@~Two adventurers tell the tale of how they got hooked on @~adventuring this issue - Steve McLaren and BMK. ------------------------------------------------------------------ How I Started in Adventuring By Steve McLaren It all started many moons ago when we were a lot younger and the children were interested in one of those Atari consoles. They looked really good so after buying one, getting it home, unwrapping the whole package, getting it all fixed up to the TV and blasting away at everything in sight, my favourite game on this console was a game called River Raid. The game was endless, just blowing away enemy aircraft, boats and bridges plus flying into awkward areas. We all played this to see who could notch up the highest scores. We had some other games, Tank Attack, that was quite good and a few others which I can't remember the titles now. The ol' brain cells are not what they used to be. So after a few years with this console, it was wearing a bit thin. Now everyone was a bit fed up with it. A friend of mine had a Vic 20 computer (anyone heard of these?) on which he had some good games at the time. Also he had a text/graphic adventure by Scott Adams; I think it was the Dracula one. Well, he had already started on it and he showed me around and got me quite interested in what was happening. So now this got me thinking it was time to get a computer for the kids (me, in fact) but we do not like to own up to this fact so I persuaded my wife to get a computer. We scanned the local paper for a good secondhand one. I had an idea to get a Commodore 64. After looking around this seemed to be the best bet so when one was being advertised at a good price, we arranged to go and see it one night. Well, I was totally impressed. The lad had it up and running and, looking at it, I knew that he had not had the computer that long, the box looked almost new, so we quickly snapped it up. So what we got for our money was the C64 and a few games, all being shoot 'em up and one adventure called Ring of Power. So after playing all the blast ups (and the children were so much better than me) I sort of took over the computer, like you do, and decided to load up this Ring of Power. Well, after 15 minutes and loads of drinks, there it was, all this text and this flashing thing called a cursor. So I spent most of my time playing this game, making very crude maps. I thought the game itself was very good, what I remember about it. It did have some sort of graphics, very crude indeed compared to what you now get on a PC. Well, this Ring of Power got me hooked on adventuring. Even my wife helped out occasionally and, of course, we got stuck quite a few times. But help was at hand. We used to buy Zzap 64 and in the adventuring bit there was a chap who had completed the game so, after some help, back to the game. I would be up half the night playing it. I remember finishing the game and I shouted out quite loudly "Yahoo!", as you do when you complete any adventure which you have enjoyed. Well, with that, my wife asked what was wrong. I said, oh, nothing really, I just completed the game. So from there on, I was hooked and have never looked back since. My all time fave on the C64 must be Lords of Time by Level 9. It was the icing on the cake for me. Then there was Rigel's Revenge and Mordon's Quest etc etc. Now, when the adventures got very thin on the ground for the C64 I thought it was time for a change. I thought about buying an Atari ST or an Amiga 500. It took me nearly a year to decide and it was the Amiga 500 which most people I talked to would buy. So I carried on my adventuring, venturing out onto graphic adventures and text adventures. So now you had a choice which was good. I enjoyed both for a while, then came another blow. The adventures grew thin on the ground, just like the C64 and not only that, those disks ... all those disks. I could not afford a hard disk for the Amiga, very pricey. So I settled on two external drives which cut down the disk swapping but eventually I got fed up with all that disk swapping and, like I said, adventures were getting near extinct. So the next step was to look into the PC world. It was very hard choosing one when there are so many different systems. I did not know where to start but eventually got a PC. So now I know I am a very happy adventurer, carrying on with my hobby for years to come, but now since this CD-ROM has arrived, it is time to start saving again. Where will it all end? ------------------------------------------------------------------ BMK BMK How I Started Adventuring (and writing and computering and....) JJ, Sue, you've both gone tooooooo far this time! Look, I'm meant to be the