Monday, June 24, 2013

Another Curiosity, the "Creative Adventure Disk"

This is just a short post to throw something out in hopes that some reader or other will have information.
 
I stumbled upon some unusual Eamoniana (I'm coining a term here) today while going through WorldCat: the "Creative Adventure Disk," Apple II software published in 1986 by an Australian company called Select Software. It is described as:
Create your own dungeons and dragons adventure game. Compatible with Eamon series. Suitable as an educational aid.
Select Software, it appears, distributed Eamon proper before releasing this, so this is presumably not Eamon. Moreover, the system spans four disks, so it's clearly robust.
 
The reference can be found at WorldCat with OCLC number 225973575. No libraries seem to have a copy. If you've encountered this software, I'd love to learn more about it.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

"Lair of the Minotaur" for Jon Walker's Eamon

A further Eamon for Jon Walker's PC Eamon has been found lurking in the internets. While PC-SIG supported Walker's ports of The Beginner's Cave, The Ice Cave, Assault on the Clone Master, and Quest for Trezore---and released Cronum's Castle and Lord of the Underland independently---it never released his port of Lair of the Minotaur. Walker's port of Lair was distributed by his "Wisconsin Software Systems"; why it wasn't picked up by PC-SIG is unknown.
 
David Kinder at www.ifarchive.org was generous enough to fix the compressed files---updating them for modern systems---and to host this port of Lair of the Minotaur on the site as well here. He has posted Cronum and Underland to the archive as well. Hence, the Walker PC Eamon library stands at:
 
  1. The Main Hall/ Beginner's Cave by Donald Brown (ported by Jon Walker)
  2. The Ice Cave by Jon Walker
  3. Assault on the Clone Master  by Donald Brown (ported by Jon Walker)
  4. Quest for Trezore by Jim Jacobson (ported by Jon Walker)
  5. Cronum's Castle by Matt Ashcraft and Richard Tonsing
  6. Lord of the Underland by Justin Langseth
  7. Lair of the Minotaur by Donald Brown (ported by Jon Walker)
  8. Dungeon Designer
All of these files can be conveniently found at at the PC Eamon page. Many thanks to David Kinder for his help.
 
There will soon be some announcements concerning the Micro-Adventure Contest. If you haven't submitted something yet, we still welcome contributions, though the competition itself has closed.