Mission Asteroid

For the record, I played this on a real Apple ][+ in the 1980s. It was my second text adventure ever, after Scott Adams' Adventureland and before Zork II.

An asteroid is speeding towards Earth on a collision course. (Never mind that in the 1980s our first warning of an approaching asteroid would be its impact.) Your goal is to qualify as an astronaut, fly your shuttle out to the asteroid, set charges to blow it up, and return safely to Earth.

No, Bruce Willis is not included. And this game came out 18 years before Armageddon anyway.

Despite how it might sound, this is actually a fairly simple task. There are a handful of puzzles with self-evident answers, mostly consisting of getting information in one place and using it in another. You'll probably want to take some notes.

The game's difficulty -- ALL of its difficulty -- comes from the tight time limit. Every action you take uses up a certain amount of time, so there is no time for any distractions or any mistakes. The "puzzle" is therefore to write a walkthrough so efficient that not even one move is missed.

This, I am afraid to tell you, is NOT FUN.

It's not even like this is an efficiency puzzle. Mission: Asteroid is ludicrously linear -- there are no alternate solutions to puzzles, no multiple routes, no optional areas, nothing. You're more likely to die from a typo or because you accidentally used a synonym than anything else.

Oh, and if you DO die, the game simply continues like it didn't happen. You can "win" just by ignoring it and continuing to play.

Compared to Mystery House, this isn't that significant a piece of IF history, and it's buggy, poorly designed, and hopelessly linear. I've played better adventure games programmed by fourteen-year-olds.