Intermission: Med Systems Marathon – That was 1981!

by Will Moczarski

We’ve finished the second year of our Med Systems marathon now, and there are only four adventure games left. The company would exist for two more years, and in 1983 it was rechristened Screenplay. They would continue to operate under the new name until around 1986 but their output was meager and no new adventure games hit the market after 1983. In 1981, however, Med Systems were slowly reaching their peak: three of their innovative 3-D maze adventure games had been released by January 1981, they attracted new and talented programmers and entered the Atari market after having been an Apple ][ and especially TRS-80 company exclusively. Of course, they were not alone: 1981 was a seminal year for what was still being called “micro games”, as can be gathered from reading an extended feature from the August 1981 issue of 80 Microcomputing Magazine. In it, Med Systems Software were featured as one of the most important players of the time, and it’s the best source of information you can get if you’re interested in the history of the company.

I’ve compiled some of the most interesting quotes here to set the stage for the year that was 1981 – as usual, I’ve played the non-adventure games, too, and report back about the other software released by Med Systems.

Missed Classic 77: The Institute (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

The Institute is the first game in my Med Systems marathon that I will actually replay as I’ve played (and solved) it before. It has been decades, however, and my memories of the game are pretty unreliable. Also, I only know the later port for the Commodore 64 which features nice graphics – I have never played the original TRS-80 version. What I remember most distinctly about this game is that it feels like a compilation because you have to solve puzzles in four or five different dreams in order to bring the background story to a close (i.e., escape from a mental health facility). I also remember that I really liked this game, maybe I even finished it two or three times just for the sake of it.

Because The Institute used to be very renowned, much has been written about it. I will thus unusually start with an introduction of contemporary and retrospective quotes as a framework to set the stage for this unusual game.

Missed Classic: Saigon: The Final Days – WON! and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

Last time I was severely stuck. Not even the first room in Asylum had given me such a headache. I was unable to venture past the Viet Cong gun nest and unable to open the dead soldier’s snap pocket on the starting screen. I must have tried almost everything – I even tried to do something in the one round before the hut is blown to pieces in case you need to manipulate the initial timed explosion (it occurs after one move no matter what you do) somehow. At least, I thought, my introduction was as spoiler-free as possible. All of that will change now – it’s time to leave Saigon.

Missed Classic 76: Saigon: The Final Days (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

The fourth and final game by Jyym and Robyn Pearson that was – albeit only sometimes – marketed as an “OtherVenture” by Adventure International, is Saigon: The Final Days. It was first released for the TRS-80 in 1981 and ported to the TRS-80 CoCo as well as the Atari 400 one year later. As usual, there are some problems to come up with precise dates: while the CoCo version was programmed in 1982, it was apparently released in 1983. Also, somewhat authoritative sources like MobyGames don’t list an Apple ][ release but clearly there existed a version for Jobs & Wozniak’s miracle machine as well. As usual, we’ll get to that later in my WON post.

Missed Classic 75: Earthquake – San Francisco 1906 (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake hit the famous Northern Californian town 113 years ago on April 18 with a magnitude of nearly 8. Almost 3000 people died in the event and over 80 percent of the city were destroyed. It remains one of the biggest natural disasters in California’s history to this day. This particular historic event marks the setting of Jyym Pearson’s third adventure game for Adventure International which also served as the fourth and final OtherVenture for the company. It also marks a significant if temporary departure from the gothic horror and science-fiction settings of Pearson’s previous two games – a trend he followed with Saigon: The Final Days the same year in a joint effort with his wife Robyn.

Missed Classic: Escape from Traam – WON! and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

Last time we left off after about an hour of gameplay, with a reasonably small gameworld and some items we haven’t found a use for. We deciphered an alien language and attempted to explore a dark cave but didn’t really get anywhere plot-wise. So far, this was an enjoyable game – was it meant to remain this way?

