Ghost Town
Text adventures were big on my parents agenda for me to have educational programs on the ZX Spectrum . Their theory being if it had lots of reading it had to be educational. So Ghost Town by Virgin Games found it's way in to our house. Firstly let me just stop and give you one very amazing fact. This game was written by John Pickford, at the age of 16 in his bedroom. Just let that fact sink in....
My Grandad, Father and myself all enjoyed a good Western , so this game of finding hidden gold was of great interest straight away. There had been other text adventures in our life already, mainly The Hobbit , but this offered something different. On the screen was the map , I loved this idea.
For me, having that street map on the screen made it seem more real. It was certainly easier to remember which way you had gone into a building. One of the things I enjoyed most ( and still do enjoy ) in text adventures is just blundering around, exploring buildings, finding staircases. This is something that this game had plenty of. Also lots of objects to find and the program also had a large dictionary, it was pretty easy to make it do what you wanted it to. Something my dyslexic father was very happy about after his exploits with The Hobbit.
It was a game we never finished, but it is a game that has stayed with me. It encouraged me to write my own ( very simplistic) exploration game based on my school and although reviewers were a little unkind to it at the time I think it still has points of merit. Let's just stop and remember my first paragraph, written by a 16 year old in their bedroom and it was published. This game is a game of encouragement and also a game that shows the wonder of the early days of the ZX Spectrum. A time where anything seemed possible, after all , if you don't try you don't know.
And were my parents correct? Was this an educational game? Well of course it is, if it inspired me to attempt to write my own game , how many others were inspired by this and also the type-in games that came with every computer magazine back then? It's not big, brash, with mega bright pictures and groovy sound effects but it's a gentle jaunt round the Wild West and a look back to the simpler times of when anything was possible with a ZX Spectrum. And Mr Pickford....well I think he went on to bigger and better things !