Hi all hope you are all ok. Does any one from the commodore 64 days remember a text adventure called (Unorthodox Engineers. The Pen and the Dark ) I just think it would be cool to try and rejuvenate and redo it but I'm having a hell of a game of either trying to get hold of the storybook of it that came with the game or the game itself. I just can't remember the whole story. It was about a column of dark energy left behind the some aliens many years ago and the unorthodox engineers on a distant world had to find out all about its contra energy. Hope you recall it too may be throw some ideas in the pot for someone to pick it up. Terry

Hmm.. something like that probably wouldn't be too difficult to do. You'd of course have to secure the rights from the author as it's still a copyrighted work, but I'm sure the text can be found online somewhere... and if Colin Kapp were to go along with the idea, it's possible he could provide the story text himself.

I would think it would be an idea to do the whole series though, rather than a story plucked from the middle.

I'm gonna have a look at the entire series I've only just found out that there were others of that ilk. You never know he might just be up for a bit of resurrection. Stay warm. Terry

Hi there. I don't know if you're still looking for this but if you are I hope the following may be helpful: I don't know about the story book that came with the game but I'm currently half way through reading the story and really enjoying it. It's the lead story in issue 8 of New Writings in SF. There are a few copies of this currently available on Amazon UK and it may also be on ebay.

seeker67 wrote:Hi there. I don't know if you're still looking for this but if you are I hope the following may be helpful: I don't know about the story book that came with the game but I'm currently half way through reading the story and really enjoying it. It's the lead story in issue 8 of New Writings in SF. There are a few copies of this currently available on Amazon UK and it may also be on ebay.

can you please share the links?

I have the original Commodore 64 game, in its original purple large box and with the white book, in near perfect condition.
After waiting 19 minutes to load it, I could never understand the game and what I should be doing so I shelved it.