original, "different" one around here - so what am I meant to do when JJ comes up with yet ANOTHER great idea for SynTax, huuuuuum?? Well, anyway, here's how the "snotty Kid from Nowheresville" became - THE BITMAP KID! Ha ha ha!!! (PS. JJ, just remember that nobody really wants you to "blow your horn" at ANY time, especially in SynTax.) Cue wavy screen effect. Picture it - England, 1984. A young Bitmap (then known as something unrepeatable on Sundays) gets his hands on the most basic of PCs, a PC so old than it was five years old when I got my itchy fingers on it. Never before had I been near a computer, never had I run my fingers over the keys that I would one day be able to type on blindfolded. In fact, when I say 'PC' I don't really know what the hell it was - it was made by the company Apricot and had an early version of MS DOS on it. And that's about all. It had about 1bit of ROM and with nothing but a green screen and word-processor, I soon found that I was dealing with one of the most user-unfriendly computers ever made. No mouse, hard-disk nor graphics, I was dealing with a right piece of junk (or so it seems now). I used the thing for something that came very naturally for me - writing, something that I had been doing a lot on paper for years. Soon, I was writing books faster than a speeding bullet, even though I had about as much finger to keyboard co-ordination as a dead rat. My natural skill with computers must have come about by learning about this machine, no manuals for me! My way of learning was 100% hands-on. Soon I had progressed to a little BASIC programming on the thing, but soon I was to see that the PC was less powerful than a fly with no wings. The next few years seem a blur, but suddenly I found I have a REAL powerful computer - an Atari 65XE! Wow! Graphics, sound! Amazing. Soon I was buying the likkle tapes from the newsagent (which at the time seemed like a massive amount of money, costing about œ3!) at an alarming rate, and I had a natural attraction to the basic text and graphics adventures since by this time I was fairly fast on the keyboard. Soon I was back to programming again, this time I had graphics and sound to deal with - great! I mainly produced demo-like things, squiggly lines with buzzing noises. At last I was in my element, the Bitmap-computer link had been forged. Sometime during this time of computer "power" someone gave me a few "Choose Your Own Adventure" gamebooks. I was hooked. To say I liked the Choose Your Own.... books would be an over-statement, but what I liked was the choice and the basic adventures within them. I soon moved on to the more advanced Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf gamesbooks, then more "mature" adventures like DragonLance that I literally gulped down. Although I loved my likkle 65XE, by the late 80s I was very much pining for even more power, and I had two choices, the Amiga or the ST. I went for the Amiga. Soon I was supporting Amiga in my weighing no end, that was until I actually tried both the ST and the Amiga hands-on. I was converted in no time and got hold of my dear old STFM from Alders. Then, I decided I had reached the ultimate - a desktop, art and music packages, a mouse, 16 and later 512 colours, seemingly instant loading! I had died and gone to heaven! Soon I was well and truly working in the computering industry, my life had changed from a mainly writing carreer to computering, this is one guy keeping up with the times! My first experience of a 16-bit adventure was Shadowgate. I didn't actually PLAY it, but from the graphics on the back I knew it was the sort of game for me. My first real 16-bit-er was Dungeon Master and, like JJ, I was hooked. The rest is more or less history. I got more experienced in computering, found SynTax, Sue took me on when I was feeling frustrated and I started writing for it. I have found many friends along the way, not only Sue but also SynTax in general, not to mention James Judge, who is now banging his head against a very hard wall as a result of my tormenting! To this day I have worked on the ST, now after a number of upgrades I am getting itchy fingers to upgrade my system once again. What I will do I do not know. But whatever I do, I'm sure it will be only a matter of time until I'll be upgrading yet again. Thanks Sue, you were a real godsend (really) when I started on SynTax. I think the adventuring world owes a hell of a lot to you (no, I don't mean because you took me on!), I certainly do. Oh, and by the way, how about YOU telling us about your trip to adventure stardom?! BMK BMK @~A few people have suggested I tell my tale - maybe one day, when @~this section hasn't got many contributions. - o -