''Pirate Adventure '' (also known as ''Pirate Cove'') is a

text adventure Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text Command (computing), commands to control Player character, characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narrati ...

video game written by

Scott Adams Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the ''Dilbert'' comic strip and the author of several nonfiction works of business, commentary, and satire. Adams worked in various corporate r ...

. It was published by Adam's company,

Adventure International Adventure International was an American video game publisher, video game publishing company that existed from 1979 until 1986. It was started by Scott Adams (game designer), Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first i ...

, in 1979.

Description

Published by

and the second game of the series, after '' Adventureland'', this text-based adventure game was one of many adventure games created by Scott Adams, in this case based on his wife Alexis's ideas. The setting was inspired by

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll ...

's 1883 novel ''

Treasure Island ''Treasure Island'' (originally titled ''The Sea Cook: A Story for Boys''Hammond, J. R. 1984. "Treasure Island." In ''A Robert Louis Stevenson Companion'', Palgrave Macmillan Literary Companions. London: Palgrave Macmillan. .) is an adventure a ...

'' and involved a quest to retrieve

Long John Silver Long John Silver is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1883 novel '' Treasure Island'' by Robert Louis Stevenson. The most colourful and complex character in the book, he continues to appear in popular culture. His missing leg ...

's lost treasures. Gameplay involved moving from location to location, picking up any objects found there, and using them somewhere else to unlock puzzles. Commands took the form of

verb A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...

and

noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...

, e.g. "Climb Tree". The player starts the game in a London flat, and progresses via a bit of magic to Pirates Island. Here, the player has to build a ship to reach Treasure Island and there find two pieces of

treasure Treasure (from from Greek ''thēsauros'', "treasure store") is a concentration of wealth — often originating from ancient history — that is considered lost and/or forgotten until rediscovered. Some jurisdictions legally define what constit ...

. The player also has to contend with an unpredictable pirate ally; it was the first text adventure game of the Adams series in which the player shared the adventure with a second character. The magic phrase to reach the island in this game, 'Say Yoho', was the name of a long-running column in '' SoftSide'' magazine by Scott Adams.

Source code

The

BASIC Basic or BASIC may refer to: Science and technology * BASIC, a computer programming language * Basic (chemistry), having the properties of a base * Basic access authentication, in HTTP Entertainment * Basic (film), ''Basic'' (film), a 2003 film ...

source code for ''Pirate Adventure'' was printed in the December 1980 issue of ''

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

'', with an addendum in April 1981. This enabled others to discover how the

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

worked and to create their own adventures using this or a similar design.

Reception

''Pirate Adventure'' was reviewed in issue #42 of '' The Dragon'' magazine. The reviewer, Mark Herro, commented on the difficulty of the game: "Supposedly one of the "easier" programs of the series, I'm embarrassed to say that I have yet to find a treasure in ''Pirate Adventure''... This Program has been sending me in circles for weeks." Bruce Campbell reviewed ''Pirate's Cove'' in ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the la ...

'' No. 36. Campbell commented that "''Pirate's Cove'' is a good first adventure (some of the others are harder), but also entertaining for the experienced adventurer."

Reviews

*''Home Computing Weekly'' - Apr 17, 1984 *'' Commodore User'' - Aug, 1985 *''

Computer and Video Games ''Computer and Video Games'' (also known as ''CVG'', ''Computer & Video Games'', ''C&VG'', ''Computer + Video Games'', or ''C+VG'') is a British-based video game magazine, published in its original form between 1981 and 2004. Its offshoot web ...

'' #41 - 1985/Mar *''

'' #67 - 1987/May

References

External links

* * {{Treasure Island 1979 video games Adventure games Adventure International games Apple II games Atari 8-bit computer games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commercial video games with freely available source code Commodore 64 games Commodore 16 and Plus/4 games Commodore PET games VIC-20 games Dragon 32 games TI-99/4A games TRS-80 games Video games about pirates Video games developed in the United States ZX Spectrum games