Games that remind me of my childhood Number 7 : Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future (Commodore 64)

 

Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future was one of those games which came out when our family only had a Commodore Plus 4.  I remember reading all about it in an early copy of Commodore User and hoped it would one day come out on the Plus 4...

Of course, that never happened.

I got my Commodore 64 for Christmas in 1987, and I remember being ecstatic when a jaunt in to Basildon (and Toys R Us) resulted in me finding this game.  It had recently been re-released as a budget title (by none other than the king of budget games, Mastertronic) for a nifty £1.99.  Sweet!

And so the adventure begins...

The game is a fun action/adventure game with what I think are superb graphics, and wonderful gameplay.  You play Dan Dare (or Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare if you've ever read the Eagle comic strip), and the aim is to stop Dan's nemesis, The Mekon, from crashing an asteroid in to the Earth.  The action begins on the surface of the asteroid after having just landed there, and you move from screen to screen, collecting objects and solving simple puzzles.  For instance, Dan can't swim but needs to get through deep water.  Find a reed, cut it and use it as a snorkel! 

Dan can't reach the conveniently placed torch...  Maybe Stripey (your pet) can get it for you, but how?

Once you've found a way in to the Mekons base within the Asteroid,  you need to rescue your friends who have been captured and placed behind bars before finding a massive laser which must be fired to destroy the Mekon and foil his dastardly plan.  The 'laser' puzzle is great because you are required to flip reflectors in several rooms so that the laser hits its target correctly.  Not very difficult, but fun to figure out!

Take that... and that..... and that.

Aliens called Treens will try and stop you from completing your mission.  If you're lucky you can avoid them, although in most cases you will be required to eliminate them through hand-to-hand combat.  Fighting is quite simple - block, punch and kick.  No weapons here!

Definately a fun adventure, and a true classic.  Oh, and may I add the Spectrum and Amstrad versions were completely different games altogether, although the C64 version was (and still is) the best!

Dan can't swim, but he needs to go underwater...

Find a torch first, otherwise you will not be able to see on this screen.  Look for something that will help you in your adventure.

Finally...  An entrance to the Mekon's underground complex.

That's a big laser!

Rotate the reflectors so that the laser hits the correct target

Big Mac

The only good Mac, is a Mac with Windows installed on it!

I've never been a fan of these...  The school has a whole suite of them, and getting them to work on a Windows domain can be a right chore.  Fortunately, there is a utility included with Mac OS called Boot Camp which allows the user to install Windows alongside Mac OS.

Why would I do this?  Surely it would just be cheaper to buy some normal Windows desktops?  Well, the answer to that is simple...  We wanted our students to experience other systems, but our school management software is not Mac compatible and is required for registering classes!

So now, we've got a dual booting iMac.  I hate to say this, but my knowledge of Macs has quadrupled over the past day or so...  I feel so ashamed!

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 6 : A Labyrinth Game (Philips G7000)

I'm not going to spend too long writing about this game.  Not because it isn't very good - far from it, but to be honest, the game itself is probably one of the most simpliest games ever written and it would be very difficult to write much about it.

When I was very young and before we even had a Commodore Plus 4, my parents bought a Philips G7000 console (probably around 1982-83).  It was our first computer.  Graphically, I suppose the games were on par with the Atari 2600.  We had quite a few cartridges for it, but I had my favourite....  A Labyrinth Game (Videopac 32 to be precise).

The game was simple - you control a square which you could move about using the joystick.  The aim was to get from the start of the maze to the exit.  Told you it was simple!

The game had several playing modes, including a fun two player game which had both players trying to complete 10 mazes in the fastest time.

There wasn't a large number of mazes in the game, and they weren't very big either due to the low resolution of the consoles graphics. There was however an additonal playing mode which generated a random maze with continuously changing walls.  It wasn't very difficult, but it was very frustrating, especially in two player mode.

I played this all of the time during my very early childhood years, and still do when I have a few minutes to waste!  Hard to believe this was state of the art 30 years ago! 

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 5 : Tom Thumb (Commodore Plus 4)

Sticking with the Commodore Plus 4, Tom Thumb was again another game which was miles better on the Plus 4 than the Commodore 64 version.  Written by renowned Plus 4 programmer Udo Gertz, the game had you play Tom, and required you to explore 178 screens of platform action, avoiding baddies, collecting treasure, and finding keys to unlock doors.

The game itself is a straight-forward platformer, but one of the things I remember most about this game is the ability to see parts of the game which you would not be able to reach until much later on.  This added much more lastability to an already addictive game.

Me, finally reaching the final screen from Tom Thumb

It took me over 22 years to finally finish this game (read about it here), without cheating, and what did I get when I reached the end?  Nothing!  Well, besides having to start the game from the beginning again but with items and baddies in different locations.  It wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for a bug which resulted in your character not being able to get any further in the game due to some spikes above a ladder which you needed to get through.  Unfortunately when you touch the spikes, you lose a life and go back to the last save spot (the last door opened, key or treasure collected).  It was impossible to get past the spikes, so you could never finish the game for a second time.

The game did have a good feature (although I am not sure if was ever intended as a secret cheat or not) : Normally when you had lost all of your lives, you would start the game from the very beginning.  If you ran out of lives, simply pull down on the joystick and you would start from the same location as the last key or treasure collected.  Very useful, although your score would reset back to zero. 

I dread to think how many hours I've spent of my life playing this game.  I even started to write a remake of it several years ago, but lost most of the source code thanks to a catastrophic hard drive failure (my fault for not making regular backups).  I did manage to salvage some of it, and it is playable, but I lost so much.  I don't seem to have time to finish it...  Maybe one day....

My version of Tom Thumb - unfortunately never finished

My version of Tom Thumb - unfortunately never finished

My version of Tom Thumb - unfortunately never finished

As mentioned earlier, the game is VERY big.  Csabo over at Plus 4 World has painstakingly put together a map of the entire game.  You can check it out by clicking here.

I have many fond memories of this game.  Well worth a play if you get a chance!

Time for an upgrade...

One of the fun parts of my job as Network Manager is buying new computer hardware for the school I work in.  My team and I have recently upgraded one of our classrooms and have replaced some aging HP workstations with a new suite of Acer Veriton computers with i3 processors.  Not as high spec as the i5's we bought last year for two other classrooms (budgets are tighter afterall!), but seeing this room now makes me think back to when I did I.T. at school, and what we had available to us back then :- one classroom containing some BBC Micros ("Model B" I think) and a few BBC Master computers, and another classroom with a handful of RM Nimbus 186's...

...  Now, as you know, I'm a big fan of old/retro computers, but I wish we had access to this kind of classroom when I was at school!

Click to enlarge

Saying that, playing "Frak!" and "Dare Devil Dennis" during lessons was much easier on a BBC!



Thanks!

When I first started the Captains-Blog exactly 6 years ago, I never expected many people to read it - maybe close friends and family, and that was all.  Anyway, having a quick look on my Blog stats, I'm surprised to see that so many visitors from all over the world have come to visit recently.  Anyway, I just wanted to say a big hello to everyone who comes by, no matter where you're from.  It's nice to know that I'm being read all over the world, and it means a lot to me.

HELLO.... and thanks!