Missed Classic 134: Death in the Caribbean (1983) - Introduction

 Written by Michael

I’m back to an Apple IIe game this time, from another short-lived company from the early days of adventure gaming.

In the early 80s, computer firm MicroLab created a gaming division, MicroFun.  Their role was to publish games created by others.  They made some interesting acquisitions, but were somewhat unfocused.  Arcade games, adventure games, sports games, but no specialty.  They published the ColecoVision port of Electronic Arts’ popular basketball game, One-on-One, the original of which would be the baseline upon which EA grew a sports game empire.  While today, we know them as leaders in the world of micropayments, in the 80s, they were generally the best sports game publishers in the industry.  This game was an officially licensed product, using the pixelated likenesses of Hall of Fame basketball players Dr. J (Julius Erving) and Larry Bird.

EA really designed good advertisements back in the day.

Back to MicroFun, though.  Like I said, they seem to have bet on the wrong horses.  Between a few game companies, versions of One-on-One were released for many systems over a few years, including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari, Mac, PC, ColecoVision, CoCo, and even the overseas darling, the ZX Spectrum.  Somehow, they managed to produce the worst looking port of that impressive list. 

(The most impressive cover of One-on-One might have been produced by the Fruit Bats, but I digress.)

The Amiga release (left) is arguably the best port from the original Apple II game, while the ColecoVision release (right) is somewhat less engrossing.

I’m having trouble finding out a lot about MicroFun or its parent company.  It does not seem to have any relationship to the present Chinese company with that name publishing Candy Crush-clones for cell phones, nor does the parent company have anything to do with a pharmaceutical giant.  The list of releases on MobyGames is possibly unfinished; indications from reviews at the time hint that the company had more titles and releases.  An archived interview with one of their game designers yields most of the information I was going to learn.

Again, I really love the game advertisements from this era.  Don’t look, just tell.  Because the graphics weren’t the selling point at this time, it was the story and environment.

But back to our game at hand.  From the ad above, we learn that it is an “outdoor adventure game”.  I doubt this means we’re supposed to play it in the fresh air (after all, what self-respecting nerd in 1983 knew what “fresh air” was?) so I think we need a little more info.

From the back of the box:

You're on a lush, lost island in the Caribbean. You, a buried treasure and unspeakable terror. Something inside you whispers that your life is in danger. Which path should you take through the twisted jungle?

It will take all the courage and cunning you can muster to get down the cliff without falling to your death. Cross the bottomless crevasse. Get through the quicksand. Avoid the man-eating ants. Conquer the crocodile-filled swamp. Escape the deadly voodoo cave, menacing pirate ghosts and all the other lethal traps and pitfalls in your path.

Can you turn the clues you find into the tools you need to grab the treasure and get off the island alive?

This is a game for the brain. All you have is your wits and the treasure map inside this box.

So visit our little island if you dare. But heed this warning. If you seek and fail, you may be doomed to remain and play the game forever.

So far, this sounds good.  Except for some of the info I found online.  A review from a (sadly abandoned) adventure gaming blog is what alerted me to this game as well as almost scared me off.  (Don’t worry, I didn’t read below the spoiler tag on that page.)

So let’s dive into the game, shall we?

The “map in hand” is actually a “map in box”. 

The game came with a full-color map that appears to resemble to game world I’ve played so far (into the next post, even) so it seems to be useful.  And not copy protection, just a nice insert. 

Well, since the screenshot above says I have a map in hand, let’s check it out.

LOOK MAP

“You had the only copy of the map.  You are in big trouble if you lost it.”

Okay, well, guess the one in the game box will have to do then.

There’s a sign in that first screen.  LOOK SIGN.

Well, I guess that’s self explanatory.

If I try to go back into the house (remember, we started outside a house), the game tells me to “Stay out of the house.  We have treasure to find!!”.  I then try to follow that sign and go W into the woods, but the game doesn’t let me, telling me I might get lost.  This all makes sense, based on the map that came with the game.  So, instead I head N.

Hmm, okay.  Nothing doing here.  Let’s continue exploring.

Until I finally land somewhere interesting.  And another sign to read.

And it’s here that I accidentally learn about a feature in this game.  If I press ENTER on a blank line, without a command, the game switches to text-only mode.

But I don’t think I’ll enjoy playing that way, but it’s a great way to look back a few lines if I forgot something.  You know, making believe I wasn’t taking a screenshot every 3 seconds.

Shall we test the parser?

LOOK ANTHOLE

“Do not bother looking at the anthole.”

Well, the game DID spell it as two different words, so I suppose this one is my fault.  How about this?

LOOK HOLE

“The ants that live in that hole must be really big!!!”

CATCH ANTS

“You cannot catch ants here.”

GET ANT

“You cannot take the ant.”

LOOK ANT

“The ants will eat you if they catch you.”

So I start to get bored, and decide to head EAST.

Seriously, ANOTHER game with a death screen simply as my tombstone?

Well, I suppose this is a great place to pause.  Any thoughts?  Am I making a mistake playing this game?  Or will it be a treasure in the TAG archives?  Time to place some score wagers.

Session Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes