News

06-11-2018 (Gunness)

I don't know why it has slipped my mind until today, but four issues of Mark James Hardisty's excellent The Classic Adventurer are now available. Each issue contains a plethora of interviews with a veritable who's-who of adventure history - ranging from the Level 9 brothers over Fergus McNeill to Anita Sinclair of Mag Scrolls. Yes, I'm officially jealous! Unfortunately no further issues will be made, but if the magazine has somehow flown under your radar, now is as good a time as any to pick it up. Available in print or as a free pdf. Happy reading!

Chris Ainsley is putting the finishing touches to Adventuron 1.0. This excellent system is fully browser based and should make game creation a (relative) breeze. Anyway, that's what I've been told - I haven't dabbled in game writing since the days of GAC! Most recently, he's presented a version of Cloak of Darkness, and as you know, no decent adventure creation system should be without one.

Finally... yes, Halloween is over (for this year, anyway), but if you want to relive the joys of recent horrors, you might want to give Unhallowed a spin - runs on both Spectrums and in browsers. I'm glad to see that so many recent titles don't require special software. Makes life so much easier!

Contributors: iamaran, Strident, Garry, rpettigrew, Dorothy, auraes, terri, Phoebe Fuentes, Alex, farique, Sudders, Alastair, Gunness, dave

• New Solutions: Adventure, Adventure, Custerd's Quest, Dark Tower, The, Define Far, Escape From Dinosaur Island, Escape!, Google Adventure, House on the Tor, The, Las Vegas, Lost Ruby, The, Ramsbottom Smith: The Quest for the Yellow Spheroid, Run, Bronwynn, Run!
• New Puzzle charts: Escape From Dinosaur Island
• New Maps: 'EE's Lost his Marbles, Adventure, Adventure, Aquanaut 471, Black Sanctum, Bounty, Calixto Island, Define Far, Escape 2012, Google Adventure, Sea Search, Shenanigans, Shipwreck, Syzygy, Zakil Wood
• New Hints: Pettigrew's Diary
• Updated Fixed games: Syzygy
• Updated Solutions: Journey to the Centre of Eddie Smith's Head
• New Reviews: Bounty, Escape From Dinosaur Island, Shipwreck
• New Games: Awe Chasm, Back to the Future 4, Birth of the Phoenix, Bron's Kingdom, Define Far, Emily's Dream, Escape From Dinosaur Island, Even the Devil Must Die, Feeding Time, Finding True Love, Firm, The, Four Dragons, Google Adventure, Haunted House, Haunted House, The, In Search of the Yeti, Innuh's Pyramid, Legend of Baldork, Omniverse, Realm of Obsidian, Return To Jurassic Park, Sands of Egypt, The, Shield of Destiny, Shipwreck, Smuggler, Spirit Of Death, The Sims - The Text Adventure, The Sojourner, Warriors of the Ssorc

13-09-2018 (Gunness)

Finally everything is in working order again. What started as a simple server migration (with a few technical hiccups) grew way above my technical skills once I foolishly tried to upgrade the forum software to solve these problems. After several attempts to fix things, I had to call in the cavalry - Dave and Mr. Creosote - whom I can't thank enough for getting us back on track again. Thank you so much, guys!

One task that remains is figuring out the look of the forum. Unfortunately our old style doesn't work with the updated forum, so I'll have to figure out how to fix it. Might not happen right away.
Anyway, thanks for being patient - happy gaming!

Contributors: ahope1

• New Solutions: Lighthouse Adventure

29-08-2018 (Gunness)

UPDATE 12.09.2018: We're experiencing some major site issues. The forum should be back online now. A login bug remains, so you can't log i to your account. I'll keep you posted. Apologies for the inconvenice.

Our old hosting company was taken over by another, so CASA switched servers on Monday. I thought I had fixed everything, but as it turned out, our forum software didn't gel with the new server. A huge thank you to Dave for swooping in and saving us. Much appreciated!

