Episodes
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In this interview episode we're transfixed by the career of Ron Martinez, whose interactive fiction began as a writer for the Be an Interplanetary Spy book series, the Trillium/Telarium home conversion of Rendezvous With Rama, and the design and implementation of Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy powered by his own TRANS Fiction System parser. Since then Ron has had a widely varied career, and a widely varied career since then including pioneering work in NFTs.
Ron and Jason discuss the wild experimental days at Electronic Arts, the nature of "post-linear" storytelling and the trade-offs of writing in the Star Trek universe, and Ron's brush with actual immortality.
Invention Arts
Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy on archive.org
Rendezvous with Rama on archive.org
Full GET LAMP documentary interview
Ron Martinez MobyGames credits
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Jason and first-time Retro Adventurer Nick Moffitt sample two courses of text adventure horror, featuring Infocom's "MIT with the serial numbers filed off" The Lurking Horror and Sir-Tech Software's "don't call it a Murder Hospital, call it the" Crypt of Medea.
Jason also speaks with Strange Studies of Strange Stories co-host Chad Fifer about how, when, and why the Lovecraftian school of horror became mainstream entertainment fodder.
The Lurking Horror
Crypt of Medea
The Call of Cthulhu (2005 film)
The Apple II Mockingboard
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Episodes manquant?
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Seemingly from out of nowhere, Kingdom of the Seven Stones, a sprawling text/graphic adventure has just been published for the Commodore 64 by The Future was 8 Bit. Creator (and Retro Adventurers listener!) Robin Raymond joins Jason to talk about how the game took shape, why it's cartridge-only, and what the future might hold for his new C-based 8-bit adventure game engine.
Kingdom of the Seven Stones @ TFW8b
Martin Piper's technical analysis
Dithertron
The Coveted Mirror
Ulysses and the Golden Fleece
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Dave and Jason make another transatlantic cultural exchange in this episode, beginning with the youth-oriented Windham Classics' Swiss Family Robinson before heading to the deadly grownup world of Norse mythology for Legend's Valhalla.
Valhalla playable online (ZX Spectrum)
Swiss Family Robinson playable online (Commodore 64)
August 1983 ad for Valhalla (Sinclair User Magazine)
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In this interview episode (cruelly cut short by an impatient harbormaster) we barely scratch the surface of the careers of the legendary power couple of adventure gaming. Jason speaks with Roberta and Ken Williams of On-Line Systems / Sierra On-Line fame. We touch on chapters from the late 1970s to present day, including the first text/graphics adventures on the Apple II to King's Quest and Phantasmagoria, and the new reimagined Colossal Cave published by Cygnus Entertainment.
Colossal Cave
Farewell to Tara by Roberta Williams
Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings by Ken Williams
Sierra Gamers
Mystery House (Hi-Res Adventure #1) playable online
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Dave and Jason take on a pair of BBC Micro originals from the early 1980s in this episode, with the appetizer course of Acornsoft's first adventure game Sphinx Adventure by Paul Fellows, followed by the main course of Twin Kingdom Valley by Trevor Hall.
Twin Kingdom Valley playable online
Sphinx Adventure playable online
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Tim Gilberts published legendary text adventure creation systems The Quill and Professional Adventure Writer (PAW) through family publishing house Gilsoft in the 1980s. These products became the basis for hundreds of commercial games, many developed and sold as part of a late direct-to-consumer wave of adventure development in the late 1980s into the 1990s. Dave and Jason discuss with Tim the origins of The Quill and its successors, the reasons for its success and lasting impact, and Tim's connections to gaming today.
Gilsoft
Tim Gilberts' YouTube channel
Zenobi Software
Stranded by Dave Hawkins
Ghostship Delgado by Tony Kingsmill (2024 Quill game)
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Dave and Jason seek revenge on the dread pirate Skarvench and go on an interplanetary hunt for the mysterious Wing. This episode of The Retro Adventurers explores the neo-retro title Down Among the Dead Men (originally published as a Virtual Reality Adventures gamebook in 1993, converted into ZIL (Zork Implementation Language) and Z-Machine binary format in 2020 by SD Separa) and the oft-overlooked Interplay launch title The Tracer Sanction, originally published by Activision.
The Tracer Sanction playable online
Down Among the Dead Men (includes play link)
Transporter by Andrew Laker (includes play link)
Solution and map for Transporter
Dead Flesh Retro
Terrormolinos
Slaine
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Scott Adams of Adventure International and Clopas fame joins Dave and Jason for a conversation on this episode of The Retro Adventurers. We discuss the rise and fall of Adventure International, the Marvel Comics relationship behind the Questprobe games featuring The Hulk, Spider-Man, and The Human Torch & The Thing, building international business relationships, and more.
>GO WESTYou are in an office.Big Tall Jim Shooter is here.
Clopas LLC
Adventureland XL
Stereotypical by Clopas (in development)
Adventure International (Mobygames profile)
Portland Retro Gaming Expo
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Retro Adventurers Jason Compton and Dave Hawkins explore iconic early text adventure The Hobbit (by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler, adapted from the novel by J. R. R. Tolkien) and Planet of Death (by Richard Turner and Chris Thornton).
Includes listener mail, an explanation for postponing the promised Knight Orc, and a dive into both games.
Special thanks to Robin Harbron of 8-Bit Show and Tell for final engineering.
Links
Planet of Death playable ZX81 edition
The Hobbit playable Spectrum 128 enhanced edition
AppleAdventures on YouTube
Renga in Blue's Planet of Death finale (featuring "Dusty Bin")
The Tracer Sanction
Down Among the Dead Men
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(Please note that Episode 1 has some audio issues which are ironed out in future episodes.)
The premiere of The Retro Adventurers. Three old-school gamers talk about text adventures they have loved, hated, or are just experiencing for the first time. In this episode, Ben Collier, Jason Compton, and Dave Hawkins take a look at early text adventure Around the World and the first Magnetic Scrolls adventure, The Pawn.
Includes news, biographical notes, and a dive into both games.
Links
Ronin by David Alzofon
Ghosts Of Blackwood Manor
PunyInform
Infocom Z-Machine interpreter source code
The Classic Adventurer
Softside adventure archive including Around the World (Apple II emulator image)
The Pawn at the Magnetic Scrolls Memorial (playable online)
