Missed Classic: Sherwood Forest - Won! (with Final Rating)

Written by Michael

So, when we last spent time together, I was doing my best imitation of an angel at Christmas.  So, I’m in a tree, with an ax.  I try the obvious.  CHOP TREE.  The game thinks, just maybe, that might not be the best plan while I’m still in it.

Huh.  Guess you’re right, game.

So I climb down and try again.

Robert Plant once sung a song about this scene.

I chop down the tree and try to pick up the long pole that remains.  That fails, because I have 6 things again and that’s too much.  I drop the ax, thinking I won’t need it for a while, and grab the pole.

Two thoughts: first, somehow all the branches disappeared, and second, somehow the pole takes up the same amount of space in my inventory as the ax?  That’s 1982 adventure game logic for you, I guess.

There’s a hole in the ground, and according to the screen, it’s the only way I can go, so away we go.  Hey, it’s that same cave I was in before, where I got the life jacket!  Looking back, there was a hole in the first screen that I hadn’t paid any attention to originally.  And, no, you can’t climb out the hole.  

I go all the way down, and reach the bottom.  Hey, look, it’s that hole I blocked up with the boulder.  Can I get it out of the way?  PUSH BOULDER.  I’m told it’s really wedged in, that I need to pry it somehow.  PRY BOULDER.  That worked with the pole.  And now I’m back somewhere I was before.

Moving the boulder allows that gust of wind to overtake me again, and it sends me out to the ocean again,  This time, though, I have a lifejacket on, so I don’t get pooped out and drown.  I try swimming in various directions, and eventually get picked up by a breakfast cereal mascot.

1970s-80s Computer Whiz (and felon) John Draper

I get picked up by a passing ship, and I’m not sure what to do.  LOOK MAN.  “Nothing seems to be happening.  Maybe you should make the first move...”

So I explore.  E.  “A quick tour of the ship reveals nothing in that direction.”  Same for N, S, and W.  And then he gets tired of waiting for me to do something, so he takes my lifejacket and dumps me at the pier.

Somehow, I think this isn’t the ideal solution, so I restore the game, and try to give him things from my inventory.  “We have no use for that.”  But then I try the item I know they want:  GIVE JACKET.  They swap me a lute for the jacket and then toss me to the pier.

Well, that seems like a better outcome.  Now, I have an instrument, so perhaps I can finish entertaining the Merry Men?  I head back to the stage, where they previously threw rotten fruit at me, and PLAY LUTE.

Oops.  Turns out it has no strings.  Maybe I should have looked at it when I got it.  

For the fun of it:  LOOK LUTE:  “It’s nice, but unplayable, since it doesn’t have any strings.”

Ugh.  Well, since I had some leftover thread from making the green suit, I go back to the catapult where I stashed it, and grab it.  Then, STRING LUTE.  That worked.

If only I looked like Cherri Tart, I’d have enough money saved for my upcoming divorce by now.

Back to the Merry Men, I play the music and turned them from bored to sleeping.  And nothing will wake them up. I try to SCREAM.  I try to FIGHT MEN.  I don’t know why I need them, but I don’t think this is the right outcome.  So I restore again.

I remove my suit first before going on stage.  (No, I didn’t go Full Monty, I was just checking to see if they would react to someone who wasn’t Robin playing.  No change, so I restore again.

I’ll come back there.  While I tried to think of how to handle them, I went for a walk west, then north, to my favorite fiancée.  Remember, I’m wearing my green suit now.  KISS MARION.  “Sorry, honey, but you just aren’t charming enough.”  

I try to play the lute for her, but it doesn’t do the trick.  So, let’s go back to the Merry Men.

They don’t look that aroused, but thankfully also, this isn’t an Al Lowe game.

This time, I do what I did the first time, trying to SING and DANCE first, before they request the music playing.  This time, I have some success.  They throw a charm on the stage.  Looking at the charm: “Anyone wearing it could pass for being very charming...”  Well, that’s how to get my kiss from my fiancee, I suppose.

Back to Maid Marion.  KISS MARION.  “She looks at you and says, ‘Yech!  No way, fruit face!”

The solution to this took me a guess or two, but it’s going to the shallow pool (where we found the worldstone grindstone) and WASH FACE.

Back to the kissing booth, and success!  “OK, Honey. Now let’s go make some beautiful music together.”  And she’s no longer in the booth.  (Later, I looked at my inventory and realized she was in there now!  I wonder what would have happened if I already had 6 things...)  Make music together?  That gives me two ideas.  First, the G-rated one:  PLAY LUTE.  Nothing special happens.

Okay, let’s try the PG-13 one.  F#*& MARION.  (I used an alternate spelling, though.)

I think I’ve seen this movie before.

Well, not the response from the game I expected.  I end up in the Maze of Filthmouth.  And it appears the game thinks I should wash my mouth out with soap.  (Later spoiler: the game sends me here anywhere in the game I use fowl language.)  The top of the screen says there are many exits, but N, S, E, and W are not amongst them.  A much simpler solution.  SORRY.  “OK, but watch your tongue...”  And I return to my previous location.

As best as I can tell, I should be able to go get married, right?  It’s  a wedding chapel, and I’ll probably need to pay for his services, so I go back to the catapult where I stashed my goods and grab the penny.

Off to the chapel.  MARRY MARION.  He marries us, and gives us a wedding gift of a small telescope before leaving.  I examine it.  “Looking through the scope reveals nothing, but you notice there’s a mounting bracket on the side of it.”  Well, isn’t there something like that we didn’t use on the catapult?  Back to the sling, and then INSTALL SCOPE.  Then, I look through it, and I see a rocky plain with a tree stump.  I’ve been there before.  So I turn the crank to adjust the catapult.  LOOK SCOPE again: “You can see an open window in one of the castle towers.”