Contributors: DannieGeeko, Alex, Dorothy, Gunness, Strident, ChickenMan, jgerrie, Highretrogamelord, iamaran

• New Solutions: Dawn of the Mummy
• New Maps: Murdlok
• Updated Maps: Curse, The
• Updated Solutions: Atomic Isle, Curse, The
• New Games: Alice, Behind Closed Doors 7, Bulbo and the Intrepid Adventure, Doomsday Mission, Embassy 1989, Grail, Hospital, The, Island Adventure, Kinder Morgan, Magic Ring of Targon, Mighty Moramar, Murgel Adventure, My Adventure, Primal Adventure, Raffles, Ramsbottom Smith: The Quest for the Golden Spheroid, Roachy II, Sir Randolf Returns, University Adventure, VTHG Adventure, What Evil Lurks, X-Mart

16-08-2018 (Gunness)

Ok, most importantly I would like to announce that, after 19 years, we finally have a formalized privacy policy. The policy can also be found in the Site menu.
I wanted to add one when GDPR was all the rage, as it was obviously a good idea to have one, but I didn't want yet another announcement getting lost among the avalanche of privacy update emails.

Please go ahead and read it - but also rest assured that nothing has changed. CASA is 100% ad free, we don't sell user information, and the hosting is paid out of my own pocket. For that very same reason, I can't afford to hire a lawyer to QC our policy. I've looked around at what other sites have been doing and asked for advice and translation QA from a number of kind people. The aim has been to write something that was understandable even outside legal circles - in other words, it isn't intended to be the be all and end all of privacy policies. If you find anything that looks confusing or questionable, please let me know.

Also thanks to ChickenMan for supplying us with lots of updated TRS-80 games, and for Iamaran for going through old type-in books, ever scouring for new additions to our database.

Contributors: Sylvester, Garry, iamaran, Gunness, Alex, Richard Bos, Dorothy, ahope1, redhighlander, adventuron, wellv, Highretrogamelord, ChickenMan, Strident

• New Solutions: Adventure of the Saufbox, AFGNCAAP - IF Agent! Todays Adventure: Holy Goat!, Alcohol Solves Everything, Alma Mater, Antagonists, The, Appallatron: Annoyotron 3, Assignment, Athanor 1 - The Awakening, Beginning, A, Bomb Alert!, Bronze, Daark, Digging Time!, Disenchantment Bay, Fuddo and Slam, Lost Frog, The, Magic Castle, Magical Mystery Tour, Magische Kreis, Der, One Room, Quest for the Truth, Selladore Tales - Black River Quest, Sewers of Moscow, Spion III - Die Jagd Nach der Bombe, Stein der Weisen, Suche, Die
• New Puzzle charts: Beast of Torrack Moor, The
• New Maps: Adventure of the Saufbox, AFGNCAAP - IF Agent! Todays Adventure: Holy Goat!, After Shock, Agatha's Folly, Alcohol Solves Everything, Alma Mater, Appallatron: Annoyotron 3, Assignment, Beast of Torrack Moor, The, Beginning, A, Bronze, Change in the Weather, A, Digging Time!, Disenchantment Bay, Escape from Time, Fuddo and Slam, Gordon Saga, Lost Island, Magische Kreis, Der, Microfair Madness, Microfair Madness, Microfair Madness, Quest For the Holy Snail, The, Sphere of Q'li, Spion III - Die Jagd Nach der Bombe, Stein der Weisen, Suche, Die, Tablets of Hippocrates, Time Warden, Wizard of Oz, The, Wolfman
• New Hints: Daark, L: A Mathemagical Adventure, Magische Kreis, Der, Pawn, The, Sein Letzter Trick, Spion III - Die Jagd Nach der Bombe, Suche, Die, Tuor
• Updated Maps: Agatha's Folly, Gordon Saga, Microfair Madness, Minas Gundur
• Updated Solutions: Daark, Minas Gundur, Spy Snatcher
• New Games: Aandark II, Adventure in Crime, Adventure of the Saufbox, AFGNCAAP - IF Agent! Todays Adventure: Holy Goat!, African Transference, Alabaster, Alcohol Solves Everything, Aldaron, Alien Adventure, Alma Mater, Amazon Search, Appallatron: Annoyotron 3, Assignment, Asylum, Beginning, A, Bostafer's Revenge, Bronze, Calypso, Captain Rodgers, Castle of Naurios, Castle Thuudo, Caves of Kalakh, Chief Inspector, Confessor's Sapphire, The, Crusoe, Crypt of Flodnar, The, Curse of Karos, Dante's Inferno, Deed of the York, Deserted Island, Digging Time!, Disenchantment Bay, Door, The, Dr. Avaloe, Dreamer, Dungeon of Derojhen, Earth's Foundations, The, Escape from Sparta, Evil Crypt, Exploring ITMUS, Five W, The, Frontier Adventure, General Panic, Ghost House, Ghost of Mars, The, Glass, Golden Flute, The, Halls of Dungeon Death, Hero of Lonesome Valley, The, Horror House, House Adventure, Ice Princess, The, Indigo, Intrigue, Irvin Kaputz, Island, Life: An Everyday Adventure, Lighthouse Adventure, Lunar Escape, Magic Castle, One Room, Operation: Ocean Master, Pappy's Gold, Park of Mystery, The, Parlog, The, Polynesian Adventure, Portal, The, Riddle of Randomar, The, Ring Quest, Robert's Adventure, Scarlet Pimpernel, The, Scavenge, Scout's Honour, SDi: Countdown to Doom, Second Pit, The, Secret Agent Man, Silverton House, Sir Randolf of the Moors, Sir Randolf Returns, Stowaway, Superspy, Term Paper, Thief of Dirloc, Through the Enchanted Mirror, Time Tripper, Trinity, Unexplored Mansion, An, Venus Must Live, Wands of Raga Dune, The, World War III, Yellow Submarine, Zeta Zone, The

