Adventure of the Week: Escape 2012 (1985)

This week, we're playing an illustrated text adventure for the TRS-80 Color Computer called Escape 2012.  It's a futuristic science-fiction game which was published in 1985 and now looks hopelessly dated, as 2012 is just around the corner and there are no spaceships or aliens in sight.  This adventure was published by Computerware fairly late in the CoCo's life cycle, and the authorship is uncredited onscreen.  It looks like a close relative of B.J. Chambless' Major Istar: Under the Doomed Sea, a 1984 adventure game from the same publisher, so I will tentatively chalk it up to the same author.

The game's introductory text summarizes all we need to know about this escape-the-alien-spaceship adventure with a military twist:  You are in a cell on an alien prison ship.  You must escape and return to space station LIBERTY before they make you talk!


Escape 2012 is a simple adventure -- the parser dictionary only recognizes about 50 verbs, including a number of traditional swear words, and the puzzles are straightforward.  The map, however, is logically laid out but huge, with very few landmarks and multiple levels, which makes actually solving the game an exercise in graph paper.  The locations are illustrated schematically but the rooms are drawn rather slowly; I highly recommend playing with an emulator so standard gameplay can be accelerated, and the two irritating arcade game sequences slowed down.  There are some unpredictable deaths, and the engine provides no SAVE GAME support, so an emulator which allows saving the machine's state is also recommended.  (You'll notice a change in the look of the screenshots as this post goes on -- I had to switch from MESS to an emulator with save-state support, for sanity's sake!)

Normally I encourage fellow adventurers to sample each game I write about here before proceeding onward, but this one is difficult for all the wrong reasons.  My walkthrough is at the bottom of this post and also at the CASA Solution Archive, and I won't tell anyone if you decide to escape Escape 2012 and jump straight into the...

***** SPOILERS AHEAD! ******

The game gets off to a difficult start at the beginning -- we find ourselves in an alien prison cell, we can't go anywhere at all and there are only a few objects are around, including a DROID MANUAL that tells us how to order robots around, should we meet any compliant ones, but gives us no help getting past the cell's flashing laser bars.  But INV reveals that we have a Sonic Screwdriver in hand, and if we know our Doctor Who lore, it can unlock just about anything.  Convincing the game of this, however, requires knowing the magic words -- fortunately, if we LOOK SONIC (LOOK SCREWDRIVER fails miserably) we learn that It can DEACTIVATE things!  Thus we can DEACTIVATE BARS (but not DEACTIVATE LASER) -- With what? -- SONIC to get out of the cell.

While attempting to solve this initial puzzle, I learned that SCREW [object] yields WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT WITH SOAP!  Several common words of the four-letter variety produce the same response, which may have had the unfortunate side effect of informing young players wrestling with the sonic screwdriver that the associated verb can be used in another manner, however mysterious.

It quickly becomes apparent that the parser is rather limited -- when a verb is not recognized, it says I don't know that!, and any unrecognized object yields I don't see it here!  GO [nonsense] yields Can't go that way!, and it uses the first word of complex object names -- but only sometimes, the dictionary is not very consistent.  Some of the implementations are odd as well -- we can TURN ON, yielding With what?, and until we find a light source this only brings certain vices to mind.

Once we're outside the cell, a GUARD robot shows up periodically on the ship, though its appearances are sometimes inconsistent between the text and image areas of the screen.  We can't deactivate the guard, and if we don't keep moving, it tends to put us back in the cell; but it doesn't confiscate the sonic screwdriver, so this is just a setback and we can immediately escape again.  Our first order of business, as it turns out, is to explore the prison ship and find an ID BADGE -- once we have it, the guard won't bother us anymore.  (We can also find a BUTTON in the prison ship's engine room, but pushing it sets off the ship's reactor, fatally and immediately.)

A hatch on the north side of the ship leads us into the control room, where we can see that the ship is orbiting an asteroid.  We should also collect a SPACE HELMET and a LUMINATOR from a pile of junk found in a locker before we visit the transporter room on the west side of ship; we can't GET JUNK, but LOOK JUNK twice reveals these important items.  Examination of the transporter reveals that It's only short range, and GO TRANSPORTER leaves us out of breath and dead if we don't have the space helmet, or floating helplessly in space until our air runs out if we do.

We can TURN ON - With what? - LUMINATOR, and TURN OFF the same way, making for some odd grammar, but the venerable LIGHT and UNLIGHT verbs are also supported.  There's an AIRLOCK onboard, which is locked, but we can UNLOCK AIRLOCK and GO AIRLOCK, which also leaves us drifting in OUTER SPACE.  An implementation note here -- all of the outer space locations are actually the same "room," making it seem that any belongings we drop coincidentally drift precisely along with us.
 
