The Secret of Arendarvon Castle

Situated in the far North-West of Scotland, set among the barren, desolate but wildly beautiful highlands, the Arendarvon Castle not only has a long history stretching back into the Middle Ages, but has also been linked to a number of darker events associated with magic and alchemy. You follow the footsteps of the missing journalist who, writing an article about Arendarvon Castle, accidentally spoke the magic word from a translated medieval diary. The magic word, that released the powers stored long ago by Zazar the Great, transports you to the astral plane. Here you will meet Zazar the Great who wants you to retrieve the all-powerful cube of magic and the subtle spells associated with it. It was stolen from the Order half a millennium ago by Borozar. As the image fades, slowly the solid, daunting, form of Arendarvon Castle appears ahead.

The Secret of Arendarvon Castle is a text adventure where you type in verb-noun commands with the keyboard to interact with your surroundings, such as "OPEN DOOR". To navigate your way through the locations in the game you uses the commands 'GO LEFT', 'GO RIGHT', 'GO AHEAD' and 'GO BACK'. You can leave out the verb 'GO' itself. If you give a direction only, the computer assumes that you want to go in that direction. Type 'LOOK' and it is not dark, you get the name and a description of your location. Besides, you are told what objects you see and whether there is someone else in the room. 'TURN' makes you turn in the specified direction.

When you type "EXAMINE" it will reveal what is in an object. With 'CLIMB' you climb on something. Use 'STRIKE' to damage objects and 'ATTACK' to weaken a person. If the door is locked, and you have the right key, you can unlock it with 'UNLOCK'. If the door is unlocked, and you have the right key, you can lock it with 'LOCK'. 'MEASURE' is to construct a map of the castle, and predict the situation of a secret passage in a blank spot on your map. If you want to do something with an object, type 'USE'. With 'TAKE' you get an object in your possession and 'DROP' to remove something from your possession. 'PUT' is to put an object into some other object. 'WAIT' is to do nothing. 'INVENTORY' tells you what you have in your possession. To know your rating of your progression so far, type 'SCORE'.

There is an option to save or load the game.

Originally it was a program typed in from a book. The first part of the book is a Guide to Arendarvon Castle and gives a detailed insight into its rich history. This is provided in a wealth of information that exists of newspaper clippings, journalists notes, maps and illustrations that can hold clues on how to proceed further in your quest. The second chapter is dedicated on the mechanics of an adventure game. The last chapter is about programming the game. The entire program has been divided into seven steps, one for each day; Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. A basic listing program, named Decoder, that has an error checking routine built in, is included as well.

For those who did not want to type the whole program, it was also available separately on tape.