Ratings and Reviews by jgerrie

This is a little adventure for the VZ-200/300 8-bit computer and the TRS-80 MC-10. It is not hard. It has some random elements that will bring about your demise in arbitrary ways, but if you simply looking for a about 20 minutes of 8-bit two-word parser nostalgia, you could do worse. As with many games of this type, the world can appear much larger than it is, until you get down to the business of real mapping. There are some very subtle clues to help you make guesses about the quirks of the limited vocabulary, which can help get you out of trouble. Or you can simply peek at the listing...

Oh and there's a cute little graphic title page. Nice work unknown author, and the person who revised it for the VZ-200. There are few few errors in the programs handling of the tunnel and the carrying of items, that I fixed in the MC-10 Version, but they won't necessarily stop you from winning. You start each game at a random location. I have added a link to the Virtual MC-10 Emulator (VMC10.exe) on the main page. Enjoy!

In a review I did of the game "The Temple of Apshai." I argued that the early TRS-80 version of this classic RPG should also be considered as a kind of interactive fiction. The reason I argued this was that the TRS-80 version was really so slow and the graphics so spartan, that the main focus of the game really was on engaging with the narrative of the prologue and the detailed room descriptions of the printed manual. The computer program just provided a structure for bringing that narrative experience to a satisfactory conclusion. The Mystery of Silver Mountain is a lot like that. It is a pure text adventure program, but it really cannot be played without the aid of the original book by Osborne Computing in which the source code was published. The reason is that that book contains graphic images (containing visual clues) of the various locations and additional written materials (codes and clues) that are necessary for completing the adventure. The BASIC program does provide a bare bones set of descriptions and it handles and responds to the input (it's a simple 2-word parser). But there would be little point in attempting to solve the mystery using the program alone. So if you want to play this game on one of its various 8-bit platforms (Commmodore, Atari, TRS-80, etc), you should also find a PDF of the original book. Alternatively there are many copies available on the regular used book sites. The puzzles and clues are very challenging, especially due to the added visual nature of some of them. This is not a simple adventure to solve. That being said, it was meant as an introduction to computer adventuring for 8-bit home computers, so it is not diabolical. It was such a popular program in the mid 80's that I would certainly recommend that anyone interested in surveying some of the greats of 8-bit BASIC IF gaming from that period should probably try it.

My only critical comment is that the parsing engine is a little on the slow side. This might just be my TRS-80 version that I played, but I suspect it is due in part to the program being written in as generic a form of BASIC as possible so that it could easily be modified for a bunch of different systems. In other words, it contains many program remarks and no special programming shortcuts (unique to any particular 8-bit computer) to speed up execution. However, the delay is not too bad--I recall some Scott Adam's BASIC IF games being worse!

For Retrochallenge 2015 I ported Will Crowther's original Colossal Cave "Adventure" source code to Microsoft Micro Color Basic. The new basic source code should be easily shifted to other Basics. I elaborated a few uncompleted elements and areas and changed a few things to create some new challenges for old players.

I also added some new commands such as SCORE, which will tell you how you're doing and if you have won. HELP will provide some rudimentary aid. UNLOAD will perform the same function as the more standard "drop all" command of other adventures. QUIT not only exits but prompts whether you would like to save the progress you have made so far. You are prompted each time the program is run if you wish to load a previous game. The same file name "COLOSDAT" is used for each save, but in the emulator (VMC10.exe) you can save the resulting virtual cassette file to any file name you like in order to differentiate between different saves.

I re-coded the program from the Fortran source code and data file of Will Crowther's original version of "Advent" for the PDP-10 recently recovered from an old back-up tape by Dennis Jerz. This is not the classic "350 point" version modified by Don Woods. So if you are interested in playing a new version of the original version of the "original" text adventure, you can try this one out. My version contains all the room movement info in numeric form and most of the text descriptions of rooms and events. I had to wedge it into 20K of my favourite 8-bit the TRS-80 MC-10, so some of the descriptions got "edited" a little, but I was able to transfer the map info from the data file into Basic DATA statements, so it's a largely accurate rendition of the original map. I only made a very few tweaks where directions were quite clearly messed up or to eliminate a few NE, NW, SE and SW directions.

Using various descriptions from the Net of the puzzles and other game challenges and by examining Crowther's original source, I was able to recreate what I believe is a reasonably accurate presentation of all the original game elements. However, as I worked on the rooms in the Bedquilt (“Under Construction”) area of Crowther's original code I really could sense where his patience with the project petered out (sometime in 1975 or 1976) so I also ended up adding a few unique elements of my own to “complete” what is obviously an unfinished work just begging for elaboration. I can understand what tempted Don Woods to make his additions in 1977 to create the classic version.

That being said, I do not like some of the more surreal fantasy elements that Woods added. Crowther's version has a more austere set of locations, but they have a feel of realism that is absent from the classic version's chaotic hurly-burly of branches. Also, there is clearly a sense that Crowther's fantasy elements (Hall of the Mountain King, nasty little dwarfs, finding a cave in the woods) were drawn from a single classic narrative source, such as the story of Peer Gynt, rather than a hodgepodge of fantasy cliche's. I tried to respect this integrity in the few additions I made to fill out Crowther's obviously abandoned work.

Don Woods helped Crowther overcome the problem of the game's unfinished nature by significantly expanding the complexity of the cave and by adding improved scoring and completion routines. It's this latter version which is normally referred to as "the original adventure" or the "350 point" version. In homage to this latter title I have also made my re-coded version worth 350 points, although these points only represent six 50 point treasures. Only five of these treasures are present in Crowther's original. I have added one treasure and one puzzle and a few new threats. I have also slightly changed the operation of some of the magic of the original to prevent old hands from simply applying their prior knowledge.

The following file contains the Virtual MC-10 emulator and the program file COLOSSAL.C10 for loading and running in the emulator:
http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/Home/VMC10_073D.zip