Missed Classic 74: Escape from Traam (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

Special thanks to the Museum of Computer Adventure Game History! (mocagh.org)

It’s time for the third OtherVenture and our second Jyym Pearson game Escape from Traam. This one has a 1980 copyright date and it may possibly be the earlier game of the two. It is usually treated as Pearson’s sophomore effort in text adventures but the sci-fi setting of his first game Zossed in Space (1980) may hint at a possible continuity between the two. However, I don’t have proof for this other than the copyright date of the TRS-80 version (Curse of Crowley Manor had a 1981 stamp), so I’ll just relegate this thought to the realm of speculation.

Missed Classic: Curse of Crowley Manor – WON! and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

This is an astonishing game. I know that it might seem as if I was easily satisfied by a few extra descriptions in a text adventure but for a game released in 1981 it does a lot of things right. So far, it’s not very challenging, and the story may be conventional but it’s still involving. Last time I was stuck with a limited gameworld and the brown growth who’d jump headfirst into the pantry and devour everything there, including myself. This time I remembered the words of wisdom from the fragmentary manual I had consulted before starting the game. It’s very sparse and does not provide a lot of backstory, however, it advises you to LOOK everywhere and also rely on your other senses. You can LISTEN and SMELL, too, so I tried to LOOK, SMELL and LISTEN in every room one more time and happened upon the solution rather quickly.

Next to the pantry there’s an exquisite dining room with a large oak table I can investigate. If I do that, I find some food there. Maybe it’s spoiled and will provide a trap for the hungry brown growth is what I think. That is not the case but still dropping the growth will solve the puzzle, prompting it to devour the food and “shoot” under the china cabinet, causing it to fall with a crash. Upon examination I find a letter opener and a hand axe. I know right away what both items are for and decide to backtrack to the rosewood chest to unfasten the screws there. Inside I find a golden crucifix and an old note with only a number on it: 5271. I take a new note and go back to the plywood wall. With the crucifix and the holy water in my hands, I almost expect to find a roast chicken behind it. It’s not all fun and games, however, as the parser doesn’t understand “hack” or “break”, only “chop”. After three or four useless turns there’s a hole in the wall and I can enter. Supposedly. Again, going N or GO HOLE does not work, only “CLIMB HOLE”.

The next part of the manor is like a hidden underground area. It’s a nice touch that I am delving deeper into the interiors of the building as I progress; it’s a sequence of rooms with an unfinished air about them, and a lot of secret passages. Looking and listening excessively also thickens the plot substantially. In a darkened room strewn with scientific instruments I encounter the demon yet again, his tremendous voice booms “You have not the power to face me yet be warned...” (sic!) The demon is not a fan of punctuation. Also, why are old adventure game voices always booming? Looking again I see that everything is filthy and smashed. Among the rubble, there is an ancient book lying open on a table. I can only make out one sentence: “Gafala alone can help.” Who is Gafala? Am I supposed to know? West of here, there is a musty room. On the only door there is an ancient numeral lock. This is pretty easy if you have discovered the old note (as I have): just dial 5271 and be done with it. I arrive at a damp brick walled room where there is a horrible stench. Smelling (or looking) results in my being slammed against a wall by a powerful force. If I listen (or look) once more, I am thrown flat on the floor, and a voice bellows “Soon youll be mine” (sic!). Yours? Er…eek?

Missed Classic 73: Curse of Crowley Manor (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

Who was Jyym Pearson?

The sixth adventure game in our Med Systems marathon is the last one released in 1981, and it’s a rather famous one. The Institute is also the first game I’ve played before (albeit in the later port for the Commodore 64), and it picks up on the ‘mental illness’ theme we’ve already encountered in Deathmaze 5000, Labyrinth and, especially, Asylum. Jyym Pearson was the third freelance programmer to be published by Med Systems following Arti Haroutunian (Microworld) and Simon Smith (Knossos). Med Systems founder William Denman appears to have put some thought into his company’s portfolio, as Microworld is a nice companion piece to his own The Human Adventure, while Smith’s Knossos picks up on the theme established in Labyrinth, in which the player has to vanquish a mythical minotaur. The Institute is sort of a companion piece to Asylum, so much so that the former seems like a text-only version of the latter at first sight. However, Jyym Pearson was already an established author of text adventures when Med Systems first published one of his games, and he continued to make a name for himself through this fruitful collaboration. As this is as good a place as any to go back and play the four text adventure games that Pearson wrote before teaming up with Med Systems in 1981, I will hereby start a short sub-marathon of the four games that came before The Institute.

