Arcade Castle: A Gaming Podcast - Arcade Castle: Episode 07 - The Colossal Cave Adventure

Arcade Castle: Episode 07 - The Colossal Cave Adventure

08/16/17 • 50 min

In Episode 07, Arcade Castle plumbs the depths of early text-based adventure gaming as they play a modern adaptation of one of the earliest video games ever made: Adventure/ADVENT/The Colossal Cave Adventure. While Adventure has seen many adaptations and modifications since its creation by Will Crowther in 1975, does this board game adaptation from 2013 deserve a place in the Well House, or cast into the Bottomless Pit?

In The Colossal Cave Adventure, players traverse the rooms and passages of The Colossal Cave and face the hazards and dangers therein in a quest for treasure. As players uncover mysterious items during their trek in The Colossal Cave, they will find these strange items are key to surviving the trials and tribulations they will face as well as finding the treasures housed within the cavernous passages and rooms of The Colossal Cave. As players acquire treasures, a race begins as players attempt to protect their treasures and deposit them in the Well House. The first player to deposit three treasures in the Well House can rightly call themselves the master of The Colossal Cave, and winner of the game!

In this (somewhat delayed) episode, Arcade Castle looks at a board game adaptation of an oft overlooked genre: text-based adventure games. Can you take a game that solely relies upon text as a user interface and successfully create a three dimensional board game that relies, in part, upon a GUI? Further, how can a developer take a solo experience and adapt it into a multi-player experience?

********************************** Webpage: www.arcadecastle.com Additionally, you can find us on Itunes (and a number of podcast services), Twitter, Facebook, BoardGameGeek, and Instagram! Check out our videos on Youtube! You can contact us at: [email protected] Also, if you like the new theme song, check out Tony Robot at: www.facebook.com/louisvilletonyrobot/ ***********************************

Episode Outline

00:00 - 10:00: Arcade Castle gives a general overview of text-based adventure games and The Colossal Cave Adventure. Additionally, they discuss text-based adventure games and their progeny, old and new, and their experiences playing them.

10:00 - 20:00: [Once Upon A Powerup] Arcade Castle gives a more detailed history of the circumstances behind the creation of Adventure and The Colossal Cave Adventure as well as its impact upon the industry.

20:00 - 35:00: Arcade Castle takes an in-depth look at The Colossal Cave Board Game. Detailing the contents, rules, and gameplay, they examine the challenges faced when codefabing a text-game into a board game.

35:00-50:00: Arcade Castle gives their final thoughts on The Colossal Cave Board Game. They look at where it succeeds and where it fails in codefabing The Colossal Cave from digital text into cardboard and plastic. They also compare it's success rate in this process with games looked at in prior podcast episodes.

Episode Outline

Previous Episode

Arcade Castle: Episode 06 - The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt

In Episode 06 (or Episode 01, Volume 02 if we are going by comic book rules), Arcade Castle tackle the high risk, high reward world of high finance and stock speculation in The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt. Buying stock in Mcdonald's, WoW, and more, Arcade Castle struggles to avoid bankruptcy and boredom in this financial tool...game...for the Odyssey II from 1982!

In The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt, each player, or team of players start with $100,000 dollars and attempt, over the course of five years, to go big, go home, or go broke. Throughout the Level 1 version of the game, players buy and sell stock, and try to understand the cause and effect between stocks and world events that occur periodically throughout gameplay. Will Arcade Castle see $_$ ? or -_-?

In this first episode of Season 2 of the Arcade Castle Podcast, CasualJohn and Patrick examine another entry in the Master Strategy Series that were released in the early 1980s on the Magnavox Odyssey II. After The Quest For the Rings proving a surprise hit for Arcade Castle, will this entry in the series prove as enjoyable? Or will Arcade Castle's stock in this series tank with The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt?

**********************************

Webpage: www.arcadecastle.com

Additionally, you can find us on Itunes (and a number of podcast services), Twitter, Facebook, BoardGameGeek, and Instagram! Check out our videos on Youtube!

You can contact us at: [email protected] Also, if you like the new theme song, check out Tony Robot at: www.facebook.com/louisvilletonyrobot/

***********************************

Episode Outline:

00:00-17:00: Arcade Castle discusses the video games they are currently playing, discuss their favorite finance-based video games on a variety of consoles, and give an overview of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt and the Master Strategy Series.

17:00-27:00: Arcade Castle discusses the components of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt and include a new segment: Insert Coin to Play, with recorded audio of their gameplay of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt.

27:00-42:00: Arcade Castle discusses the base gameplay of The Great Wall Street Fortune Hunt in length, who they think the audience was for this game, some of the technical issues they have with the game, their recommendations, and final thoughts on the second game in the Master Strategy Series that has been placed before Arcade Castle.

Next Episode

Arcade Castle: Episode 08 - The Oregon Trail Hunt For Food Card Game

Arcade Castle's attempt to sacrifice The Oregon Trail Card Game during the solar eclipse was, in a word, unsuccessful. At the height of the astronomical event, Arcade Castle thrust a dagger into the very heart of the card game and set it aflame in the hopes of removing its presence from this planet and send it into the unfathomable void of space.

But Arcade Castle was wrong.

As the embers died down and the solar bodies unaligned, something arose from the ashes, the proverbial phoenix: The Oregon Trail: Hunt For Food Card Game. This event left Arcade Castle defeated for some time...until now.

In Episode 08, Arcade Castle looks at the pseudo-expansion for the original game that no one asked for and no one expected. Nevertheless, setting themselves to the task, Arcade Castle opened up the Hunt For Food Card Game and played the second game in the series of card game adaptations of the legendary computer game that was released by MECC in the early 1970s.

The Hunt For Food Card Game, as the title suggests, is a card game adaptation of the hunting mini-game found in the Oregon Trail Computer Game. As the hunter, players navigate a grid of cards, flipping them over to explore the terrain. As they explore, obstacles, wild game, and hazards present themselves to the players. As a team, players must attempt to overcome these hazards as well as attempt to hunt, kill, and bring 600 pounds of meat back to the wagon to continue on the trail and win the game. But will this card game's aim be true? Or will it prove to far off the mark?

Episode Outline

00:00 - 07:00: Arcade Castle reintroduces the Oregon Trail card game series published by pressman, as well as recapping their opinions about the base game as discussed in Episode 04 of the podcast.

07:00 - 27:00: Arcade Castle explores, in length, The Oregon Trail: Hunt For Food Card Game. They describe the contents of the game, the rules of the game, and examine the strategies present in the game as well as the numerous problems with the game.

27:00 - 53:00: After playing the game as a standalone game, Arcade Castle integrates The Hunt For Food Card Game with the original Oregon Trail Card Game to see whether or not this integration helps either game become more playable and determine if it causes more problems then solutions. They then explore how changing some rules and adjusting gameplay may make both games function better. Do they recommend this game? Or recommend sacrificing it to the astral powers that be?