Arconiax Assignment, The

Falsoft, Rainbow, The 1984

Language:: English
Authors:: Eric W. Tilenius
Platforms:: TRS-80 CoCo
Genres:: Crime, Magic, Treasure hunt, Type-in
Entered by:: Garry, Gunness
Added:: 22-12-2015
Edited:: 11-11-2016

Synopsis

Plot

You have taken a job with the international police, expecting a life of action packed, death defying, brain wracking international crimes. Instead, you have been given an office job answering the telephones.

Then, one day, your boss tells you that the world's largest diamond, the recently discovered Arconiax Diamond, has been stolen by a gang of terrorists. As you are unknown to the terrorists, he wants you to infiltrate one of their known hangouts and find any clues to the diamond's whereabouts. So, you set off to the nearby house of one of the gang's leaders, little knowing that two of the gangsters are hot on your heels.

Your main goal is to track down the Arconiax Diamond, but you will also need to stay alive!

Notes

This adventure was published in The Rainbow magazine, vol. 3, no. 12, July 1984, pp. 90-92, 94-96, 99-102, 104-106, 108-113. There are two versions - one for computers with 16K of RAM and one for computers with 32K or more of RAM. The latter had an animated title screen, instructions, special window formatting, richer room descriptions, more detailed descriptions when you LOOK at an object, and VERB and HELP commands. I personally prefer the 16k version, but it has a bug that allows you to complete the game in far fewer moves than the 32k version. Try both versions if you can.

This adventure is probably also the world's first scratch 'n' sniff adventure! (Infocom's Leather Goddesses of Phobos did not come along until 6 years later.)
The magazine included a "scent card" between pages 98 and 99. This included six numbered boxes. At certain points during the game, the computer tells you "BLAH BLAH (SCRATCH #n).", where n is one of the box numbers. You must then scratch box number n, give it a good sniff and try to work out what it smells like. For example, if you think it smells like banana, you can then say GET BANANA or EAT BANANA or whatever.

As you can no longer buy the magazine with the original scent card, I have included a scent card cheat sheet. This tells you what each of the boxes is supposed to smell like, so that you can still enjoy the game.