Critical Points and Revelations

                   Sent in by Bev Truter

Some thoughts on Deep Space Drifter, a text adventure game that is
currently getting the better of me - a fairly easy thing for a
space-travel type adventure game to do, since I am highly wary of
most of the Hi-Tech jargon found in these games.  There always
seems to be an endless array of equipment to be dealt with -
consoles, keypads, mysterious boxes with buttons, codes to
decipher, levers to pull, etc. etc.  But this D S Drifter takes
the cake; look, call me thick as a brick, but I can't even
progress to 1/200.  All I can do is unfasten my seatbelt and stand
up, not exactly overwhelming achievements.  Pressing the
"Distress" and "Autonav" buttons on the console doesn't seem to do
much either; ditto for opening the hatch.  And that is the sum
total of my progress in this game........me, the intrepid
adventurer through umpteen caves and caverns in more classic type
games, utterly stumped by this Space epic.

I like to get to about 10% in text games, which I call the
Critical Point - that point at which you decide No, this is a
really boring game, and not worth any more of your time and
effort; or Yes Yes Yes, this is an utterly riveting game that you
HAVE to finish, even if takes you the next 7 months or
thereabouts.  So the really depressing thing about DSDrifter is
that I can't even reach my Critical Point to make a decision about
throwing in the towel or carrying on regardless.  You can't get
much worse than 0/200.  Perhaps now is the time to resign myself
to the fact that space-ish scenarios are definitely not my thing,
my niche, my genre.

As a brief illustration of my total technical incompetence, which
is why I will probably end up tearing my disk of DSDrifter into
little pieces and flinging them into the rubbish bin, I will
relate two anecdotes which I cross my heart are true.  I hadn't
the faintest idea, until quite recently, why disks were called
5.25 and 3.5, until someone pointed out very kindly that if you
get a ruler and measure them, they are 5.25 inches and 3.5 inches
respectively.  What a revelation that was!!!  Another mighty
revelation, like a bolt of lightning striking, was that PC does
not stand for something like "Prettygood Clone" or "Proper Clone"
(I assumed the whole world was filled either with IBM computers or
clones thereof, and Commodore 64s) but for Personal Computer.

So Farewell Deep Space Drifter, and Hullo Dungeons of Dunjin.
Although out of lingering curiosity, how can I make the enormous
leap from 0/200 to 1 or 2/200 ????

@~I don't know which is worst - getting stuck right at the
@~beginning of a game or right at the end when you think, darn it,
@~I only have 6 points to get out of 500; if I've got this far,
@~surely I should be able to finish it? I actually first got in
@~touch with Marion through MicroNet's Adventure Helpline on
@~Prestel when stuck in the first location of the Spectrum game
@~Robin of Sherwood - a few years ago now! Does anyone else have
@~any comments on this topic, or revelations they'd like to make?
@~And, more important, can anyone send in a 'Getting Started...'
@~(or, better, a solution) for DSDrifer? Sue
                              - o -