17-07-2018 (Gunness)

I hope that everybody has made it safely through the World Cup - and congratulations to our French friends for the thrilling finals!

Around these parts it's been unusually hot for weeks on end, so perhaps some light reading might be preferable to straining your noodle over puzzles. Shaun McClure, bonafide Spectrum artist and author of two books on Spectrum gaming, is working on a new book on Speccy text adventures. And he's been a really nice bloke and allowed us to reproduce some of the interviews for said book. So here for your reading please are interviews with Charles Cecil, Scott Adams and Mel Croucher. The latter might not have a huge roster of adventure games, but he's had a fascinating career all the same. Thanks to Shaun for allowing us to use his interviews. Let's see if there might be more happening on that front.

Contributors: Sylvester, iamaran, Strident, Gunness

• New Solutions: Auf der Suche, Time Adventure, Zombies Ate Our Roadies
• New Maps: Auf der Suche, Sacred Pyramid, The
• New Hints: Auf der Suche
• New Games: Asteroid Adventure, Back to the Future: Marty Quest, City Out of Bounds, Darkness is Forever, Deadfall, Enchanted Realm, Flight of Fantasy, Goblins, Grimoire, The, Invasion, Midnight Thief, Once a King, Once a Knight is Enough, Opaline, Suicide or Murder, Survive the Night, Thief, The, Toil and Trouble, Witchcraft

22-06-2018 (Gunness)

A warm welcome to Strident/Gareth Pitchford who joined the editorial team recently. He's very well versed in all things Amstrad and also has a humongous knowledge of the homegrown scene; we mentioned his book, Twilight Inventory, a while ago.
Apart from updating a huge number of games already, he also made a mini-interview with Jim MacBrayne, who wrote a number of ambitious adventure games for the Amiga.

Contributors: Alastair, GusBrasil, Gunness, Strident, dakidski, stevenjameshodgson, Alex, thomasboevith

• New Solutions: Syzygy, Toxic Dumpsite
• New Hints: Mansion Quest, Murder Hunt II
• Updated Hints: New Arrival
• Updated Maps: Catacombs, Tale of Spider Mountain, A
• Updated Solutions: Tale of Spider Mountain, A
• New Games: Adventure of the Rosetta Stone, The, Angelicus Answer, The, Angelicus Saga, The, Beyond the Dark Mirror, Brainchild, Brawn Free, Catacombs, Cornucopia, Dave Dangerous, Evilution, Excuse Me - Do You Have the Time?, Eyes of Medusa, The, Fortress of Almuth, The, Fortune En Mer Du Nord, Hero Select, House Sitter, Ichor, Juleadventurespil, Justice, Knights Abode, Last Dinosaur, The, Magic Shop, The, Menage, The, Oklib's Revenge, Power Curse, Project Annihilation, Sceptre of Hamloth, The, Search for the Lost Orb, Sir Ramic Hobbs and the High Level Gorilla, Smuggler's Haunt, Starprobe, Starship to Hell, Stryptische, Supastore, Tamoret, Tanland Adventures, The, Tealand, Travel, Trouble in Store, TrueFaith, Tube, The, Videoworld, Weird Tales, What the Dickens, WizardsTower, WYSYWYG