It has to be noted that Jyym often didn’t work alone. His wife Robyn Pearson contributed to many of his adventure games and also received some credit for it. Like Alexa Adams, she is not as famous as her male counterpart which likely says a lot about the rules of early video game publicity, maybe even about our society in general. As it’s very difficult to research who did what exactly, I will try to be as accurate as possible in this regard but please bear in mind that I might underestimate the extent of Robyn’s work every once in a while which is, needless to say, completely unintentional.

Apart from his illustrious body of work, Jyym Pearson is a rather elusive personality. He wrote the odd editorial piece for early 1980’s computer magazines but it is rather difficult to find out more about his biography. Sadly, he succumbed to cancer in 1994 so it won’t be possible to conduct an interview with him, and moreover, Robyn Pearson appears to be such an widespread name that it proved impossible to find out what Jyym’s widow might be up to these days. All that I can gather is that Jyym apparently was an avid computer collector and a loving family father, but other than that we’ll have to let him speak through his works.

Jyym Pearson first entered the scene in 1980 with a text-based space simulation game called Zossed in Space which had a small but loyal fanbase. In 1981, he wrote his first text adventure (The) Curse of Crowley Manor which was highly innovative being an early detective game steeped in occultist lore. It was released as one of Adventure International’s OtherVentures – a gig that Jyym was subsequently subscribed to, it seems. His next game, Escape from Traam, was also released – as OtherVenture #3 – in 1981, and Earthquake San Francisco 1906 followed the same year, labelled as #4. The Pearsons’ final game for Adventure Internationale, Saigon: The Final Days, was also released in 1981 and became famous for immersing the player in a relatively contemporary story: the retreat of the Americans from Vietnam in 1975. The Pearsons’ other four adventure games were published by Med Systems over the following years, starting with The Institute in 1981. They appear to have been very creative and prolific writers, never adhering to the most conventional adventure game tropes but always eager to stretch the limits of the still-juvenile form.

As an homage to these highly interesting writer personalities, I shall blog through the four 1981 Pearson games before continuing the actual Med Systems marathon with The Institute. I had considered doing all of the OtherVentures in the process but the first one is just a port of the Crowther & Woods Adventure called Classic Adventure, and Lance Micklus’s 1979 classic Dog Star Adventure was only labelled as an OtherVenture in a later re-release. I hope that you will enjoy this little detour but I’m very optimistic that the good reputation of these games is highly justified and that the Pearsons’s work should have a place on this blog dedicated to adventure game history.

Missed Classic: Microworld – WON! and Final Rating

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview:
(a) 1980 Summary
(b) Reality Ends (1980)
(c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980)
(d) Labyrinth (1980)
(e) Asylum (1981)

Second Time’s the Charm

My actual playthrough of Microworld takes me about 7 hours and a fair amount of head-scratching. I’ll start from the beginning in this post as I haven’t covered much ground in the first hour of gameplay. Apologies for any repetitions there might be in the first two or three paragraphs.

Missed Classic 72: Microworld (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview:
(a) 1980 Summary
(b) Reality Ends (1980)
(c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980)
(d) Labyrinth (1980)
(e) Asylum (1981)

The confusing ad (thanks to Ira Goldklang at trs-80.com)

Missed Classic: Asylum – (Almost) Lost (My Mind)

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview:
(a) 1980 Summary
(b) Reality Ends (1980)
(c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980)
(d) Labyrinth (1980)

Missed Classic: Asylum – Off To A Rocky Start

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview:
(a)  1980 Summary
(b)  Reality Ends (1980)
(c)  Rat‘s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980)
(d)  Labyrinth (1980)

Where I end and you begin

Missed Classic 71: Asylum (1981) – Introduction

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview – Catch up here!:

