tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post6700814348300321452..comments2024-03-28T06:43:37.598-07:00Comments on Gaming After 40: Adventure of the Week: The Dallas Quest (1984)StillGaminghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18366215127642090500noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-84689031607871632152016-04-11T02:44:10.425-07:002016-04-11T02:44:10.425-07:00I remember that my grandmother had this on her App...I remember that my grandmother had this on her Apple IIc, because she loved Dallas, but she found the game to be too hard. I remember giving it a go on one visit with no luck. Two or three visits later, I think I solved it as a ten year old with much amazement on her part. Reading back through the solution though, I can't imagine how I figured it out...Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16477311598407527292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-17135767054574072542014-06-27T10:19:06.881-07:002014-06-27T10:19:06.881-07:00Played this with my mom on our Commodore 64. It w...Played this with my mom on our Commodore 64. It was the only game I really could get her interested in at the time...before Myst and 13 Guest. She was and English Professor and Dallas Fan, so when I showed her this we spent to next 4-5hrs playing, had a great time, and made a treasured memory for me now that she's with the Lord.Christ eXalted Inside (CXI)https://www.blogger.com/profile/00930816298795898204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-49286191747554871922013-12-13T18:06:24.072-08:002013-12-13T18:06:24.072-08:00I remember playing this when it first came out. I ...I remember playing this when it first came out. I got stuck at the cannibal scene. There was no Google back then. I spent days and days trying to figure out what i needed to do without any success. I was just about to throw the computer out the window when I angrily pressed the reset button half way. The computer hung up displaying indecipherable machine code and the words, "wave ring". Without that error I would still be in front of my Trs-80, 30 years later cursing the screen trying every verb in the dictionary over and over.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-981894372670964832012-03-07T13:55:43.724-08:002012-03-07T13:55:43.724-08:00There's definitely an unfinished feel to a LOT...There's definitely an unfinished feel to a LOT of vintage adventures; there are often items that don't quite seem like intentional red herrings, and I would guess in most cases the designers just ran out of time or memory, or couldn't make a puzzle work as intended given the limited technology. I've seen all kinds of weird bugs where the puzzle only works one way and other plausible scenarios lead to strange behavior -- objects disappearing from the world entirely, or appearing when needed even if the player hasn't fetched them. Sometimes the groundwork for something more interesting was laid but never got cleaned up when an idea was abandoned, and I would guess that was the case here.<br /> <br />P.S. You may have forgotten was possible in Lucasarts' "The Secret of Monkey Island" to drown Guybrush Threepwood, simply by keeping him underwater longer than he can hold his breath. But given that it takes ten minutes, it's an extremely deliberate act of suicide! And Indy was subject to fatalities (or at least game-over defeat) in at least one of the Lucasarts Indiana Jones adventures.StillGaminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18366215127642090500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-28154342513794117812012-03-07T11:08:39.187-08:002012-03-07T11:08:39.187-08:00I find it odd that you can complete the other two ...I find it odd that you can complete the other two feats of courage yet there are no ways to deal with the spider then. The game has rope in it that when you try to use it tells you "how?" implying it has some use, but I can't find a verb to do anything with it (lasso spider would have been cool and let the other two feats work, for example). You can feed the apple to the horse and it will move its tail, but has no other effect there. If you eat the apple, you will get an apple core, which once again implies it has some use, but I cannot find any use for it (making cyanide from the seeds to poison the spider would have been cool for example). In the end, the game is one-note and unforgiving (you cannot even leave the airport and go back to the house if you forgot something. You are just trapped there. Save and save a LOT, apparently. It's almost as irritating as trying to battle that thief in Zork I where even if you do everything right, you STILL sometimes get killed. WTF is the point in "puzzles" like that? OTOH, Lucasarts went overzealous after Zak McKracken with absolutely NO possibilities of getting killed and no alternate endings after Maniac Mansion (which was its most cool feature and yet they NEVER repeated that kind of do it your way option EVER again...well maybe in Jedi Knight series as you could become evil or good, at least. Actually, this is where Dragon Age Origins AMAZED me, which so many sub-plots, romance options and alternate endings (could have gone further still, but at least it was heading in the right direction to adventure game re-playability and so it is that Dragon Age Origins is the ONLY D&D style game I ever played through more than once so I could see all the different endings and awards). Sadly, they blew it with the sequels so far....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-77109191751162552542010-10-08T18:56:01.546-07:002010-10-08T18:56:01.546-07:00I've never played it on my A2, but goddamn! wh...I've never played it on my A2, but goddamn! what awesome graphics :). Screwed up storyline!Gilhttp://www.megidish.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-25219641801170322122010-06-04T10:34:38.706-07:002010-06-04T10:34:38.706-07:00There's certainly no shortage of old adventure...There's certainly no shortage of old adventures to cover -- text, graphics, and animated. The genre flourished for a long time, then almost completely died until recently, so there are many weird and obscure games to consider.StillGaminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18366215127642090500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-47991578203472146812010-06-04T09:38:40.257-07:002010-06-04T09:38:40.257-07:00I think you're right on with the licensing com...I think you're right on with the licensing comment. This looks like some animal-themed game that was dragged out and had some Dallas stuff slapped on it in an effort to cash in on the show's gravy train.<br />Strange game, great article. I hope you can dig up some more weird text games to review!PTnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-935259035348506572010-06-02T04:02:02.052-07:002010-06-02T04:02:02.052-07:00Thanks for the thoughtful comment -- there may hav...Thanks for the thoughtful comment -- there may have been some ideas about promoting the show to a younger audience, but given the result I don't think anyone at Lorimar was thinking about this product in much detail. Licensing at the time usually meant "take an existing product and slap some imagery from the property on it" -- so the contract may have been set up the same way dolls and posters and puzzles were handled, with the royalty rate the primary focus. The computer game industry was still quite small and not really a big part of mainstream culture, so my guess is Lorimar just didn't care (or know) enough to seek approval over the details of an interactive product. They may have approved the box art and left it at that.StillGaminghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18366215127642090500noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7274560874062585311.post-88168400179858497472010-06-02T02:39:11.078-07:002010-06-02T02:39:11.078-07:00That was interesting... I'd hate to give TV pr...That was interesting... I'd hate to give TV producers too much credit for forward thinking, but ... 1984, the series wasn't quite at the midpoint of it's run which probably looked like forever at that point. Computer games were still generally children's entertainment. So... gateway drug for the upcoming generation of viewers? :) Do you know if the game was pitched to soap-viewers? Or did the devs/producers think they were targeting a totally different audience who needed the cartoony plot?<br /><br />I was too young to be interested in the show at the time (and probably not allowed to watch it anyways in the 80s) but I do remember thinking the theme song was great when I was a kid.tfernandohttp://www.nightflyergames.comnoreply@blogger.com