Sphinx Adventure

[sdcbmthsch]

Hi all

Tucked inside a BBC book I have come across a folded, hand drawn (although photocopied) "map" for what I believe to be a game called Sphinx Adventure. It is credited to (probably drawn by) Alan Hall Bellingham (who is also given the title of "Cartographer of the Fantasy World"), and is dated 1985.

I am happy to scan this and upload it here for anyone who is interested. (It's an A3 document, and it's probably worthwhile scanning it at this size as some of the writing is quite small!)

If I get the chance, I'll scan it a little later on today and attach it here. Hope it's helpful to someone!

[richardtoohey]

Probably for this Acornsoft adventure?

http://www.stairwaytohell.com/games/aco ... enture.jpg

On my list of games to play on my list of projects on my list of todos!

[leenew]

Yep, probably will be that one.
Its almost impossible to play on a real beeb now - play it on Beebem... NO SAVE GAME!!!!
I used to love drawing the maps for these more than playing the game

I actually can't remember playing SPHINX though? apparently its the weakest of the Acornsoft efforts.

**Most of the other Acornsoft efforts weren't actually Acornsofts - They were (cut down) conversions of the old Cambridge Phoenix mainframe adventures.

I am sure Lurkio will chime in here, but a foggy memory is forming that SPHINX may have been made from some 'left over' rooms from one of the other games??

Lee.

[aerworuld]

Certainly there was a cartridge version for the Elk

[leenew]

Stuart, could you save the game on the Elk cart version?

Lee.

[aerworuld]

Do you know I cant actually remember Lee I want to say no but I can't remember for sure that it didn't prompt for a tape to save if at all.

Haven't given that adventure enough time over the years; pretty sure I still have the cassette version so I think I might give it another play one day!

Be interesting to see how this rediscovered map compares to the Electron User map series for Sphinx

[sdcbmthsch]

As promised, here's the scanned map. Hope it's of use to someone!

[flaxcottage]

The Sphinx is one of my favourite adventures.

Why? Because I used to use it for teaching problem-solving BITD. I mapped all the rooms onto separate A4 sheets of paper, one sheet for each 'section' so to speak. For example there was one map for all locations up to the chasm after the corridor of fire.

When solving the puzzle, students could 'buy' each map. They started with 100 points and a map cost 10 - 20 points each. The winner had covered the most of the adventure with the highest points. Worked a treat.

Wouldn't work today, though. Most students cannot read the screen or cannot be bothered to read the screen.

I'd be very interested in the newly discovered map too. I shall also have to try the Electron version and see how it compares to my BBC one. First job will be to port it to disc.

[flaxcottage]

As promised, here's the scanned map. Hope it's of use to someone!

Thanks a lot. I just wished and it appeared. Are you a genie or something.

[daveejhitchins]

Would it be difficult to 'add' the save routines to the game now . . . I know, the game wouldn't be original anymore . . . But . . . ??

Dave H

[dixiestoat]

BITD my Elk starter pack came with Sphinx, plus Arcadians and Snapper.
I'm afraid Mr Sphinx didn't see much action in light of the other 2, which were played to bits!

[leenew]

Would it be difficult to 'add' the save routines to the game now . . . I know, the game wouldn't be original anymore . . . But . . . ??

Dave H

Great idea Dave... Except!
Andrew Hayes appears to have done it at least 12 years ago.....

SphinxAdventure-WithSaveGame.zip

(13.75 KiB) Downloaded 354 times

[lurkio]

I am sure Lurkio will chime in here, but a foggy memory is forming that SPHINX may have been made from some 'left over' rooms from one of the other games??

I can't track down any evidence for that, although it's perfectly plausible, given the mad hodgepodge of locations in the game.

I did play Sphinx -- quite a while ago now. What I remember about it is that it was very hard, as this 1984 feature in Micro Adventurer magazine confirms:

https://archive.org/stream/MicroAdventu ... 3/mode/2up

Actually, it sounds way harder than I remember. I can't have been anywhere near finishing, back in the day. The lack of a SAVE command can't have helped (Andrew Hayes, where were you when we really needed you?!) -- nor can my deep hatred of the game: a copy had come bundled with the original Beeb I had as a kid, and it must have been the first text adventure game I'd ever played. At the time I had no idea what text adventures were, or what to do, and, as a result, I seem to remember that I just wandered around aimlessly in the forest, utterly lost, getting nowhere.