Unlike many graphic adventures, any objects we find or drop are shown in the room -- though everything ends up laying on the floor to keep the coding generic.  Available map directions are conveniently and efficiently displayed in the status bar, with named rooms, which would be more useful if there weren't so darn many of them generically named Alien Base, Prison Ship, and Asteroid Surface.

After messing around for a bit, I finally figured out that we can SET TRANSPORTER - To which coordinates? - ASTEROID to get to the asteroid.  Here we meet TICO, a robot doing his best to infiltrate the Alien Base -- he will say several useful things at predetermined locations, and begins doing so here with a friendly, "I will help you if you will help me."  Cool.  We can direct him to assist us, starting with TICO FOLLOW ME, but his attention wanders and we have to repeat this command every ten turns or so to keep him around.  If we lose him, we need to find him and get him back on task as soon as possible, because we will need him at the end of the game and it's very easy to get lost here ourselves.



The alien base is quite large, but the puzzles aren't hard to solve, provided we can find everything and then make our way back to where these items need to be used without getting hopelessly lost in the process.  It's also too dark to see in a few areas, so the luminator comes in handy.  There are some doors in the way, but most are not locked, and for those that are, we can usually OPEN PORTAL - With what? - SONIC to proceed.  The luminator doesn't last very long, so we are wise to turn it off as soon as we're out of the dark -- most of the unlit areas are not very large, but if we try to move more than a few turns in the dark, even if we know exactly where we're going, we are prone to fatal stumbles.

After wandering the seemingly endless hallways, we may run across a COMMUNICATION PANEL, and can LOOK PANEL to obtain a PRINTOUT.  This is optional, but tells us that the aliens have decided to evacuate their base, which explains why we never encounter any actual aliens in the game.

Most of the actual plot is provided by Tico's brief speeches -- he says, "I was sent to spy on this base. We must destroy this asteroid before the aliens can carry out their plans!"  And a few rooms later, he tells us what we need to make a BOMB: some wire, a timer, and some antimatter.

We also run across some BUG SPRAY, another GUARD robot, some BUBBLE GUM, a COUNTER (of the bomb-making timer variety), a CONTAINER, and a LASER GUN.

LOOK SPRAY indicates that It can propel you around, and this is needed in the adventure's first arcade-style minigame, which requires us to jet around some sort of chamber, collecting blue antimatter particles in the container while avoiding red antimatter.  Fortunately, bringing antimatter into contact with matter only reduces the amount of antimatter we have collected, instead of creating a cataclysm of cosmic proportions.

Another room contains a clip for the laser gun, which is initially out of energy, but we can't LOAD GUN -- we have to RECHARGE GUN - With what? - CLIP.

There are a couple of FORCE FIELDs blocking our path -- LOOK FIELD yields It is a human-proof shield!, but Tico can walk through the first one, conveniently deactivating it, and we can shoot the other one with a laser gun.



At the alien base, SHOOT GUARD does no damage; we can try to command TICO to STOP GUARD, but he reports that It's against union rules!  Fortunately this guard doesn't seem to be an obstacle, or we don't have to stick around long enough to find out.

There's also a COMPUTER onboard -- I could find nothing to do with it initially, but at the end of the game when I was trying to find some wire to build the bomb, I decided to SHOOT COMPUTER.  This conveniently reduces it to a single piece of wire.

CHEW GUM has no practical purpose beyond ending the game prematurely, as You chew and blow a huge bubble that explodes, killing you!  So we needn't bother to take it with us.

Escape 2012 is very maze-oriented, and my maps ended up so covered with arrows and unlabeled rooms that I really had to be careful to trace my steps.  Even after I had located all the important areas, finding my way from one to another proved tricky, and I made heavy use of my own walkthrough-in-progress along the way.

We eventually make our way to an airlock, giving us access to the asteroid's surface.  While mapping, we are likely to discover that the space helmet's air is limited, which makes exploring the surface of the asteroid difficult.  Once we find the shuttle which Tico plans to use for our escape, though, we can refill our air supply just by stepping inside.  The shuttle is powered by a REACTOR, which is empty, so we'll need to come up with some kind of power source.

On my initial forays I had left Tico behind at some point, and had to restart and make sure I kept him by my side throughout, as we need him to pilot the shuttle at the end, and pull a DILITHIUM CRYSTAL from the ground.  I wasn't sure about this at first -- the dilithium crystal appears to be lying on the surface, but when we try to get it it's Stuck in the ground.  But TICO GET CRYSTAL reports only that It's against union rules!, which is less funny here than when we're trying to get him to accost a fellow droid.  But TICO LIFT CRYSTAL works, pulling it out of the ground so we can pick it up ourselves.

We have a bit of business to take care of before leaving in the shuttle, however -- the asteroid's surface includes a perfect location for setting the bomb, after we have assembled it with MAKE BOMB.  Actually placing the bomb requires playing another action game -- we have to make our way across lanes of, er, something or other that makes this part play like Frogger, drop the bomb, then cross back to the exit.

