Sometime in the early 80s my dad returned home from shopping one Saturday afternoon. He'd bought an Acorn Electron Home Computer. I was a bit miffed initially, as all my mates had a ZX Spectrum, but then I discovered something called text adventures, and I was utterly hooked. Now it was my dad's turn to be miffed, as he didn't agree with all these silly games and kept reminding me the thing had been bought for educational purposes.

Memories fade, however, as I'm sure you're all aware, and I'm wondering if anyone could help bring those 'lost' games back to mind.

I distinctly remember one called Twin Kingdom Valley, which has stuck with me because it was the first text adventure I'd played that had pictures! Thinking back, the images were awful and took about three minutes to render, but it was a wonderful novelty at the time.

Another title I remember was The Skull... and then there was Quill, of course, a piece of software that allowed to create your own games.

However, the title of my absolute favourite text adventure completely escapes me. I remember the cover for the cassette tape was all black and moody. I think they were going for a film noir look, as you played a detective in the game. It was just amazing and enthralled me more than any conventional arcade game ever did.

If it's any help in jogging memories, I remember getting stuck at a railway station early on in the game... going round and round in circles until I discovered I had to go up onto the bridge crossing over the track and 'jump' onto the train as it passed, thus taking me to the next location.

I would love to read your own memories, and any help identifying the above would be welcome too.

Oh heavens!! I finally found the detective game. I'd forgotten how big it was - three cassettes big, in fact! This game must have been a Christmas prezzy or something - no way was this one of my 'casual' buys. Although thinking about it, I may not have owned this trilogy, but just the first.

games I remember growing up with:

old mac~apple computers: where in the world is carmen sandiego (this was such a good game too... taught geography, hehe), oregon trail, odell lake, think quick, etc...
my friend had IBM~commodor~whatever computers, but I don't remember any of the games on them
NES RPGs: final fantasy 1, dragon warrior 1, etc...
Arcade games: etc etc etc

I got into IF on the Spectrum although a mate of mine swears I had The Hobbit on the Vic 20. I remember Hampstead, Terrormolinos, Denis through the Drinking Glass etc. I even bought an IF creator that a lot of the major titles used. Alas I didn't produce a major title myself.

Silver wrote:Terrormolinos...

Alas I didn't produce a major title myself.

Terramolinos - I can see the artwork now

Did you have The Quill writing software? I read a raving review for it in Electron User at the time, in which the reviewer said it was powerful enough to create commercially viable titles, and that, in fact, someone had done just that. The game was called Hex, but I don't remember ever seeing it in the shops.

The Quill - yeah that was the one!

Still available - for free - as long as you have an emulator.

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... id=0006857