Ben, Jason, and special guest Dave "Velociraptor" of This Week in Retro take on a double dose of robot-themed games. First up is Souls of Darkon by Andy Walker, published by Taskset and Bug-Byte for Amstrad CPC, Spectrum, and Commodore 64. The robot "Komputa" aids the player on their quest to combat a variety of dread evil forces.

For the main course we take on Epyx's text adventure adaptation of Isaac Asimov's novel The Robots of Dawn, written by Jon Leupp. The team note the substantial departure from the book's plotlines, the surplus of empty offices, and some inconsistencies between the Apple II and Commodore 64 versions.

Ben solves a decades-long gaming mystery, plus there's a cat and a mouse and only one of them survives to the end of the episode!

Souls of Darkon (MobyGames)

Souls of Darkon (MOCAGH)

The Robots of Dawn (MobyGames)

The Robots of Dawn (MOCAGH)

The Robots of Dawn (playable online, C64)

The Robots of Dawn (playable online, Apple)

The Robots of Dawn by Asimov (novel, Wikipedia)

Creator of games including Hadean Lands, Spider and Web, and Shade, as well as a long-time maintainer of Inform and participant in Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation (IFTF) leadership, Andrew "Zarf" Plotkin was also a teenager once. And back then he wrote Inhumane, as covered in Episode 27.

Jason and Nick welcome him to the program discuss the creation of Inhumane, the evolution of his work as a participant in the modern interactive fiction community, and the prospects for another "Infobom" title in that parody vein.

Zarfhome (personal homepage and contact info)

IFDB credits

IFTF

A Change in the Weather

Praser 5

Grimtooth's Traps

Episode image from The Book of Adventure Games II

All the way back in Episode 1 we promised to play Level 9's Knight Orc. Ben and Jason chip away at that obligation by playing... the first of three independent-load sections of the game. (We're working on it!) They do their best to navigate the aptly-named "KAOS" engine and assemble rope. (So much rope.)

But first, a clearout of news and listener mail, and a visit to the wry parody of Infidel, Andrew Plotkin's Inhumane. The game is loaded with death traps and unlicensed appearances by famous characters, including a cameo from the villain of Episode 20's Mask of the Sun.

Knight Orc (IFDB)

Knight Orc (playable online, BBC version)

Inhumane (IFDB)

Inhumane (playable online)

Retro Gaming Books collection

How to program a text adventure in C

Dog Star Adventure (IFDB)

Evertop PC

Mystery of Arkham Manor (Spectrum Computing)

Mystery of Markham Manor (IFDB)

Rick Hanson (IFDB)