This game, by Gerry Francis, looks to have been ported to the Commodore 64 from the original Inform 6 z-code version over on itch.io, possibly by somebody going by the name of LidL.
Once again, this was written for a competition, this time the ParserComp 2021, where it came in 8th place.
Before we begin, this is a filler post as I am not reviewing Acid Rain due to performance issues, and neither am I reviewing AAS Masters. This wasn’t really a game, as such, but an exercise in how not to write a game. Apparently, it was designed to infuriate the player on purpose, and it simply involves moving in any direction and hitting various characters from the world of ASS multiple times until they die. I played it for about 10 minutes. That was enough. You don’t want to read a review on that…..but it counts! I played it!
So back to Acid Rain. I love that over on Gerry’s itch.io page, he describes what a text adventure is – I forget, sometimes, that people must come across these things and simply have no idea!
“A text adventure is a form of computer game that presents you with a story. You take on the role of the main character in the story and control that character’s actions.”
The game itself is based on Ozmoo 9.1, a z-code interpreter for the Commodore 64, and it’s really, really, slow. So slow it is unplayable. This may be a symptom of Ozmoo or the fact it was written in a higher version of Inform than is usual for the C64, but I gave up after 20 mins or so.
It made me think that maybe I will save the reviews for commercial releases – I am still going to play through public domain and competition entries, even typed in adventures from books like The Computer & Video Games – Book of Adventure, but they will have to be exceptional in order to make the blog. I may reference or discuss them in passing or over on mastodon, of course.
So my next planned game for review is Adventure 1 – Cavern of Riches by Keypunch Software which was released, apparently, as part of the “Adventure Pak” game pack. Keypunch, based in the USA, was one of the first shareware distributors, but also released commercial games at times.
Until then, intrepid travellers!