(a) 1980 Summary
(b) Reality Ends (1980)
(c) Rat‘s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980)
(d) Labyrinth (1980)

If 1980 was the year of programming for Med Systems with a total of 14 releases advertised in various magazines, 1981 certainly was the year of advertising. Many Med Systems games, among them Deathmaze 5000 and Labyrinth, got more attention with belated reviews – in fact, Rat‘s Revenge which was released in September 1980 was only reviewed by the 80 Microcomputing Magazine in November 1981. This was all part of a larger focus on the TRS-80 as a gaming platform: Scott Adams’s Adventure International games had taken hold on the Tandy, and “micro games” certainly were a new trend.

While Med Systems released only five games (four of them adventure games) in 1981, they got a lot more media attention than before. The August 1981 issue of the 80 Microcomputing Magazine is especially noteworthy, as it contains a feature about micro games which quotes William Denman as well as an interview-based article about Frank Corr. Furthermore, the company name pops up in a few more general articles, and their 3-D adventures had apparently become a brand of their own. In the October 1981 issue of the same magazine, Med Systems was able to afford three full-page ads back to back which is quite an investment. The prices are probably not comparable with, say, late 1990’s game magazines, but still this makes Med Systems one of their major customers.

I’ll go into more detail about all of this once we reach the 1981 summary of this marathon but today I’d like to talk about Asylum. Now this is not only the most famous Med Systems game by far but also one with a very confusing backstory. When I started this marathon I thought that this was the game that had piqued my interest as I used to play an adventure game called Asylum on the Commodore 64. However, that was its sequel Asylum II (1982) which was renamed as Asylum for all subsequent 1983 (Atari) and 1986 (Commodore, DOS) releases. The 1981 Asylum is entirely new to me, and I’m looking forward to playing it quite a bit.

Asylum is another maze game but with more adventure elements than the previous ones. It is also the third part of the so-called “Continuum Series” but that brand name apparently only came up in late 1981. In Mike Nadeau’s aforementioned article about Frank Corr (titled “Frank Corr – Making the Ultimate Maze”), Corr suggests that in Asylum everything was “twice as good as Deathmaze”. He attributes that to a new routine they used to store graphics as data. Asylum is also supposed to be a lot easier than Deathmaze which suggests that there are possibly not so many arbitrary puzzles in it. I’d like that! The game was co-written by Corr and Denman and released in February 1981. Its vast success apparently led to a sequel, programmed by Denman only. This is also the last we’ll hear of Frank Corr although it seems that he had great plans for his next game which was supposed to be set inside a space station or a similar setting and use octagonal rooms.

You didn’t warn...wait, you did.

Missed Classic 56: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981)

Written by Joe Pranevich

In the mid-1980s, Douglas Adams’s career was firing on all cylinders. A comic writer since college, best known for his collaborations with Graham Chapman and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, he was writing for classic Doctor Who at arguably its creative height and had just launched the juggernaut that was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It was in this spirit that Mr. Adams, in conjunction with Steve Meretzky, created one of the finest and most famous of the Infocom adventures.

This is not that story.

This is the story of the other official Hitchhiker’s Guide game, the one scrubbed from store shelves to make room for the Infocom work. That game was written by Bob Chappell and published by Supersoft in 1981. I’ll be diving into the more famous game next week, but there is something tempting about playing a game that you aren’t supposed to be able to play and I just could not resist. I’ll give a basic introduction to the Hitchhiker’s Guide and Douglas Adams this week, focusing instead on the story of this “lost” adventure game; next week will have a proper introduction as part of the series on the Infocom game. Grab your towel and remember to “Don’t Panic”.

Missed Classic: Cyborg - Won! (With Final Rating)

Written by Voltgloss

We left off last time having reached the bridge of the spaceship we’ve been blundering around all this time, having rediscovered that we are its cyborg captain and need to fix up and land the thing in order to safely deliver a precious cargo of humans in suspended animation. We had several pathways open to us and apparent problems to solve to do so - let’s dive in!

