• SuperTrek 64+ and Tombs of Xeiops

    From Tristan Miller@3:770/3 to All on Sat Aug 13 22:38:38 2022
    Dear all,

    I've just posted to YouTube two longplays of relatively obscure C64 games:

    First, there's Tombs of Xeiops by Peter Gerrard and published by Romik
    Software in 1983: <https://youtu.be/hpezzHDSDs4> This is a budget-priced
    text adventure game in which your goal is to raid archaeological
    treasures from an Egyptian tomb.

    This was the very first game we got for our Commodore 64 back in 1985!
    I remember it came on a disk with a light blue label, with dark blue
    lettering in an LCD-style font. There's very little information on this
    game on the Web, and seemingly none on the disk version. (Scans of the cassette version are available on MobyGames and elsewhere.)

    Programmer Peter Gerrard was the editor of Commodore Computing
    International and wrote a number of other games and books, mostly on
    computing. The most recent book of his I'm aware of is "Around the Tube
    in 80 Pubs: A Guide to Some of the Best Pubs in London", a 2017
    collaboration with his brother Mike.

    Six-year-old me found Tombs of Xeiops far too difficult and buggy and so
    I gave up after a few weeks. (The game's two most annoying bugs are its tendency to drop characters that are typed, and specious error messages
    about your inventory being full when it's not. Probably one or both of
    these flaws are evident in the playthrough video.)

    I created today's playthrough with the help of a walkthrough published
    around two decades ago by Dorothy Millard: <https://web.archive.org/web/20060321070308/http://dorothyirene.fateback.com/Solutions/T/Tombs%20of%20Xeiops%20%28ddd%29.rtf>
    Dorothy's walkthrough has a few errors in it; I reported these to her
    back in 2012 ago but I don't think she ever updated her walkthrough
    website, which has since disappeared. But Dorothy herself is still
    around as far as I know; she's posted to Facebook as recently as 2017: <https://www.facebook.com/dorothy.millard.50>


    Next is SuperTrek 64+ by Don Lekei: <https://youtu.be/NI9dbaNwVIs> This
    is a conversion of Star Trek, the classic 1971 strategy game originally
    by Mike Mayfield and later popularized and extended by David H. Ahl, Bob Leedom, and others. I believe Don released the game as freeware in
    order to promote Sysres, a programming tool he designed and used to help convert the game, probably from Bob Leedom's well-known version. Don
    developed Sysres while director of engineering at Solidus International Corporation in North Vancouver, BC. Don's got a LinkedIn profile which
    has seen activity as recently as 2013: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/lekei>

    SuperTrek was and still is one of my favourite C64 games, no doubt
    because it's fairly faithful to the tried-and-tested text-based classic,
    yet wisely spruces things up with colour, sound, animation, and a custom character set. The game does have a few minor bugs, however, ranging
    from rampant spelling errors to faulty logic in the phaser firing
    mechanism. Perhaps one of these days I'll release a patched version!

    Regards,
    Tristan

    --
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    Tristan Miller
    Free Software developer, ferret herder, logologist
    https://logological.org/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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  • From Robert Bernardo@3:770/3 to Tristan Miller on Mon Aug 15 21:22:54 2022
    On Saturday, August 13, 2022 at 4:38:41 PM UTC-4, Tristan Miller wrote:

    Next is SuperTrek 64+ by Don Lekei: <https://youtu.be/NI9dbaNwVIs> This
    is a conversion of Star Trek, the classic 1971 strategy game originally
    by Mike Mayfield and later popularized and extended by David H. Ahl, Bob Leedom, and others. I believe Don released the game as freeware in
    order to promote Sysres, a programming tool he designed and used to help convert the game, probably from Bob Leedom's well-known version. Don developed Sysres while director of engineering at Solidus International Corporation in North Vancouver, BC. Don's got a LinkedIn profile which
    has seen activity as recently as 2013: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/lekei>

    Oh, thanks for the history of the game!

    SuperTrek was and still is one of my favourite C64 games, no doubt
    because it's fairly faithful to the tried-and-tested text-based classic,
    yet wisely spruces things up with colour, sound, animation, and a custom character set. The game does have a few minor bugs, however, ranging
    from rampant spelling errors to faulty logic in the phaser firing
    mechanism. Perhaps one of these days I'll release a patched version!

    As a Star Trek fan, I'm always interested in these games, and if a patched version came out, that would be great!

    Truly,
    Robert Bernardo
    Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
    Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
    Commodore Los Angeles Super Show - http://www.portcommodore.com/class

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  • From Tristan Greaves@2:250/11 to Tristan Miller on Sat Aug 27 19:39:22 2022
    Re: SuperTrek 64+ and Tombs of Xeiops
    By: Tristan Miller to All on Sat Aug 13 2022 10:38 pm

    I've just posted to YouTube two longplays of relatively obscure C64 games:

    Thanks for taking the time to post these - subscribed!

    Tristan.
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