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Tower of Mystery


devwebcl

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Hmm... but still I get "I don't know the object" when entered any command. Anyone else gets it too?

 

No, I think it is fine now.

 

That message is when It can't parse your command, because this is a very simple parser.

 

well, I've changed few lines so RM$ and A$ can read the full first line so now it is 100% playable:

 

 

12 CRM=54
15 DIM C1$(10),C2$(10),A$(CRM),B$(10),C$(15)
20 DIM AC(NR,6),VB$(NV*5),OB$(NO*5),RM$(NR*CRM),TD$(NT*20),VN(NV),TL(NT),TF(NT)
30 RM$=" ":RM$(14*CRM)=RM$:RM$(2)=RM$:VB$=RM$:OB$=RM$:TD$=RM$

120 FOR I=1 TO NR:READ A$:RM$(I*CRM-(CRM-1),I*CRM)=A$:NEXT I

210 WD=0:PRINT RM$(RM*CRM-(CRM-1),RM*CRM)

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  • 2 years later...

Last night I finished reading my copy of Gary MacGath's "COMPUTE!'s Guide to Adventure Games." I thought I'd try the game, "Tower of Mystery," that is printed in chapter 11. I didn't want to type that long program into the Atari. My search using Google lead me to this thread. I'm glad that this game was posted here. Thanks to all of you who made it possible to play the game.

For those that just want to play the game and not bother download to read the book to get the game's instructions, I OCR'ed them and I've included them here (they're very short!):

"Tower of Mystery: A Simple Adventure Program

"'Tower of Mystery' is a BASIC program designed to illustrate some of the concepts of adventure programming and to serve as a starting point for writing your own adventure programs. The object is to enter an old factory building, where the world's only remaining copy of "Adventure" is reputed to be stored, and to leave with a tape containing a copy of the program. The focus is largely on a computer, which the player must learn how to use in order to get the program onto the tape. The player can even ask the computer to RUN ADVENTURE. So not only is there a computer within the computer, there is an adventure within the adventure!"

Here are some comments (and problems) that I have with the "Tower of Myster:"

The original Atari modifications for the Microsoft version of the "Tower of Mystery" are by Stephen Levy. I wonder if this programmer is the same one who authored 1984's "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution?" Mr. Levy certainly was active writing about computers at the time this BASIC program was published. Whoever the COMPUTE! author is, he wrote this Amiga book too:

http://www.amazon.com/Computes-Amiga-Programmers-Guide-Stephen/dp/0874550289

I could complete "Tower of Mystery," but I did find a few problems with the lastest version of the program (TOWER5.BAS) posted here:

  • The inventory command didn't list items correctly when I had more than one item. The second item was TABed over too far and not all of the description was printed.
  • The sentence on line 8220 has two words together forced together. There should be a space between the "A" in ALOUD on the following line: 8220 IF RM=10 THEN PRINT "THE COMPUTER DIES WITH ALOUD POP."
  • The sentence on line 2820 ended with a comma instead of a period. Here is the uncorrected line: 2820 IF C2=4 THEN PRINT "IT LOOKS BEYOND REPAIR,":GOTO 8200
  • I was able to to use the coin without finding it first. This is the only error I found that affects gameplay.

I played the game for about forty minutes, but I couldn't get the computer (that I expected to run "Adventure") to turn on. It tried many different verbs to get it to work. The limited vocabulary (which is to be expected from a game that's really just an example) was frustrating. I finally read the walkthough on CASA (thanks for the link).

 

Upon reading the walkthrough I saw I was only few steps from beating the game. Reading the walkthrough allowed me to solve the adventure. It turns out that I NEVER would have solved it alone, because I would not have tried the verb required to turn the computer on. In the author's description about the program he says this, "For starting up the computer, I decided not to introduce a chain of puzzles, but instead to make the player try different actions until he found the right one. The correct action [...] seems almost natural after the usual start-up techniques fail to do the job." I disagree. The verb that is required, which the author mentions in the quoted second sentence (but I left out on purpose so as not to give it away) does NOT seem natural. In the book, the author describes such puzzles as "cheats" because the player feels cheated about the solution. That's how I felt about it.

 

Again, thanks to everyone that helped get this program up and running in a downloadable format for the Atari.

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