Hot on the heels of ‘Escape from the Troll’s Cave’ and ‘The Babysitter’ is the third in a series of games that were originally written by John H Doolittle and have now been enhanced and brought up to date for a modern audience. This one is called ‘Hangman’s Gulch’ and you can play it online at Hangman’s Gulch or download the z5 file to play with your favourite interpreter.
You play the part of a grizzled old prospector who’s down on his luck and goes to town to get some supplies, only to find that the town has been abandoned. Sheesh. That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. You decide to return home, but first, you’ll need to scavenge the town for treasures to fund the trip.
This game is a classic treasure hunt in the Scott Adams style. (In fact, there are two treasure hunts within the game.) I think it’s fairly easy, but there are a lot of objects, so inventory management will come into play. Experienced players should be able to finish it in an hour or so.
The game has lots of in-game hints and a HINT command. It also has downloadable coded hints (in the Scott Adams style), map and solution.
Once again, thanks go to @Hidnook, @Jade and @nephar for testing. The game has been considerably expanded following their feedback. Not even @Dooriddle has seen the latest version, so I hope I haven’t broken anything. (If I have, please let me know.)
There are six more games in this series. All games are finished and have been tested. I just need to incorporate the testers’ feedback. This may take a little while, as I need to take some time out to work on my Text Adventure Literacy Jam game (which is completely different to these games).
It’s been a real pleasure working with John H Doolittle. We’ve had an ongoing email exchange and have developed quite a friendship. I’m thankful that he’s given me the freedom to improve on the original games, but the original concepts are all his.