22-05-2018 (Gunness)

This time around I'm pleased to give you an interview with Mike McKeown, co-author of Tower of Despair and its sequel, The Key of Hope, two fantasy games from Games Workshop. I had been on the lookout for the latter game for years, so I was pleased to finally locate someone who could clear up the fate of said game. As it happened Mike turned out to be a pleasant fellow with a lot of interesting tales to tell, so I hope you'll enjoy the interview.
I'd also like to mention the unofficial (but original author endorsed) sequel to The Big Sleaze, Mark Hardisty's follow-up to Fergus McNeill's 1987 crime thriller. Speaking of Mr. McNeill. I was in touch with him recently and he was kind enough to help me update the info on several of his more elusive titles, such as The Malinsay Massacre and Goodnight Cruel World. It's really nice to be able to close some of these cases.

Contributors: stevenjameshodgson, jgerrie, fuzzel, impomatic, Alex, Dorothy, terri, Gunness, devwebcl, iamaran, Strident

• New Solutions: Input Adventure, Sphinx d'Or, Le, Stranded on Iloofrax
• New Maps: Input Adventure, Ocean Dancer, Puff
• New Hints: Input Adventure, Puff
• Updated Hints: Indiana Jones and the Blue Diamond
• Updated Solutions: Majik, Microfair Madness, Microfair Madness
• New Reviews: Puff
• New Games: Big Sleaze 2.5, The, Casebook of Hemlock Soames 2, The, Casebook of Hemlock Soames 3, The, Champion of Destiny, Christminster, Doomsday Lost Echoes, Fugitive's Quest, Occult Connection, The, Smirking Horror, The, SpamCo Adventure, Sphinx d'Or, Le, Star Voyage 3 & 4, Xplosive - Seek and Destroy

25-04-2018 (Gunness)

While I'm working on a new interview, with more to follow, here's the latest round-up. Oh, and a look at the lost Speccy game Crimble - if only because I just updated it and it looked positively odd!
Contributors: iamaran, impomatic, Dorothy, terri, fuzzel, rockersuke, Alastair, farique, Alex, Garry, Richard Bos, zenobifan, Vaxalon, Amby, QN, sky-non, Gunness, ahope1

• New Solutions: Bull Dog Runner, The, Castle of Doom, Jack the Ripper, Key to Paradox, The, Kingdom of Hamil, Kingdom of Klein, The, Labours of Hercules, The, Life-Term, Little Adventure, London Adventure, Lost City, Orb, The, Oxbridge, Please Find My Young 'Uns, This Place Is Death, Twin Kingdom Valley, Yukon
• New Maps: Amulet, The, Bull Dog Runner, The, Castle of Doom, This Place Is Death
• New Fixed games: Syzygy
• Updated Hints: Immortal Strain, The, White Cliffs of Dover, The
• Updated Maps: Adventure in Mythology, Banshee Castle, Black Pearl, The, Bob Esponja -La Aventura-, For a Change, Immortal Strain, The, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Message From Deep Space, A, One Dark Night, One Dark Night, Out of the Study, Rebel Force, Toverslot, White Cliffs of Dover, The, Zwaard van de Koning, Het
• New Games: Agrophobia, Alice In Wunderlab, Bomb Squad, Castle of Doom, Castle of Doom, Lost Treasure of the Aztec, Maze of Madness, Murdlok, Nomad of Time, The, Pit of Reshus, The, Sacrifice to the Spider Queen, Santa and the Goblins, This Place Is Death, Tombs of Arkenstone, The, Visitor, The

12-03-2018 (Gunness)

On the surface this might be one of our smaller updates, but behind the scenes there's been a lot going on. Some of you might have come across images that looked distorted. I thought only a few were affected, but as it turned out, there were hundreds of'em that needed updating. While we were at it, we also fixed a few hundred file names and replaced some of the less stellar images. It's an ongoing process, but we're slowly improving. A huge thanks to Alastair for assisting.