A year or two later, my maths teacher at school mentioned he'd been playing the game too, and at one point he unfurled this elaborate map he'd made, replete with a line drawing of the Sphinx itself at the centre, and intricate curved paths between locations. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd also illuminated it with gold leaf.

That must have set me off trying to play the #@$!ing game again myself, as attested by some hand-scrawled maps of my own, which I recently rediscovered, and which are starting to jog unpleasant memories of rage and frustration. So I'll stop now and try to think of something less infuriating, like the state of the economy, or automated customer-service telephone lines, or something.

[daveejhitchins]

Great idea Dave... Except!
Andrew Hayes appears to have done it at least 12 years ago.....

SphinxAdventure-WithSaveGame.zip

Thanks Lee

Dave H

[AJH]

Is it really 12 years since I uploaded it? Of course the changes were made many years before that (no timestamps on DFS ).

Its all written in Basic with the descriptions held in DATA statements between VDU off and VDU on (which is why there is a delay when you list it). It would be nice to know who wrote it (there are no credits on my copy) but it doesnt use Peter Killworths database structure.

I still feel guilty about adding that final extra puzzle but it was such a missed opportunity I couldnt resist.

Oh and I created a Text Map if you decide to give up.

[Arcadian]

Welcome back, Andrew!

[leenew]

Hi Andrew!
Nice of you to show up out of the blue
I am gonna do a bit of googling regarding the phoenix mainframe adventures because I am (not) sure I remember reading Sphinx was made from some bits and bobs left over from one of the mainframe games that couldn't fit in Philosophers Quest. Probably. Maybe.
Lee.

[leenew]

The author is Paul Fellows, who went on to be one of the RISC-OS developers a few years later.

Maybe I am mistaking Sphinx with Castle of Riddles as being the game made of 'leftovers'?

Lee.

[lurkio]

Maybe I am mistaking Sphinx with Castle of Riddles as being the game made of 'leftovers'?

Are you thinking of this?: "Castle Of Riddles ... This is a game made from all the locations and puzzles that could not fit into the BBC version of Philosophers Quest."

No source for that claim though!

[leenew]

Here is a quote from Richard Bos:

"There is also an Acornsoft version of PQ (*Philosopher's Quest*) which is, reputedly, significantly cut down from the full BrandX, with the remainder put in a different game called Castle of Riddles"

I wouldn't doubt the Bos...

Lee.

[lurkio]

Here is a quote from Richard Bos: "There is also an Acornsoft version of PQ (*Philosopher's Quest*) which is, reputedly, significantly cut down from the full BrandX, with the remainder put in a different game called Castle of Riddles"

On the other hand, there's this from the Digital Antiquarian: "Peter Killworth ... Inspired by the unexpected success of Philosopher’s Quest, he published two original games that year with Acornsoft, and ported a third to the BBC Micro for them ... The two originals were Castle of Riddles and Countdown to Doom. The former feels very much like Philosopher’s Quest II, although it is a completely original effort and not, as is sometimes reported, derived à la Zork II and III from yet-unused sections of Philosopher’s Quest‘s mainframe source, Brand X."

Who's more reliable? Bos or Maher? There's only one way to find out... FIIIIIIGHT!

[leenew]

Ha Ha!
I was just reading that too
err.. does that mean I have to fight you?

Lee.

[lurkio]

err.. does that mean I have to fight you?

Erm. Are you still doing all that heavy lifting? I'll pass, thanks.

[flaxcottage]

Resurrecting this old thread to report that I have ported The Sphinx to the Raspberry Pi running RISCOS pico and to the PC under BBC BASIC for Windows.

It should also work on any RISCOS machine and on a Master and work across the Econet on those machines. With a downloader to E00 on a BBC model B it should work on that as well. If anyone has BBC BASIC (86) PLUS, the program can be compiled to a DOS exe file to run on a PC up to and including XP and inside DOSbox on a range of machines.

I have fond memories of this game BITD.

Sphinx.zip

(11.74 KiB) Downloaded 249 times

The attached file is a text file and should be *EXECed on the target machine. All the VDU21 characters have been removed from the data statements so that the code is completely visible.

Line 46 has been changed to read DIM O 256, EX 32:VDU15:GOSUB249 so that it will work on all machines.

