Woodbury End

[8bitAG]

The full page advert that Ian Ellery did for Chronicles was very eye-catching.

4/5 in Home Computing Weekly... with a 90% for value for money, playability and instructions (?); so somebody liked it!

Keith Campbell really liked Diary too, if I remember correctly.

[saltysteve]

Yes, Ian was a very talented artist. I remember Keith Campbell, for some reason he was a bit of a fan - perhaps it was the used fivers in a brown envelope ?

[8bitAG]

I think it's easy to look back and judge old work too harshly... You seemed to definitely be trying to do something different to others at the time, with reviews noting how ambitious you were trying to be.

There's a nice feature on Shards in September 1984 of Dragon User...
https://archive.org/details/dragon-user ... 1/mode/2up

[rgrainger]

Steve

Casting your mind back, can you remember if there was anything significant in the confession that wasn't revealed in the game itself?

[saltysteve]

Have no memory of it but am starting to look for it - I don't think it will give any clues or insights into the game, but I may be wrong - it was 35 years ago! Watch this space

[rgrainger]

Thank you!

[fuzzel]

Have no memory of it but am starting to look for it - I don't think it will give any clues or insights into the game, but I may be wrong - it was 35 years ago! Watch this space

Any luck finding the confession Steve? The suspense is killing me!

[fuzzel]

I've just come across this advert by Shards in The Micro User, December 1986. The Operation Safras box mentions that the first 6 people to solve the competition featured in this game will appear as characters in Shards' 1987 Adventure blockbuster! Does anyone know what this subsequent game was and who the winners were?

[rgrainger]

Steve

I'm not sure if you're still reading the thread, but if so, can you shed some light on the cryptic clue "twilight hours or ditto rum"? It's a clue to hide from the posessed children on/behind the scaffold. We can tell which clues relate to which actions because they dissapear from the list of unfulfilled clues when the relevant action is done. But how does this cryptic phrase relate to hiding from the children?

[Dave_E]

Um, isn't it a clue to hide in the AUDITORIUM when the children arrive in the twilight hours?

[iamaran]

Say "or ditto rum" out loud!

[rgrainger]

Aha! Wow, thanks! I thought it was a cunning anagram, and the "ditto" meant repeating part of it, such as "twilight". A decades-old thing that was bugging me is now cleared up...

[OldDavy]

My name is Steve Maltz and I'm the dodgy person who created Woodbury End all of those decades ago. I can't believe that people are still playing it as my old adventure game was hardly state of the art. Although i will try to find a 'certificate' the next time I visit my attic, I can't make any promises. As far as my memory concerning the game itself, here are some fragments that come to mind:
- it was the first game I wrote in 6502 assembler code (rest were in boring BASIC) and it fit into 19k of memory! I think that's why i had to use that horrible graphic mode - the same amount of memory that a .gif image uses today!
- it was based on the Wyndham book - 'Village of the Damned' though the plot came straight from my imagination
- the artwork was commissioned for my uncle Dave - who had a bit of a reputation for his painting skills at the time
- not many people completed it - it wasn't that much of a success though I'm proud of it
- there was a software bug in it that caused a crash at one place - sorry!
- I wrote the whole thing - i think - in real time to give it a bit of urgency
- the graphics were crap even by the standards of the day
- all of my other adventures - looking back - were absolute rubbish I think - though I thought i was pretty clever at the time
- that's about all I can remember for now

Whatever its frustrations, you created an incredibly atmospheric adventure. When looking back, I think its easy to forget that 8bit games were the work of just one person under pretty severe technical limitations. Frankly, this makes them much more interesting to me.

The homage to Wyndham was obvious but it was also clearly its own thing--more "in conversation" with the Midwich Cuckoos than anything else. The updating from the 1950s to the "modern day" was brilliant. It's stayed with me for decades.

I know saying "Thank you" probably sounds a little cheesy but, sincerely, thank you!

Might I ask if it would be possible to produce a print of the original art?

[saltysteve]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the interest in Woodbury End. We have just found the original painting and have photographed it. Feel free to access it at https://www.godspodaudio.co.uk/woodburyend.JPEG and make a print from it if you want.

Regards

Steve

[rgrainger]

That's amazing - thanks Steve

[OldDavy]

Thanks for the interest in Woodbury End. We have just found the original painting and have photographed it. Feel free to access it at https://www.godspodaudio.co.uk/woodburyend.JPEG and make a print from it if you want.

