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4ka.zip
MS-DOS Application (Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.)
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Walkthrough by Tom Hayes
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4K Adventure

by John Metcalf

Fantasy
1995

(based on 7 ratings)
1 review

Game Details

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


A very small fantasy game - in fact, the executable is exactly 4096 bytes in size. (The zip is larger than that because it's bundled with a few other programs and some documentation.) Considering that limitation, it has a surprising amount of nicely evocative description. Very simple, two-word parser, incomplete direction lists, no "save game" feature. The premise that you're a "black dwarf" trying to recover the stolen orb that keeps your land in eternal winter has the interesting implication that the protagonist is a Bad Guy, but the game really doesn't have room to expand on this.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

SynTax
The verb list is pretty small, but John designed a game suitable for an observant beginner. In fact, it is an ideal introduction to adventure playing, and also a good example for those wanting to write their own game, to see how well a small adventure can be constructed and written. There is no save command but in a game this size (under 20 locations), it isn't necessary.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Old-School Pre-Infocom Style Text Adventure, April 4, 2016
by PDearmore (Central New York)
Related reviews: text-adventure, pre-infocom, assembly, dos

Described as "ideal for a complete beginner providing they
examine everything" in the Readme. The puzzles are of the "look at x, find y, use it on z" variety.

This is really not bad for a game developed from scratch in Assembly. Yeah, I don't like that the "unknown input" message and the "item has no description message" are the same, and there are a few other minor flaws like this, but not bad, considering.

The game captures the spirit of the pre-Infocom text adventures very well--but it does feel updated somewhat. No mazes, and I wasn't dying without warning at every turn. I ended up with a score of 72--not sure what the max is. I suspect there is something you can do with the fungus to increase your score, but I'm not sure what it is. Anyway, I reached the conclusion of the game, so I'm happy. Also, just for the heck of it, I ran a few of the other .COM files in DOSBox--a fun little addition to the game. This one is worth checking out if you have a few minutes free some day.

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This is version 4 of this page, edited by Lance Campbell on 8 May 2023 at 3:57pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item - Delete This Page