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

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 ...

program written by

Scott Adams Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the syndicated '' Dilbert'' comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. ''Dilbert'' gained natio ...

Description

Published by

Adventure International Adventure International was an American video game publishing company that existed from 1979 until 1986. It was started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a m ...

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 a ...

'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 no ...

'' and involved a quest to retrieve

Long John Silver Long John Silver is a Character (arts), fictional character and the main antagonist in the novel ''Treasure Island'' (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson. The most colourful and complex character in the book, he continues to appear in popular cult ...

'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 ( 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 descr ...

and

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, ...

, e.g. "Climb Tree". The player started the game in a flat, and progressed via a bit of

magic Magic or Magick most commonly refers to: * Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces * Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic * Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...

to Pirates Island. Here, the player had to build a ship to reach Treasure Island and there find two pieces of

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

. The player also had 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

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

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 uni ...

'', 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 ...

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 ...

'' 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 ''Commodore User'', known to the readers as the abbreviated ''CU'', was one of the oldest British Commodore magazines. With a publishing history spanning over 15 years, it mixed content with technical and video game features. Incorporating ''Vic ...

'' - Aug, 1985 *'' Computer and Video Games'' #41 - 1985/Mar *'' Computer and Video Games'' #67 - 1987/May

References

External links

* * {{Treasure Island 1979 video games Adventure games Adventure International games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family 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