Username: Password:
RegisterForgotten Password

A.R.V.

Simon A. S. Brislin, Steven James Hodgson info, Tim A. Wiser 1992

Language:
English
Authors:
Simon A. S. Brislin, Steven James Hodgson info, Tim A. Wiser
Platforms:
Archimedes info, BBC/Electron info
Genres:
Crime
Entered by:
dave, iamaran, stevenjameshodgson, Strident, timwiser
Added:
15-03-2011
Edited:
13-10-2021

Synopsis

Plot

You have been a bank robber in Manchester for the past two years, bagging over three million pounds. But your last "job" went terribly wrong. Your normally peaceful operations turned into a blood-bath, leaving four people shot dead. You managed to escape and post your blag to a friend in Rio de Janiero, with the intention of following as soon as possible to start a new life in the sun.

But the cops were hot on your trail as you left Manchester in your trusty Capri, affectionately named "Kevin". On one of those winding Pennine roads with the beautiful views (especially in winter) your car just "flipped out" into a ditch. Luckily you escaped unhurt, but your internal combustion chum went to the great knacker's yard in the sky.

So here you are, with no wheels John, without a trustworty friend in the Northern Hemisphere. However, you do have a rather poky flat in Wittersley, but that's thirty miles away!

Notes

The title supposedly stands for “Armed Robbery with Violence”.

Steven James Hodgson writes:

The game was originally written on BBC Bs and Masters, in BBC BASIC. We used the game listing in Usbourne Books’ “Write Your Own Adventure Programs for Your Microcomputer” as the template for the game.
It was initially called "Swag" however Simon, Tim and I realised there was already a BBC game with that name, so we changed it.

There were some vague ideas of writing ARV2, but by then we were all at university and had more interesting things to do.

Tim Wiser writes:

Not sure whether the version we released included the better parser or not, but I wrote some fairly decent code which allowed you to enter things like 'Walk north, get the cat and then go south' instead of the rather rigid 'N', 'GET CAT', 'S' commands. To this day I'm rather proud of that! I also spent a of time trying to make sure that virtually everything that was 'seen' in the game could be examined, rather than just key items.

There's also some more graphics in the Archimedes version. We took a video camera to various locations in Crich (Derbyshire) and filmed some scenes which were then digitised using an A3000 podule.

The BBC version had a completion screen of an aeroplane leaving Heathrow. Drawn by yours truly on Quest Paint on my Master 128k.

[+] Users who have solved this game

[+] Users currently playing this game

Images

Image
arv-archimedes.png ARV_BBC_Master.png

Rating

Average User Rating: — (0 rating)

Your Rating: —

User Comments

stevenjameshodgson (22-05-2016 21:34)

I'm one of the co-authors of this. Can't believe it's 24 years ago!

stevenjameshodgson (01-07-2021 20:20)

There's a thread about this game, and a link to a Master-compatible version, on Stardot : https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=22909

Features some input from Simon and myself and even some hints on the game!