I Dare You for the C64

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Alastair
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I Dare You for the C64

#1 Post by Alastair » Mon Aug 14, 2017 10:16 pm

For those of you looking for a C64 version of I Dare You you can find a copy by using the Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive, link below:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140926153 ... 387_01.zip

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#2 Post by Gunness » Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:34 pm

...but how do we know that it's an official release?

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#3 Post by Alastair » Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:31 pm

Gunness wrote:...but how do we know that it's an official release?
So far the best evidence I have found is a picture at Retrogames which does look about as official as you would expect a low volume mail-order only title to be, so I guess it was officially released.


P.S. Where does the information come from that the game was ever released by "The Guild"? The above picture of the disc shows "The Adventure Workshop" and one of the screenshots on our site says "Pegasus Software".

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#4 Post by Gunness » Tue Aug 22, 2017 7:32 am

That's certainly good enough for me - and in general, the whole publishing situation regarding these home-grown games is often rather muddy.

World of Spectrum lists The Guild as the publisher (http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... I+Dare+You) - and they also indicate that Pegasus Software was the author's "pen name". In some instances she appears to have published her games herself, but apparently not here.

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#5 Post by Strident » Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:27 pm

I may be able to help clarify a few points as I reviewed a lot of The Guild's titles back in the day.

Louise Wenlock was the author of I Dare You! Pegasus Software was Tony Collins of The Guild's software pen name. I presume, from my notes from the time, that he may have been involved on the programming side of things but he often also converted titles between different formats using that name as well.

The C64 version was probably produced and sold by Philip Reynolds at The Adventure Workshop independently, if it wasn't produced by Tony at The Guild. AW took on some of The Guild's titles when Tony quit the scene, but I'd have to do some research looking back at old Adventure Probe adverts to work out if the Speccy version was one of them.

It was quite common at the time for various homegrown software houses to publish different formats of the same game. Adventure Workshop and The Guild converted a lot of Zenobi titles (until John got annoyed). The Guild also did lots of cheap and cheerful Speccy conversions of many Amstrad & C64 games.

I'm not sure which platform the I Dare You! originated on. It's worth noting that the Spectrum version of the game originally came with three little envelopes that you had to open at certain parts of the adventure. These envelopes contained information/clues that you needed to proceed. From looking at Dorothy Millard's C64 solution, it appears that the Commodore version dispensed with the cards and had them "virtually" in game instead... this may suggest that the Spectrum version was the original format?

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#6 Post by Gunness » Fri Oct 27, 2017 12:56 pm

Thanks for clearing up things, Strident! I've often found the whole homegrown market a bit headache-inducing when it comes to registering the games properly :D I'll fix the game entry as possible. And yes, it makes sense regarding the Speccy being the original platform.
If you have any other nuggets of info, please share.

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#7 Post by Gunness » Thu Jun 14, 2018 8:02 am

Picking up an old thread:
Strident wrote:Louise Wenlock was the author of I Dare You! Pegasus Software was Tony Collins of The Guild's software pen name
I know that WoS has its share of errors these days, but they list the author of I Dare You as "Pegasus Software (Louise Wenlock)"
To make matters more confusing, if I look up Louise, I get her as "label from" (ie. pen name of) Anthony Collins.
Again, I presume that this is just a mix-up in their database?

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#8 Post by Strident » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:15 am

I'm not sure. It's possible Louise Wenlock could've been a pseudonym of Tony's... I've found no concrete evidence to confirm this... WOS hiding their permissions letters these days doesn't help... I presume Tony might have made some reference to "Louise" in his email.

She was certainly billed as a new author at the time, when I was sent the game to review but "Louise Wenlock" wasn't a known person on the scene... She hadn't ever written or contributed to Adventure Probe for example. That, in itself, was a bit odd. We presumed back then that Louise had come up with the idea for the game and that Tony had programmed it.

It is likely that it was Tony writing the whole thing, using the name to distinguish it from his other games, especially when you look at Solvaldol-X which was apparently penned under the same name. It'd be nice to find something that actually confirms that, though.

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#9 Post by Strident » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:29 am

I notice that 'Use Your Loaf' is credited to Louise Wenlock now... that would be incorrect, I think.

To me, it looks like one of Tony's quick and dirty conversions of a game from another format (probably Commodore or Amstrad) as it credits R. C. D. Enterprises for the original game and Pegasus Software (Tony's name that he used for his original software label and on most of his conversions for his The Guild label).

Looking at CPC-POWER... R. C. D. Enterprise is credited for at least one Amstrad PD adventure http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page ... Enterprise

Tony did a lot of Spectrum conversions of Commodore and Amstrad Public Domain titles to release on his The Guild label (often as cheap compilations) so that fits.

On a side note, the Amstrad Public Domain adventures side of things is really badly preserved and documented online... not hugely surprising given the more unofficial status of the way the games were distributed. There are similar issues with a lot of the CP/M public domain adventures... many of which Tony Collins also converted to The Guild.

Basically Tony is partly responsible for a lot of our cataloguing and archiving headaches. :)

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#10 Post by Strident » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:42 am

Basically, the vast majority of the titles tagged Pegasus Software (aside from the obvious Tony Collins own games, like The Hermitage, Teacher Trouble, Corya etc.) will be conversions from another format.

For example...
http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C82 ... C+The.html
is currently only listed for Spectrum. It's obviously a quick and dirty GACed conversion by Tony, under the name of Pegasus Software, from an Alex Gough game produced for another format, but what format? It's highly likely that it was Amstrad CPC as that seems to be where Alex's other games originated.

It would take a trawl through old public domain lists to find out, I think. I may eventually get around to that. :)

As I've said elsewhere. all these conversions between formats make things incredibly complicated especially as I think that Tony was doing conversions for Recreation Re-Creation before he started The Guild and that Philip Reynolds was doing conversions for The Guild before he started The Adventure Workshop. So many overlaps!

My recommendation would be to keep Louise Wenlock separate for now, with a note to say it's probably the pen name of Anthony Collins. You could either lump Tony and Pegasus Software together with an explaining note, or keep Tony and Pegasus separate (with a link between their entries). Pegasus Software still needs to exist as a separate publisher as it was used both as an author name and as a publishing company name.

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#11 Post by Strident » Thu Jun 14, 2018 10:48 am

(Regarding 'Use Your Loaf'....

CPC Power lists it as being related to the aforementioned The Antidote, which they've credited as R. C. D. Enterprise.

http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page ... &num=12242

The author for Use Your Loaf they say is Edmund Spicer.

Now, we have that author in the database already. ie...

http://solutionarchive.com/list/author%2C75/

and he has a host of Amstrad Public Domain Adventures listed at...

http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page ... d%20SPICER

So again, Tony has made a quick GAC conversion for the Spectrum.)

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Re: I Dare You for the C64

#12 Post by Gunness » Tue Jun 19, 2018 2:22 pm

Whew! That's a lot of stuff to get sorted out :lol:
I've updated the info on Louise Wenlock, and then hopefully we can fix the various games along the way. Thanks for your thorough research!

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