Potential surprise twist: as “Captain Cyborg,” we looked like this all along.

Missed Classic: Cyborg - Feeding the Machine

Written by Voltgloss

Apologies to all for the delay in continuing our Cyborgian adventures. Rather than dwell on the issues driving those delays, let’s dive back in where we left off:

 

Our map from last time.

With light source (matches) in hand, we head off to our clearest lead: that dark area in the northwest corner of the map. This brings us to a “detoxification chamber,” where a sign informs us to “press the touchplate” in order to “cycle detoxification procedure.” But trying to do so has no effect; our computer half suggests we are lacking “the proper ID.” There’s also a partition to the north, but we can’t seem to walk through it or open it. And then when we go to leave, apparently our match went out without my noticing and we unceremoniously die in the dark. Well, that’s an auspicious start.

Missed Classic 47: Cyborg - Introduction (1981)

Written by Voltgloss

Time to return to the worlds created by Michael Berlyn! As discussed back when we explored Oo-Topos, Mr. Berlyn had published two text adventures through Sentient Software: that game, and Cyborg. With an Apple II emulator up and running well, I’m ready to dive into the shoes of a half-human, half-machine.

Missed Classic: Zork II - Won! And Final Rating

Written by Joe Pranevich

Last week, I explored most of Zork II and ended my session with suicide-by-dragon thanks to the Wizard of Frobozz. He had cast a “Fierce!” spell and my character happily walked into a dragon’s den. The rest hardly needs explanation. But in dying, I found the first clue of an overall plot: a shadowy, possibly demonic, figure that wants my help to restore his freedom. Is he imprisoned by the Wizard? Is it a coincidence that the two of the colored rooms in the afterlife match the magic spheres that we found? I’m excited to find out!

First things first, I focus on getting past the dragon. I approach him again and take stock. I can’t attack. How about bribery? I hand over a treasure and the dragon takes it to some hidden trove, but it doesn’t change anything. Do I have to give him something in specific? I try to talk to the dragon for clues but it seems that he is trying to brainwash me. I give up and leave, but something weird happens: he follows me. He turns back after one room but this must be part of the trick! I hand him another treasure and expect the same, but he doesn’t follow. Why not? Talking was the trick! When I chat him up, he follows for one turn. If I do it too much, does his brainwashing succeed? I can alternate talking and walking so he follows me even farther. What can I do with a fire-breathing dragon?

Missed Classic 35: Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz (1981) - Introduction

Written by Joe Pranevich

More familiar box art.

Last month, I conquered the first real game in our marathon, Zork I. It was a good game, but it could not hold a candle to the original Dungeon. It’s time to turn our attention to its sequel, the aptly named Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz. How will the designers, Dave Lebling and Marc Blank, fare when they have to create a new game using the parts of an old one? I look forward to finding out!

Before we get to the game, there’s a bit of history to follow up on. The first Zork hit the shelves for the TRS-80 in December 1980. This was Infocom’s first product, but were they a gaming company? Or a business software company that sold games to get off the ground? This question would eventually sink Infocom several years later, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Since they still had more Zork that was not yet adapted, Dave and Marc spent much of a year building a new game around the puzzles excised from the previous one and new challenges that they were devising. Personal Software distributed the previous game, but it was clear at this point that they were not focused on marketing games. To better control the product and the messaging, Infocom brought distribution in-house and managed their own mail orders. Although Zork II wouldn’t take advantage of it, this in-house distribution system would later allow them to build the creative “feelies” that they became known for. Perhaps more so than with Zork I, this game marks the moment when Infocom became a real company: they had an office, they had their first real employee, and they were managing the sales themselves. The foundation was built for them to expand.

Full disclosure, I also played this game as a kid although I do not think that I beat it. I vaguely remember that there’s a wizard that comes by and shoots spells at you and that we’ll have to steal his wand to solve some of the puzzles, but that’s just it. My memory may be jogged as I play. If you are just joining us, you’ll probably want to read my review of Dungeon before reading this as I may skim over the solutions to puzzles introduced in that game. Let’s play!