I don't think I will ever get tired of looking at this image. It really strikes a chord with me, for some reason. Thanks so much for sharing it.

(And if you ever decide to make professional quality prints and sell them online--please do give us a heads up here. For now, I'll settle for getting the nicest paper I can and putting it in a wee frame.)

[Cybershark]

Not a game I ever played, but I do find the game name and art to be wonderfully evocative

We have just found the original painting and have photographed it. Feel free to access it at https://www.godspodaudio.co.uk/woodburyend.JPEG and make a print from it if you want.

That's amazing that you still have the actual painting!
As someone who's very anal about image quality, I couldn't help notice that the photo you posted has the painting slightly askew, and that the yellowish tones to it indicate that you did not have the best lighting for it. I wonder if it'd be possible for you to take another photo of it, but straight on, and under natural light?

I just had a play with the one you posted and I straightened it up and tweaked the hues back more in line with how they should appear (using box art images for reference). Straightening it lost quite a bit of the edges - indeed, the (wide aspect) cassette image I found indicate that there is quite a bit more to the original painting - and the colours are far from perfect, but my edit does give a clear indication of the gulf between how it appears in your photo and how it must look in reality:

I wonder if it'd be possible for you to take another photo of it, but straight on, and under natural light?

[fuzzel]

I've made a bit of progress on this game, I find the timer a bit annoying - you certainly can't hang about near the start.
However, I'm struggling to find most of the characters to talk to and get clues. Does anyone have a list of them and the location / time when you can meet them? I presume they don't wander around the game logically from location to location, they just appear when programmed to do so?

[Fraser]

I'm surprised nobody said anything about the straightening. You can't go by the post. If you use the helter skelter in the background you find it needs turning 2 degrees to the right.

[rgrainger]

I've made a bit of progress on this game, I find the timer a bit annoying - you certainly can't hang about near the start.
However, I'm struggling to find most of the characters to talk to and get clues. Does anyone have a list of them and the location / time when you can meet them? I presume they don't wander around the game logically from location to location, they just appear when programmed to do so?

It's been a long, long time since I played it. I do remember that one of the policemen hangs out at the police station at certain times, and the other one shows up in the lane north of the village green (I think) - the lane that leads to the fairground, I think.

I think the mayor shows up in his office during office hours (but that might just be when the office is unlocked).

Sorry, that's very vague but I hope it helps a little!

[rgrainger]

Oh, and at least some (most? all?) of the clues you need can be worked out from locations and objects in the game, in conjunction with the background info (ISTR that there are some clues in the tape inlay text).

[fuzzel]

Thanks for the tips, I have to admit, now that I've overcome my initial aversion to the garish mode 5 graphics, I'm rather enjoying this game. I suppose at the time this was written it was unusual to have so much character involvement in the plot of a game, although they don't wander around as such (eg Henry Potter goes west, the Vicar arrives), they just appear at certain fixed times. At the moment I'm doing some exploratory work, mapping the game and logging when and where each character turns up. So far I've met Fred Bates, PC Armstrong, Mrs Ackroyd, Mayor Hardy, George Roberts, Simple Ernie, the Vicar, Farmer Wilbert, Henry Potter, Harry and Peter. I've done a quick MZAP of memory and noted that I still have to find Sergeant Cranshaw, John and Billy. Each of the characters give straightforward advice whilst typing help gives cryptic clues which I'll try to work out once I've visited all the game locations and made some notes. I recall previously in this topic people have translated some of the help messages so I'll go back and read them when I get stuck. I couldn't resist mocking up a teletext version with some of the locations, objects and screens using my Urban Upstart program as a template and utilising Telepaint to draw the graphics. I'm not sure if I'll take it any further but if someone could find the confession I'd be delighted to take it further and mayne incorporate it at the end of the game. Finally, my sincere apologies to Salty Steve for b@st@rdi*ing your highly atmospheric and unique adventure game.
Loader (taken from game art - I need to play around with the colours):

Screenshot 1:

Screenshot 2:

[rgrainger]

One thing that might not be obvious is that:

- If you as for help repeatedly, it cycles through all the clues
- When you solve a puzzle, the corresponding clue is removed from the rotation

[fuzzel]

Here's Alice's review of Woodbury End from the Micro User: