@~During a letter to James, I said I thought it'd be interesting
@~to find out how different readers got interested in computers
@~and, especially, adventures, and how the hobby grew for them.
@~James has provided his story - how about YOU sending yours in
@~for next issue?

                 How I Started Adventuring (1)

                        By James Judge

I hope you're sitting comfortably as Sue has given me the
opportunity to blow my own horn, and recount my computing history.

Well, my first computer was back in '85 or thereabouts. It was a
small rubber-keyboard Spectrum 48K, and I can still remember
pacing up and down the room, waiting for the first of my 'Dixon 20
Pack' to load - it was such a long time!

Quite quickly I progressed to a 128K and there I started to get
into platformers and beat-'em-ups with gusto. Every week I'd make
a trip to our local newsagents and ponder over the racks and racks
of tapes, wondering what I would buy next. At the end of about
three years I had well over 500 games, I had completed about ten
of them and in that number were three or four adventures - one
being Lord Of The Rings.

I could never get into the adventuring habit as my typing skills
was about as good as an elephant trying to type in its name on a
micro-computer - I even had trouble remembering where the 'J' was
so I could type in 'LOAD' quickly.

Then I sold the thing to a very gullible man who believed it was
the height of technology - he didn't see my all-dancing,
all-singing STFM in the cupboard, hahahahahaha!

With this new computer I had all the power I needed for blasting
seven shades of something out of alien scum. 8 way parallax
scrolling, 16 colours, two way sound and 512K to fiddle with,
great!

Then I was introduced, thanks to a birthday present, to Bloodwych
and the data disk. The actual game was bugged - it wouldn't save
properly, so I shelved it and returned to R-Type. Then I was given
Dungeon Master by someone and I was hooked.

For three days I made what I thought were small forays into the
dungeon and I soon sent off for a guide as I thought I wasn't
getting very far. When I looked I had reached level eleven (or was
it twelve?) and only had two levels to go. I gave up on it,
feeling very cheated.

By that time I had learned a lot about the desktop and the way the
computer works (once again thanks to STF and a lot of data loss
and lost time). So, working on a hunch, I loaded Bloodwych from
the desktop and it saved fine - 97% of the time. I was now ready
for a good RPG.

I chose my party with care and then proceeded into the dungeon,
fearing that it would be another DM fiasco, but how wrong I could
be. From starting in the recruitment area (for about the tenth
time) it took me about two weeks and three books to complete the
thing, and then I still had the data disk to go - pure bliss!

By this time I had gotten a 1040 STe, with twice the memory and
better sound and graphics than the FM. I was going up in the
world.

I was also getting into the PD scene and so I wrote to John
Barnsley for a few utilities from his PD Library. I knew it was an
adventurers' one, but it still had utilities and that was all I
was interested in.

John wrote me an extremely long letter, saying that the expensive
and poor postal system had forced him to close his library, but he
still filled my order (thanks for that, John) and he gave me
someone's address who ran a similar library.

Still on the search for utilities I wrote off to this strange
address in Kent and was given a green sheet of paper filled with
names of text adventures and an advert for a disk mag. Uuugh, text
adventures. Although I was slightly better at typing by this time,
the thought of thinking about a game and then having to TYPE IN
the commands was horrid to me.

I don't know why, but I sent off for the magazine, thinking it
would be a collection of ASCII files that the woman in charge of
the editorial had knocked up in her spare time. Well, I received
the mag, read it and sent off for the next one. Luckily I spotted
the part on the order form 'Would you like to review for...'.
Well, thinking I was in for a free game here and there I ticked
the box and wrote down my preferences, including text adventures
(I don't know why).

That magazine was SynTax and that woman was Sue, and from there I
got into text adventures, starting to write for Red Herring, then
Goblin Gazzette then PC Mart and now Adventure Probe. And getting
in contact with some nice people and a very strange thing (thanks
for Lemmings 2, though).  I still prefer a strategy or RPG to a
text adventure, but I wouldn't do without them, and I don't know
why that is. Text adventures have, apart from the last year and a
bit, meant hours pouring over a screen, making cryptic notes on a
piece of paper and getting stuck in a maze. But now I know what
the cryptic notes mean and how to defeat (most) mazes I am in my
element.

Thanks for introducing me properly to text adventures, Sue. I bet
you wish you had accidentally lost that first letter of mine...

@~Hehe, your letters take up a big, and I mean BIG, section in the
@~filing cabinet, James! And I've enjoyed every one of them, even
@~the one where you 'put me right' about Lems2! <g>
@~Okay, who's going to be next? Volunteers, please!