Examples include the Zork trilogy, the Enchanter trilogy, Planetfall and Starcross.  These games have a sophisticated parser that will accept whole sentences.  The stories are generally well written and the puzzles hard enough to keep the most avid gamer enthralled for hours on end.  However, they are usually more expensive than other programs available for ADAM.  It is sometimes a good idea to wait for Infocom to have a sale, buy your game direct from them, then send the disk to Canada Remote Systems for conversion.  Turn around time to get your disk back is about a week and a half.
     There is also a very good public domain Dungeons and Dragons game written in Basic for ADAM.  It is a complex game that allows you to create a character and enter a dungeon maze in search of treasure and glory. The maze is shown little by little as you go along (the walls being drawn with ASCII characters) and you confront many creatures, forcing you to decide whether you should run or fight.  This game has most of the features that one expects from the commercial adventure games, including saving your position in the maze if you have to stop the game for some reason. It is quite a sophisticated game, and one is highly advised to read the documentation file that goes with this game before even attempting to play it.  Highly recommended for those on a budget. The author of this game writes that although this game will run from tape, it makes frequent drive access, so he recommends that it only be run from disk.  However, it CAN be played from the data drives.
     Fast Ed's Software produces a comparable game entitled Demons and Dragons.  Again, you get to create a character and enter a maze.  You can actually produce several characters and send a party of up to 6 into the dungeon. Once there, groups of monsters pop up at random and again you are forced to either run or fight.  The maze is drawn on a HGR screen and you must search it in order to find the stairway to the next level of the dungeon.  As you accumulate experience points and gold pieces, you can "upgrade" your character by either moving up to the next character level (provided you have sufficient experience points) or by outfitting him to do new tricks. And you have more than one life.  It's not a bad game, but again, it is not a particularly sophisticated game.  Strategy, however, is more important than reflexes in this game and this is why I have included it here.  
     Coleco has its own unreleased adventure game, too. Troll's Tale has been released (sort of) into the public domain, so there's no reason not to have a copy.  It has good graphics, but don't look to this game for a serious challenge.  The game can be solved in 20 minutes or so. However, being public domain, we certainly can't complain of the cost.  And it does have a certain charm all of its own. Beware however.  There is both a tape and a disk version. Some people have ended up with the disk version copied onto a tape and this will not run!  Make sure you have the correct one for your system.
     2010: Text Adventure was released for the ADAM from Coleco, but had limited distribution.  It is a good game and different from other adventure games in that instead of using a parser, they put all your possible options on each screen using the Smartkeys.  It takes a little getting used to. The game has sound effects and if you succeed in your mission (restoring power to the Discovery and sending it on its way back to Earth), you are rewarded with a fabulous graphics display.  Well worth picking up, if you can find it anywhere.  I believe it can still be ordered from NIAD.
     There are also many other public domain adventures scattered throughout the various data libraries of the many ADAM users' groups.  They are, generally speaking, written in Basic and are relatively short games that don't take too long to play.  You will find some of these in our own data library.  Some of these are quite good and are well worth checking out.
     And there are still more out there that I haven't tried!  Stage Fright, available from Reedy Software, is supposed to be a great text adventure.  And I'm sure there are others that are out there that I haven't even heard of. But this is just a general overview of what's available.  If you look hard enough, you can find what you're looking for! Most of the games listed above are available from M.W.Ruth. NIAD has some of them as well.
     Now, if someone would only come out with a decent flight simulator!!  ###
  
                                     NIAD.
     There are also many other public domain adventures scattered 
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