With the bomb placed and ready to blow, we return to the shuttle for one last parser struggle -- how do we get the dilithium crystal into the reactor?  We can't PUT or INSERT or INSTALL the crystal, or GO REACTOR to look for a means of doing so, and DROPping the CRYSTAL just leaves it lying on the floor where it remains useless.  I wrestled with this for a while and finally took a peek at the game's dictionary to suss out that POWER REACTOR - With what? - CRYSTAL does the job.

All we have left to do is issue one final command, TICO PILOT -- and we take off as the asteroid explodes into bits, putting a stop to the war for a satisfying victory!

Well, it would have been more satisfying if not for the unfortunate climactic misspelling of the LIBERTY, but Tico looks happy enough (he's the small red/blue thing on the floor in front of the command console.)

I enjoyed fighting through this obscure game -- or rather, I should say I was proud and relieved to have successfully fought through it.  The sheer number of rooms and heavy emphasis on mapping makes the experience old school in the extreme, the parser was irritating and the arcade sequences were tricky.  But I finally managed to wrap it up on a pleasantly rainy Saturday afternoon before supper, and sometimes that's what vintage adventuring is all about.  My walkthrough is below the fold, so that others may have a better time with Escape 2012.

***** WALKTHROUGH *****


GET MANUAL
READ MANUAL
DROP MANUAL
DEACTIVATE BARS (with what?)
SONIC
E, N, E, S
GET BADGE
N, N
OPEN LOCKER
LOOK LOCKER
LOOK JUNK
LOOK JUNK
GET HELMET
GET LUMINATOR
S, W, N
UNLOCK HATCH
GO HATCH

LOOK ASTEROID
S, S, W, N, W, S
SET TRANSPORTER (to where?)
ASTEROID
GO TRANSPORTER

TICO FOLLOW ME
N, E, S
TURN ON (with what?)
LUMINATOR
E, N
OPEN PORTAL (with what?)
SONIC
GO PORTAL
GET CLIP
S

TICO FOLLOW ME
S, W, N
TURN OFF (with what?)
LUMINATOR

(If TICO falls behind at any point, backtrack to find him and tell him TICO FOLLOW ME again)

U, S, W, N
TICO FOLLOW ME
N, U
N, N, E, D, W
LOOK PANEL
GET PRINTOUT
READ PRINTOUT
DROP PRINTOUT

TICO FOLLOW ME
S, E, S, D, W
TICO GO NORTH
N
TICO FOLLOW ME
N, E, S, E
U, S, D
GET SPRAY
TICO FOLLOW ME
E, E
S, W, U, N, E
TICO FOLLOW ME
U, W, S
DROP BADGE
GET GUN
RECHARGE GUN (with what?)
CLIP

S, D, W
TICO FOLLOW ME
S, S, U, W
SHOOT FIELD
N, N
TICO FOLLOW ME
U, N, N, E, D, S, S
TICO FOLLOW ME
S, E, S, U, W, W, W, D
GET COUNTER
TICO FOLLOW ME
U, E, E, E, E, D
N, W, N, N
TICO FOLLOW ME
N, U, W, S, W
UNLOCK PORTAL
GO PORTAL
SHOOT COMPUTER
DROP GUN
GET WIRE

TICO FOLLOW ME
S, E, N, E, D, S, S, U
TICO FOLLOW ME
S, E, E, D, N, D, W, N

(DANGER save here)

DROP HELMET
TICO STAY
GET CONTAINER
S, E, N, D
TURN ON (with what?)
LUMINATOR
W, S, E

(This is a mini-game for collecting the antimatter.  Requires joystick -- pick up BLUE, avoid RED.   0% kicks us out to another room, 100% wins.  Each collision is worth 10%.)

W, N, E, U
TURN OFF (with what?)
LUMINATOR
S, W, N
MAKE BOMB
DROP SPRAY
GET HELMET
GET BOMB
TICO FOLLOW ME

S, E, N, D
TURN ON (with what?)
LUMINATOR

E, N, U, N, U, S, U
TICO FOLLOW ME
W, N, N, E (to airlock!)

OPEN AIRLOCK
GO AIRLOCK (to asteroid surface)
TURN OFF (with what?)
LUMINATOR

N, W, W, N, E, N

TICO LIFT CRYSTAL
GET CRYSTAL
TICO FOLLOW ME

S, W, N, N, E, E, S, S

(Mini-game to SET BOMB... "You must go down past the energy field to the flashing marker and then come back up.  Use the ARROW KEYS to move."  Three chances to plant bomb and escape, no time limit.)

N
TICO FOLLOW ME
N, W, W, S, S, W, W (to shuttle)
OPEN HATCH
TICO GO NORTH
S

POWER REACTOR (with what?)
CRYSTAL

N
GO HATCH
TICO PILOT (asteroid explodes, ending the war -- victory!)