Missed Classic: Return to Eden - Gonna Live Like a King on Whatever I Find

By Ilmari

The dream of Trump was finally true - no living being could get behind the wall

Last time I had just managed to break through the fence surrounding Enoch, robot built city in the planet of Eden. Unfortunately, the fence wasn’t the only defense, and I was quickly obliterated by a minefield. The solution was luckily near. I had picked up a fruit that looked like a pineapple, but was actually a cherry bomb (hey producers, Piers Anthony used that pun way before you). All I had to do was to use my catapult made out rubber band and y-shaped bone to hurl the bomb to the mine field.

I still couldn’t just walk to the city, since it was surrounded by a huge wall. The animals and plants of Eden tried constantly to attack the wall, but were promptly lasered to death. I had to find another way.

Missed Classic: Return to Eden - I Don’t Know How To Do It, But It’s Got To Be Done

By Ilmari

In my previous post I had just started Return to Eden with a bang. Kim Kimberley’s stratoglider had crashed on Eden and the sleeper ship Snowball nuked the remnants, because the crew thought wrongly that Kim was a terrorist trying to destroy the ship. Kim managed to survive by burying herself underground. My aim now was to survive the deadly forests of Eden and get to the safety of the robot-made city Enoch.

Texas?

Missed Classic 49: Return to Eden - Introduction (1984)

By Ilmari

It's time for our annual change of the year game, played through the final week of 2017 until New Year. This time, I shall take a look at Return to Eden, a sequel to Snowball by British text adventure company Level 9. Since Snowball has been the most intriguing game of the company, I have high expectations of this one. Sure, the previous Level 9 game I played, Lords of Time, wasn’t really my cup of tea, but I’m blaming the rookie game developer. Now, the Austin brothers, who founded Level 9, are back in charge and hopefully will beat their previous high score of 31.

Is that a futuristic guitar? If so, is he a space hippy?

   

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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 48: Elves ‘87 (aka The Elf’s Christmas Adventure) (1987)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Merry Christmas! Can you believe this is our fourth Christmas since the relaunch? It’s also our fourth look at classic Christmas adventure games. Thus far we have looked at 1984’s Merry Christmas from Melbourne House and A Spell of Christmas Ice, plus 1986’s Crisis at Christmas. Holiday games are a special bunch; except Merry Christmas, they have all been produced by smaller developers. They have also been a global bunch, having been produced in Australia, England, and Scotland. Our next game will continue both of those traditions: Elves ‘87 (subtitled God Bless Frosty the Snowman!), a fantastic Christmas tale written in Nova Scotia by independent software designers Bruce MacKay and Marlene Abriel and distributed on their short-lived Atari ST BBS, “Burned Out Adventurers!” (or “BOA!” for short).

This is also a game with a unique history, pulled along by the friendly competition between adventure authoring systems. Although Bruce and Marlene did not intend the game to be commercial (instead a springboard to subsequent game ideas that they were brewing), it was unofficially ported and re-released as an advertisement (and sample code) for David Malmberg’s “Adventure Game Toolkit”, a rival development system. That release, retitled The Elf’s Christmas Adventure, is the one that I suspect most players are familiar with.

This Christmas marks the 30th anniversary of Elves ‘87 and I can think of no more fitting time to dig in and explore this piece of holiday cheer. So, spike some eggnog and pull up a chair by the fire, it’s time for a Christmas adventure!