Should you start Adventure at 36 points?

Playing
1

Hi

I found a z-code implementation of Adventure on my hard drive:

By Will Crowther (1973) and Don Woods (1977)
Reconstructed in three steps by:
Donald Ekman, David M. Baggett (1993) and Graham Nelson (1994)
[In memoriam Stephen Bishop (1820?-1857): GN]
Release 5 / Serial number 961209 / Inform v6.05 Library 6/2

I started playing and was amazed at how fast I had gotten some points, until I realized you start at 36 points! Is that how you are supposed to start, or is that some weird bug or oddity?

2

Its possible to lose points by using the hint system, dying and being reincarnated, and maybe others I’m forgetting. You start at 36 so that the minimum possible score is actually zero.

Edit to add: Actually, I’m not sure if it’s possible to reach zero. You could die three times (say, by trying to move in the dark) before getting as far as the Hall of Mists with the accompanying 25 point bonus, but then the game would be over and you couldn’t lose any more by quitting. And you need to get into the cave before most of the hints even apply.

3

The score code in the original Fortran version is commented:

C  THE PRESENT SCORING ALGORITHM IS AS FOLLOWS:
C     OBJECTIVE:          POINTS:        PRESENT TOTAL POSSIBLE:
C  GETTING WELL INTO CAVE   25                    25
C  EACH TREASURE < CHEST    12                    60
C  TREASURE CHEST ITSELF    14                    14
C  EACH TREASURE > CHEST    16                   144
C  SURVIVING             (MAX-NUM)*10             30
C  NOT QUITTING              4                     4
C  REACHING "CLOSNG"        25                    25
C  "CLOSED": QUIT/KILLED    10
C            KLUTZED        25
C            WRONG WAY      30
C            SUCCESS        45                    45
C  CAME TO WITT'S END        1                     1
C  ROUND OUT THE TOTAL       2                     2
C                                       TOTAL:   350
C  (POINTS CAN ALSO BE DEDUCTED FOR USING HINTS.)

So you start with 30 points for never having died, and lose 10 every time you die. Then I guess it’s 4 for not quitting and 2 for free.

3 Likes
4

facepalm I guess looking at the source (which is readily available for such an old game) was too obvious.

I had not played it for decades, so I had forgotten you were docked points for dying.

Thanks!