Line 170 has had the REM statement at the start removed, again for all machine compatibility. The original Sphinx would not work on anything other than BASIC 1 or 2 because of this REM statement.

One of these days I shall convert it to be a graphical adventure on the Pi and Archimedes; it will keep me busy in my retirement.

[PMF]

In answer to the question posed here about who wrote Sphinx - that would be me.

It was written by me while I was still doing my first degree in Chemistry at Cambridge in 1982 and I sold it to Acornsoft for enough money to not only pay for the Beeb that I had bought but also to buy a nice second hand Ford Fiesta

I’d seen the various games on the university computer and was fascinated by how you could make a computer “talk” back to you and understand commands... so I started writing it as an experiment. Turned into my first “commercial” piece of software!

Sorry about the lack of a save command but cunning use of *spool and *exec allowed you to record and replay the game.

Anyway, it lead on to me writing Acornsoft Database and S-Pascal which followed the theme of pattern matching and language processing...and thus to my first job as head of computer languages group at Acornsoft...

Now repeat after me “you are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike”

[AJH]

In answer to the question posed here about who wrote Sphinx - that would be me.

It was clever to use BASIC line numbers for the room description indexes but,
as this makes the program very difficult to amend, I presume you used a different
method while developing the code and modified it at the end?

The desert maze is very long for no obvious reason (although the route is evident
in my text map: MAP-SphinxAdventure-AJH.html).
I always thought this was unfair but it didn't stop me making it harder in
my modified version SphinxAdventure-WithSaveGame.zip.

Did you have to remove any puzzles due to lack of space?

AJH.

[lurkio]

In answer to the question posed here about who wrote Sphinx - that would be me.

Hi, Paul. What a very devious game Sphinx Adventure is! I think I made at least two major assaults on it back in the day. Don't think I ever finished it, though!

But I believe it was the first text adventure I ever encountered, and at that time, as a kid, I had no concept of what text adventures were or how they worked. I think I spent several sessions in Sphinx just wandering around the initial forest area, not realising you had to explore methodically and make a map!

Nevertheless, thanks for creating a bona fide classic!

[fuzzel]

PMF wrote:
In answer to the question posed here about who wrote Sphinx - that would be me.

Welcome to Stardot, Paul. I have fond memories of playing Sphinx Adventure bitd. I discovered text adventures shortly after getting my spanky new beeb for Christmas in 1983 and from memory the ones that grabbed my attention were the big four by Acornsoft and the other big four by Level 9 (I also quite enjoyed Labyrinths of La Coche). The one gripe I had with Sphinx, and I think you know what's coming, is the lack of a save game facility and I was wondering if Acornsoft mentioned this to you when you submitted your game to them (it obviously wasn't a deal-breaker to them)? There was a save game routine published in The Micro User sometime in 1984 which basically involved saving virtually the entire contents of ram which would have taken an age with an old cassette recorder at 1200 baud but at least you didn't have to start again from scratch (I wasn't keen on the idea of overheating my beeb by leaving it on for a few weeks while I solved the game).
Anyway, another reason for my post is, I wonder if anyone out there would be interested in hacking into Sphinx and obtaining a text file of the locations (ideally numbered) and a list of the game messages and commands? When I've finished my current project my next one will be to convert my multi-sideways ram text adventure program so as to write a game that will run on a standard model B. I'm calling it "Project Liberator". Sphinx would make a great test program, ideally with your blessing Paul, and the text file would greatly reduce the development time for me. Of course, given the size of Sphinx it may not be possible but I'd enjoy the challenge anyway.

[8bitAG]

In answer to the question posed here about who wrote Sphinx - that would be me.

Your recent Abug talk was really interesting... I love the fact that elements of Sphinx Adventure made it into some of your later utilities, such as S-Pascal.

[fuzzel]

Further to my previous post about hacking into Sphinx to get some details to develop an assembly language version I've done a bit of work myself.
Location text: PROCL(loc number) gives you the text. Using lurkio's print-to-a-text-file advice for Beebem I've managed to do this. Directions were obtained from Andrew Hayes's text map
Commands: I can use the CASA solution to find them
Messages: These can be found by listing the BASIC program
Objects: There's a list of them in Andrew Hayes text map.
So it's all systems go. Will report back in a few days. A welcome short break from MIST development. I wonder how easy it will be squeeze everything in...