I guess that’s how I’m getting past the sheriff.  My previous guesses were too convoluted, I suppose.  PRESS BUTTON.

I don’t hear a whole lot of music being made yet...

Yeah, definitely a child of the ‘70s made this.

And we’ve won the hand of Maid Marion

So, let’s talk about a couple of things before we get to the final rating.

First, after I finished the game, I decided to look at the program files to see what secrets might be held in the text.  I wasn’t shocked to see a decent array of synonyms programmed in, including even both spellings of AX.  It explained why I had almost no trouble with this parser.  I did notice one curious word: HINT.

I loaded the game back up, restored a game to a random point, and asked for a hint.

For help on adventuring, please buy

‘Birth of the Phoenix’

(A tutorial on adventure gaming).

Which was a rather blatant plug.  For more details on this rather simple game, I suggest reading Jason Dyer's playthrough from a few years ago.

From the July 1985 issue of Questbusters

Another interesting site was the GUE Museum, which specializes in looking up the small game companies and gathering all the info and games they can.  Their info on this game along with more searching tells me that, although I read about the “upcoming” C64 release a few years later, it never happened.  By that time, they were already almost done with their ride.  But it was an interesting one.  Just a few graphic adventures over a few years, but they all apparently sold well enough.

I would have liked to have followed up this playthrough with the next game in the series. After all, this was "Sof-toon #1". But they never released a #2. After changing company names, they released a couple of other games with the same engine, but never continued that numbering. Then, in the February 1987 issue of Questbusters, an interesting news item appeared. Especially since they hadn't released any games since 1985.

Also, just an aside: at some point during the game, I checked to see if there was a SCORE. The game responded, "You haven't scored yet." Definitely some rub-off (ahem) from Softporn. And these two games are on adjoining pages in the classic 1984 Kim Schuette title, The Book of Adventure Games. Hmmm.

And on to the scoreboard...

Puzzles and Solvability

Well, there’s good and bad here.  The puzzles are straightforward, and the solutions are usually sensible.  The game does actually give some good hints if you look at things more closely.  For example, the haystack, if you try to search it, it gives an obvious response of “Are you looking for a needle?” but if you just look at the haystack, it gives you a hint on how to clear it out of the way, telling us it has been here a while and might be a fire hazard.  Once you have the flint, the solution is clear, but it requires you to look and explore -- just as an adventure game should.

I managed to get into “walking dead” situations a couple of times, as best I can tell.  Having the lifejacket taken from you, for example, or putting the Merry Men to sleep.  If I’m wrong about this, and there was a way to reverse their sleep, please let me know.  I’m not good enough at reverse-engineering Apple assembly language code to figure this out myself.

But the character deaths were fair and often expected.  I saved ahead of doing things I thought were stupid, because it was fun.  I just wish they had different screens for each one, but hey, this is 1982 and disk space isn’t plentiful yet, so we can’t penalize it too much for that.  But the game was rather short by modern standards.  Or even 1982 standards.  Real short.  That will cost it a little.

Score: 3

Interface and Inventory

Well, it’s a standard text adventure/early graphic adventure parser system.  Two word commands.  Nothing too extraordinary.  But I didn’t really have any trouble coming up with the right words, and they had plenty of synonyms programmed in for both the verbs and the nouns. The inventory was basic as well, with a limit of 6 items, no matter the size or weight.  At one time, even Maid Marion was one of my inventory items!  (And just after 1981’s Softporn, now we still have to “get” the girl?)

The save system was basic but did what it needed to.  10 save slots per disk.  No labeling or anything, but that didn’t become a thing for a handful of years.  At this point in adventure history, there were still games that didn’t have this functionality at all.

Score: 4

Story and Setting

This was a unique take on the Robin Hood story, even if just a simple one.  Robin lost his memory for a while, probably when he was fighting with the sheriff.  Everyone around him doesn’t recognize him without his trademark green suit.  So we need to get him looking the part, and then get him married to the beautiful Maid Marion.  There’s not much else to the story, and the setting is the obvious Sherwood Forest, although there’s nothing very noteworthy about it.

Score: 3

Sound and Graphics

Well, compared to some other games of the era, this one does shine in the graphics department.  Compare the art in this game, say, to 1980’s Wizard and the Princess from Sierra.

Which one would YOU ask for her number?

Still, it’s 1982 graphics.  The sound is limited to a few bars of music at the start and end, and an annoying sound when you launch the catapult.  But the small little animations here and there, like the eyes of the owl, are a very nice touch, if not often enough.

Score: 3

Environment and Atmosphere

I’ve been struggling to come up with something to say here, because even though this is ostensibly set in Sherwood Forest, it really could be anywhere.  It just happens to be where these people are.  Still, they did a great job of making a mostly open and expansive world feel as it should.  The game totals 38 screens, and only a few of them truly felt like filler.

Score: 3

Dialog and Acting

Okay, with very little screen space, they still did a very good job.  The few things the characters said were appropriate and helpful, and the responses to trying things or examining them were generally very good.  And there’s at least one time that a blatant hint disguised as a joke went over my head.

I didn’t get the double entendre about being given the lute, no strings attached.  I’m ashamed of myself, but appreciated this game so much more for it.  Still, the writing wasn’t on the level of Infocom, so I can’t be too generous here.

Score: 3

Grabbing my trusty calculator, 3 + 4 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 19 / 0.6 = 31.6667.  

It seems that Vetinari has a knack for this.  Didn’t he just guess the correct score for Loremaster?  And Beyond Zork?  Anyway, when the next mainline game finishes, I’ll make sure Amazon delivers your order of CAPs direct to your door.  

As for me?  Let’s turn the crank on the catapult and see what game I land on next.

This Session: 1 hour

Total Time: 2 hour 45 minutes.