HOUSEQUEST! is a small, simple piece of interactive fiction. It is a text only adventure game where you play the main character. You explore a house (your house) and use one or two
word commands to solve fiendish puzzles. Players experienced in games of this type could probably finish it in about 20 min. Others should consider about an hour to two of total game play time. The
game is a very small download and takes up less than 1MB of hard drive space. It is now in it's full production release and very stable. Anyone who has played these types of games before should
consider this one an EASY level game. It is completly suitable for children.
The game was written by me on the Commodore64 long ago, and recently revived and finished, with the aid of Rene Bisschop, who converted it to the PC. Rene then went above and beyond and added a bunch
of fun programming bells and whistles (screen modes, font support, etc.). It has a very simple storyline and is very limited in size and scope. However, I would definately consider it a good
afternoon's fun, or something to play at work when you need a break. The game is completly free to download and play.
I made the game for three reasons. First of all I love games, and I love to tell stories. Back in the days of the almighty Commodore64, I used to love playing text adventures. I rushed
out and got any I could afford, and get my hands on. This led me to want to write my own. I wanted to tell stories in any and all forms and genres. From a writing standpoint, I feel writing a video
game like a text adventure allows me to tell many stories, and branch that story in many directions. You can explore it from all angles, because the person playing it can approach the situation from
many directions and any order.
Second, I wanted to learn all about computer programming. I have always been a very logical person and learning how to do it myself was easy. This was a prototype game. Something small I could use to
learn how to make IF games well. When done, I was going to use it to build a huge, complex and well developed story I had laid out. Nowadays of course, there are free programs on the internet that
help you design these programs. You don't have to write any real code at all. So while it helps to know how and why these programs work, I won't be programming the next one. I'll just be writing it
and concentrating on story.
Third, I had a friend who had a computer in her home and wanted something to play, but couldn't afford to buy anything. She had a whole summer off and had nothing to do, so I wrote the program to
keep her occupied (hence the main objective of the game).
Not a simple answer. The actual layout of the game and the programming were done in less than three days. The command parser (the part of the program that accepts and interprets
commands) is still not done in my opinion. I had at one point intended to make this program understand complete sentences, but it's not worth it now. Were I actually going to make another game from a
100% blank page again, I would finish this one but I'm not (see previous question). I understand how it would be done, that's enough. Plus I wrote it in basic, and it's an outdated language, even
compared to today's basic, which is very similar to Pascal in layout now. Therefore, my knowledge of basic is slightly outdated.
Anyway, after the inital 3 days it took a couple of days to troubleshoot and debug. Then it sat around for a while until I could figure out how to get it from the C64 the Mac that my friend owned. It
was written in universal basic, but file transfer between platforms in those days was insanely hard to accomplish for the everyday person. Needless to say, the year was over and it never made it into
my friends computer. After I spent about a week on a Commodore specific version, intending to just give it to anyone who wanted it. The problem there was no one I knew had C-64's anymore and the
internet was little more than ftp's at the time that I couldn't afford to use.
HOUSEQUEST! then sat on the shelf for many years because I didn't use my C-64 for a while. Finally, about a year ago I decided to get some of my old stories and graphics off that machine and put them
on the PC. So there was HOUSEQUEST! and to my suprise, a whole INSANELY HUGE network of C-64 fans out there on the Web. On top of it, I finally had access to the technology to transfer it to the PC
and get it compiled. From there the game was reborn. After finding a good soul to help me, I cleaned up the code one last time. made some changes and after a few weeks of emailing versions back and
forth, The game was released.
All in all while the game took less than a week to write, It has been in production for over 10 years!
Everything is original. The only exception is the bouncing logo at the front which I believe is a bit of code from an Amiga freeware program or something. I don't know, I didn't add
it.
The structure of the command parser and the programming knowledge came from four sources. The first two were the well known and still reveared almighty books "COMPUTE!'s Guide to Writing Adventure
Games" by Greg ?????, and "The Commodore 64 Reference Manual" by ??????. Many other ideas came from "RUN" magazine (now there was a great mag). Finally, special thanks to my brother, who taught me
excessive amounts about computers and helped me figure things out when I had no clue how to proceed.
The game is only available on the web for the PC. If anyone is interested in taking the basic code (now updated) and compiling it for some other platform, I would be much abliged.
However, I am not activly persuing it.
I do have an enhanced version for the Commodore64 that is about 90% ready to go. It is not available on the web yet, but will be soon (I made a promise to post it) in both a .prg form for the C64
itself, and a .dsk image form for the emulators out there. I hope to get to it going soon. Email me about inquiries, it will motivate me if I know someone is truly interested.
Hell no! First of all there is no real story to the game. I don't think it warrants a sequel. Second, I don't think anyone would want one (that's ok I wrote it for myself.) Third, as
mentioned earlier, the technology of this way of programming is cumbersome and outdated. I am going to concentrate on a new set of games, already in development. One is a graphical "Myst"-like
adventure based in a popular television show universe, and the other is a massive and complex text adventure paying tribute to other games in the genre.
I would like to make a few more minor tweaks if I can (one grammer correction, one response fix, the opening screen), but for the most part this is it. I am toying with making an
ultimate version one day that would have the command parser to understand full sentences, but it doesn't seem likely.
Do you have other original material for the Commodore64?
Yes, but who knows when I'll get around to publishing it. When I do, it will probably be in emulator form only. Again, emailing me would be good motivation, it would let me know
someone is interested.