Unsurprisingly the database isn't growing as fast any longer when it comes to "new" games, but people are hard at work with updating the descriptions and credits. A particular nod to Sudders in that respect. Personally I've been plowing through old magazines to find more data on various lost games. I doubt we'll ever get to a 100% correct or complete database, but it's certainly a fascinating goal to work towards.

Contributors: auraes, Garry, leenew, Dorothy, Geoff, fuzzel, iamaran, terri, FredrikR, impomatic, Alex, Sylvester, Alastair, Porkbelly, Gunness, Richard Bos, DannieGeeko, Vicko Vitasovic, Juan, dave, Sudders, Strident

• New Solutions: Adult Adventure, An, Computorama, Deadly Mission, The, Dreamtime, Engine Failure, Gamma World, Gompie, Heer van de Duisternis, Imperial Castle, Into the Mystic, It's Magic, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jingle Bells, Jungle Adventure, Kaa's Kingdom, Labour Pains, Lost Slipper, The, Mad Painter, The, Mini-flykten, Monster's Final Hour, Pirate's Peril, Revenge of the Toothless Vampire, Taroda Scheme, The, Test of the Turnip, Where is Father Christmas?, Witch Hunt, Wizard's Challenge
• New Maps: Adult Adventure, An, Claws of Despair, The, Cutthroats, Deadly Mission, The, Enchanter, Engine Failure, Harvesting Moon, A, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jingle Bells, Jungle Adventure, Lost Slipper, The, Monster's Final Hour, Revenge of the Toothless Vampire, Vampire Castle, Witch Hunt
• New Fixed games: Engine Failure
• New Reviews: Adventure Guide
• New Games: Adventure in the Magic Land, Casablanca ni Ai o: Satsujinsha wa Jiku o Koete, Castle Tollenkar, Castles & Caves, Castles of Darkness, Chaos Maze, The, Death Star, Deathship, Escape from Alcatraz, Escape From Cannibal Island, The, Journey, Marooned, Matilda's Dilemma, Moon-Adventure, Mystery of Captain Kidd, The, Nessy, Nightmare, Skullduggery - Adventures in Horror, Squirrel Tree, Travelling, Where is Father Christmas?, Witch Hunt, Zero: The 4th Unit Act 4

03-01-2018 (Gunness)

For any number of reasons, the final update of 2017 instead became the first update of 2018. But I would be remiss if I didn't thank all of you users and my co-editors for keeping us running. There have been a lot of material added throughout the year, and it wouldn't have happened without so many people lending a hand. So happy New Year, one and all!

In the great world of the Internet, various things are cooking as well. I've always been a fan of Jim Henson's 1982 fantasy film The Dark Crystal, which led to a text adventure by Sierra. Now the game has been made available to play in a browser. Neat.

Gareth Pitchford, who is an adventure author in his own right, has written Twilight Inventory, a book on the "forgotten text adventure games from the 1990s". Gareth reviews a mouthwatering number of homegrown titles from the likes of Zenobi, The Guild and Tartan, and there's plenty to dig into. Of course you're welcome to think "Forgotten! Bah! Not at all", but please keep in mind that the world as such don't necessarily share our educated view on classic text games! The book is available in print form or, for the time being, a free pdf version - however, you're encouraged to donate a bit of money and I think you'll find it money well spent.

Finally, a nod to Stuart Williams' new blog, Eight Bit Adventurer which started recently but sounds very promising indeed.

All in all, it seems like the text adventure community is thriving. Let's make 2018 a good year for the genre.

Contributors: Alex, impomatic, Gunness, Alastair, Dorothy, iamaran

• New Solutions: Kobold, The
• New Maps: I Will Survive!, Kobold, The, Manoir Du Dr.Genius, Le
• Updated Maps: Larkspur Waldorf Is Trapped, Quest of Kron, The
• Updated Solutions: Adventure 100, Larkspur Waldorf Is Trapped, Time Lords Amulet, The
• New Games: Alcatraz, Berg, Demonen, Dwell, Gamling På Äventyr. En, Grottor, Härskarringen, Haunted House, Input Adventure, Mini-flykten, Spökhuset