All the Adventures reaches the finale of Countdown to Doom, with one of the most clever puzzles in the game. Plus, I analyze why this game violates so many game design rules yet plays fair anyway.
With this I'm done with 1982 in my chronology and can move on to 1983.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/13/countdown-to-doom-skyward/
next on All the Adventures, Dune sandworms and multiple time travel puzzles
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/12/countdown-to-doom-tempus-fugit-retro/
Next on All The Adventures, some progress on Countdown of Doom as I analyze in more detail than necessary a 4-room maze, and pass the tests of the mysterious grey dome
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/11/countdown-to-doom-this-artefact-will-self-destruct/
next on All the Adventures I give a tour of the planet Doomawangara, bane of exogeologists
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/10/countdown-to-doom-exogeologists-baffled/
All the Adventures finally ends 1982 out...
...by playing a 1983 game. What?
Read more at my first post on the game Countdown to Doom, including the history of how an oceanographer got into writing adventure games.
my grand finale post to The Hobbit
where I prod at the various systems and why -- despite so many flaws -- the game was an enormous bestseller
including an investigation of the mysterious VIC-20 game that made it to market first
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/08/the-hobbit-hero-of-heroes/
In which I get close to finishing the Hobbit but get stopped by a bug ... maybe? I also exploit the timing of the creature system and bring down a dragon.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/07/the-hobbit-there-and-not-quite-back-again/
The Hobbit continues at All the Adventures, as I investigate missing room exits, get tossed into dungeons, try to decipher goblin behavior, and find the One Ring.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/06/the-hobbit-behind-stars-and-under-hills/
Someone reported a bug on #SilkDust. It appears only in the versions of the game where all the parts are spliced together in a single executable (Amiga, Macintosh, Atari ST, etc.).
The game can be finished, but there is an object that is not shown in the inventory (but can still be used) and there are some quite misleading messages. If you are stuck in part 2 read this: https://itch.io/post/12785724 #TextAdventure #IndieGame #retrocomputing #Amiga #Mac68k
In which All the Adventures finally embarks on The Hobbit (1982)
I clear up a great deal of history that has been muddled over the years
and get lost in the game fairly early.
I was going to be doing The Hobbit next, but I found a game Melbourne House published before The Hobbit so I needed to do a side-trip.
Includes a trip through the Gates of Hell, and finding out another author filed the serial numbers off to publish their first game.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/04/over-the-spectrum-adventure-1982/
All the Adventures nears the very end of playing all of 1982 games by returning to the prolific Peter Kirsch. He decided to experiment with graphics for the Atari, along with a unique control system where music substitutes in for reading.
All the Adventures reaches one of the very earliest German adventure games (the second or third?), Secret Agent XP-05.
Includes some history notes on the German group CLUB-80 as well as many deathtraps; plus your host getting foiled by German-language grammar.
On All the Adventures:
With some help from my commenters I managed to pry open most of Enchanted Forest's secrets and finish the game, although some cryptic messages remain.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/01/enchanted-forest-circle-thrice/
All the Adventures visits the Tandy Color Computer and the game Enchanted Forest, which uses a rare-for-the-time directional-graphics style which only became popular for adventure games after Myst.
Fellow cat lovers may want to check out "Marbles, D, and the Sinister Spotlight", an entry in this year's Spring Thing festival of interactive fiction games. This one is a traditional parser text adventure, where you play a cat, who has to help your person explore a mysterious theatre. You get extra points for doing cat like things. It's delightful. And very newbie friendly. https://www.springthing.net/2025/play.html#MarblesDAndTheSinisterSpotlight #interactiveFiction #games #IndieGame #textAdventure #cats
the finale of Mexican Adventure, where our protagonist is like MacGyver but greedier
and I examine the problem of disjoint visualization
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/04/28/mexican-adventure-that-age-old-problem/
I enjoy reading the "All the Adventures" blog posts from @jdyer and recently caught up with his 9 (yes 9!) posts about 1982 text adventure / interactive fiction game Avon. Thoroughly recommended reading for fans of Shakespeare who like retro text games too! https://bluerenga.blog/tag/avon/?order=ASC #Shakespeare #Games #interactiveFiction #textAdventure #RetroGaming
All the Adventures continues with Mexican Adventure, as the game switches modes from completely restrained to wildly open; the player now seeks a working vehicle in order to get a cache of gold across the border.
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/04/27/mexican-adventure-i-do-not-think-there-is-a-rick/
How to program a text adventure in C
