Scurvy Dogs

Scurvy Dogs

A Commodore 64 Text Adventure written by Thomas Garner

How to survive on the Black Isle by Bloody Maurice Barbossa

Many pirates 'ave tried 'n many pirates 'ave failed, t' survive th' treacherous dangers o' loot huntin' on th' Back Isle. Th' island be said t' be a black spotted galleon 'n be often ravaged by storms, which 'ave destroyed many ships.

Th' isle be galleon t' a group o' indigenous Aztec warriors, who's ancestors guarded th' fabled, black spotted Statue o' Mictlantecuhtli. 'tis said that if ye try t' plunder it then a skeletal warrior will rise from his tomb t' protect it at any cost 'n drag yer corpse t' th' lowest underworld.

Th' Tamoanchan Coconuts, native t' th' isle are reputed t' 'ave miraculous healin' properties that can restore a half beaten scallywag bag t' full vigour.

If ye wants t' explore th' isle then I'd recommend that ye always draw a map t' avoid gettin' yourself lost. Get yourself a nice sturdy sea chest t' store yer booty 'n keep yer haul safely in th' bilge, t' avoid losin' it t' bandits. Also, don't pick up more than ye can handle in one go, as greed can slow ye down, or if ye be nah lucky find ye sunken t' th' bottom o' quick sand. A good lantern 'n tinderbox are also advisable as evil ghosts o' long dead pirates lurk in th' dark 'n will destroy anyone who spends too much time without a light t' see.

One more thin', keep yer ship in good repair, so ye can make a swift gettaway 'n avoid gettin' yourself marooned. Dangers lurk all o'er th' island so make sure ye can swiftly 'weigh anchor' afore 'tis too late!

About the game
The game has over 1000 lines of code and was written in the C64's native version of Microsoft Basic filling almost all of the machines 38kb of free RAM.

It all started around June 2018, when I was drawing with my four year old step-son and he asked if we could draw treasure maps. I mapped out a whole island and plotted various treasures, and challenges, realising immediately it would be a good premise for a text adventure so I transferred the information about the locations and objects and so on, into a bunch of arrays.

I chose to program on the Commodore 64 because I like the aesthetic of the old games and how we originally played them. I liked the idea of having memory limitations so working from a limited palette allowed me a creative challenge. I also liked the idea of squeezing as much as I could into the machine to make a satisfactory text adventure that doesn't feel too limited.

The programming was inspired by Marshal Cavendish's INPUT magazine article about writing adventure games, which I was given by my dad when I was a kid and had an old Tandy TRS80 Color Computer with no datasette drive. I would type games in but had no way of saving my code so I would have to leave the machine on for days. I also drew inspiration from 'Write your own Adventure Programs for your Microcomputer' by Jenny Tyler and Les Howarth and of course playing a bunch of text adventure games on the Commodore 64.

The game has been in development for the past three months and is currently being beta tested before it will be given it's first official release. I am also working on a detailed manual for the game, which will contain artwork and additional flavour for the game as well as some useful information regarding how to play the game. I also plan to develop a box cover for the game and would be interested in releasing it for hardware as well as for emulation so I'm currently exploring those avenues now.

For more information about the game contact the author at: blamekeiko@live.co.uk

Tom Garner
August 2018