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[Bobsson]

I've tried to track down a very similar-sounding, and equally obscure game in the past - it might be what you're looking for as well.

The game is called "Dark Tower", and is about exploring King Arthur's abandoned castle. There's some text-based entry ("U SWORD"), and some action (press "W" to start walking forward, space to jump). I played on the Apple IIe as well, although I believe there was also a C64 version.

Picture of the starting room:


Picture of jumping over stairs - the top half of the guy is missing due to my poor timing with the screen-cap software. Jumping was very flickery (although it doesn't matter, since you have no control once you've jumped)


There's at least one other game with the same (very generic) name from that era. This is the one in the "Twistaplot" series.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally Posted by Bobsson

I've tried to track down a very similar-sounding, and equally obscure game in the past - it might be what you're looking for as well.

The game is called "Dark Tower", and is about exploring King Arthur's abandoned castle. There's some text-based entry ("U SWORD"), and some action (press "W" to start walking forward, space to jump). I played on the Apple IIe as well, although I believe there was also a C64 version.

Wow, thanks! That has to be it. Although I didn't have an "aha" moment, I played the game and everything was as I remembered it: the navigation, the text, the jumping over stairs, even the goblet. So if this isn't the exact game, it's one that plays just like it.

Thanks to your new leads, I did some additional searching and checked out the other available Microzone images, but none of them seemed to contain any other game that was similar to Dark Tower. Unfortunately, the list of Microzine images isn't comprehensive.

Another game that sounds similar is Crickety Manor. I saw this game mentioned several times, but unfortunately nobody had a link to a disk image or even a screenshot.

As for Dark Tower itself, did you manage to complete it? I got a substantial way through the game before I got stuck at the sea monster in the Baths room. The description implied that I needed something heavy to whack it with, but I explored every other room and wasn't able to find anything. My inventory contained the key, sword, diamond, knife, bottle, turnip, and goblet.

Thanks again for your help!

[Bobsson]

I've beaten it since re-finding it (never managed as a kid, as far as I recall), but I couldn't tell you off hand. I'll give it a shot this weekend and see if I can figure it out again.

[Sesquipedalian]

Originally Posted by Bobsson

I've beaten it since re-finding it (never managed as a kid, as far as I recall), but I couldn't tell you off hand. I'll give it a shot this weekend and see if I can figure it out again.

Well, "this weekend" was last weekend. Any luck?

*bump*

It's long past that weekend. Have you had any luck figuring it out?