''Bedlam'' is a

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...

based

text adventure '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

game written for the TRS-80 by Robert Arnstein and released by

Tandy Corporation Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, ...

in 1982. It was ported to the

TRS-80 Color Computer The RadioShack TRS-80 Color Computer, later marketed as the Tandy Color Computer and sometimes nicknamed the CoCo, is a line of home computers developed and sold by Tandy Corporation. Despite sharing a name with the earlier TRS-80, the Color Co ...

. The object of the game is to escape a

lunatic asylum The lunatic asylum (or insane asylum) was an early precursor of the modern psychiatric hospital. The fall of the lunatic asylum and its eventual replacement by modern psychiatric hospitals explains the rise of organized, institutional psychiatry ...

. There are several ways to escape but only one random exit is active each time the game is loaded.

Gameplay

The game is text only. Players move through the asylum by typing simple instructions using a

verb A verb () is a word (part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descri ...

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

command such as, "go north" or "get the key". There are

NPCs A non-player character (NPC), or non-playable character, is any character in a game that is not controlled by a player. The term originated in traditional tabletop role-playing games where it applies to characters controlled by the gamemaster o ...

such as Houdini and Picasso that can be either helpful or an obstacle.

References

External links

Bedlam
a site dedicated to the game along with a web-based emulator to play the actual game.
An article from the ''Dallas Observer''
which includes a discussion of the manual's cover art. * 1980s interactive fiction 1982 video games Adventure games TRS-80 games TRS-80 Color Computer games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in psychiatric hospitals {{Adventure-videogame-stub