From: xeno@iastate.edu (Gary L Snethen)
Subject: Re: Asylum (was Re: Top 10 Adventures)
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 02:40:36 GMT

In <1992Oct1.165634.9266@iWarp.intel.com> wms@ssd.intel.com (William Shubert) writes:

>Thinking about my top 10 favorite adventures, I couldn't come up witha  list,
>but I did think of an adventure I havent seen mentioned yet...does
>anybody out there remember Asylum?  This was a graphic adventure of the
>best kind.  The parser was excellent (A bit better than Infocom as I
>remember) and the graphics were super-simple line drawings of the
>rooms you were in (they had to be, this was a TRS-80 it was running on).
>Anyway, it had some of my favorite puzzles ever...like the piano on your
>head puzzle, etc.  It also had EASILY the toughest mazes I've ever seen.
>Trying to map them was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle
>where you couldn't always tell where one piece ended and the next started.

>Anybody else ever play this?  Was it available for any machines that still
>exist?
>				-Bill (wms@iwarp.intel.com)
>PS - This company had a whole series of games; Deathmaze 5000, Knossos,
>     Minotaur(?), etc. but Asylum was easily the best.

that still exist???  I still have my Model 4 (which I built myself from my
old Model III and spare parts left over after a truck drove through a local
radio shack's front window... ;)

I never managed to solve Asylum, although I solved Asylum II...  (It was
HUGE in comparison...  I had to go out and upgrade my memory to 32K...  It
ended up costing me $8 at a company called Rondure in Dallas).

I wouldn't say the interface was more advanced than infocom...  nope.
It did handle multiple objects, and standard VERB DIRECT WITH INDIRECT
formats...  but it wasn't particularly special...  although I did like the
fact that all common words had simple abbreviations (l was look, o was open,
etc...)  There was also a variation, which I can only assume came later, called
Deathmaze 5000 (and yet another which I forget the name of).  These had lots
of pits which you could 'fart' over...  (ok, ok...  well, hey... it was
childish, but I was young... ;)

I would most definitely rank Asylum II among the best adventure games I've
ever played.  The puzzles were good...  As a matter of fact, I was actually
writing a similar game for my HP-48SX calculator in system-RPL and assembly.
(Calculator you say?  Well it DOES have 8 times more ROM, 8 times more RAM,
and far better graphics than my Model III did...  as well as built in sound,
a 9600 baud serial interface, 2400 baud wireless infra-red interface, etc...)
I think I read once that there WAS an Asylum I written for the PC, but I don't
think it caught on as well as it did on the TRS-80s...  Perhaps someone knows
if it still exists somwhere?

Meanwhile, I've been playing the Unnkulian Unventures!  I like them a lot...
If someone hear on the net verifies that the author is still at his old
address, and if I can manage to get past the Guardian and still be able to
see (no hints yet, please), then I'll register the game...  I think it's
a wonderfully worthwhile game.

TADS is wonderful, but there are two things I don't like about it.

1) It line feeds long before it carriage returns, so you cursor is constantly
   left in a seemingly uncomfortable position.  (Ok, minor point, but it still
   annoys me when it hangs there during a save/restore, etc...)

2) 'l' works to look around, but 'l at door' won't work for 'look at door'.
   This bothers me quite a bit more...  I know that there is an 'x' for
   this purpose, but old habits die hard...  If the abbreviation works one
   place, I would think it should work everywhere.  (I dunno if this is
   actually a TADS problem as I haven't learned TADS yet, but all the TADS
   games I've seen have it...)


---Xeno