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Just a small treat today. A conversion of Donkey Kong Jr. from the Nintendo Game and Watch. Made by Neanderthal. This one runs on ST and Falcon.

Download this little game here.

Here is an obscure and rare adventure game for you all to enjoy : The Adventures of Maddog Williams. Originally cracked by the Replicants and now perfected by CB.

Some words from CB : "I exchanged the password questions with their answers because I'm not sure the version was fully cracked. There is a password check right before the beginning but there should be another one in chapter 4 from what I've read. I did this patch just to be on the safe side!"

Download the game here.

Today's release is the mini-motherlode for all fans of interactive fiction as released by Infocom.

CB (yes, it's him again!) from FGC has been compiling and testing the very latest versions of all of the Infocom releases. The majority of these probably aren't the ones that we got to see back in the day, but some of them are the bug-fixed versions released later on other machines / fixed by fans of the games.

Click this link to grab the best collection of Infocom adventures.

In total, there are 11 disks inside today's .ZIP file, plus two more disks which have the complete collection of Invisiclues. These are what Infocom called the hint sheets that used to come with the original games.

The heavy amount of work that CB has put into these disks includes the following:

- Dual interpreters: the .PRGs will launch the old Infocom interpreter. Clicking on the .DAT files will launch the games via JZIP 2.1 which is more advanced, but also slower.
- Invisiclues for all Infocom games: they are in the HINTS folder and have to be launched with JZIP (just click the .DAT files).
- A tutorial is included on the first disk.
- Chronological order: CB has regrouped the official Infocom games by series or chronological order of release as much as possible.
- Bonus stuff: He has also included: Encyclopedia Frobozzica, the German Zork beta, and two other games: Zork: A Troll's Eyes View and the original classic game 'Adventure'. All bonuses are to be launched with JZIP for them to work.

The disk contents are:

Disk 1:
-Infocom Tutorial
-Zork I Rel. 88
-Zork II Rel. 48
-Zork III Rel. 17

Disk 2:
-Beyond Zork Rel. 57
-Zork: The Undiscovered Underground Rel. 16
-Encyclopedia Frobozzica (bonus)

Disk 3:
-Enchanter Rel. 29
-Sorcerer Rel. 18
-Spellbreaker Rel. 87

Disk 4:
-Planetfall Rel. 37
-Stationfall Rel. 107
-Deadline Rel. 27
-Starcross Rel. 17

Disk 5:
-Suspended Rel. 8
-The Witness Rel. 22
-Infidel Rel. 22
-Seastalker Rel. 16

Disk 6:
-Cutthroats Rel. 23
-The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Rel. 59
-Suspect Rel. 14

Disk 7:
-A Mind Forever Voyaging Rel. 79
-Wishbringer Rel. 69
-Ballyhoo Rel. 97

Disk 8:
-Hollywood Hijinx Rel. 37
-Leather Goddesses of Phobos Rel. 59
-Moonmist Rel. 9

Disk 9:
-Trinity Rel. 12
-Borderzone Rel. 9
-Zork German beta (bonus)

Disk 10:
-The Lurking Horror Rel. 221
-Bureaucracy Rel. 116
-Adventure Rel. 9 (bonus)
-Zork: A Troll's Eye View Rel. 3 (bonus)

Disk 11:
-Nord & Bert Rel. 19
-Plundered Hearts Rel. 26
-Sherlock : The Riddle of the Crown Jewels Rel. 26

(And don't forget the two disks of Invisiclues also, but this is just an added extra as the relevant Invisiclues are included on the separate disks as well)

As we don't just do Atari machines here, clicking this link will take you directly into the collection of interpreters that are available for other machines on the Interactive Fiction website.

Why? Because we're nice like that!

In a medieval fantasy world, strange drugs appear that create an addiction among the population. It appears that they are all coming from one central point that is controlled by a mysterious stranger. The player controls a group of heroes in this role-playing game as he tries to find out the origins of the drug and to break down on the man who is responsible for them.

Today's release is a special one because Spirit of Adventure was never officially released in English by Starbyte way back in 1991.

CB of FGC worked his magic on it. He used the English PC version's files to translate the bulk of the original German version and then dived into the executable and fine-tuned the translation once more. Some of the fixes he has implemented ensure that the ST version more complete than the original PC one!

Download
Get your copy of the game here.

The download contains 3 x ZIPs (one each for the English, French and German versions). Within each separate language version is the .MSA disk image, or the files version for your hard-drive (real or emulated).

Hints and tips:
CB has these tips for those wanting to play this game:

-A good party is composed of 2 warriors and/or amazons, 1 samurai or banshee, 1 priest or faery, 2 magicians and/or godesses.

-Each character gets one magic skill when created, the mandatory ones are compass (puts a compass in the bottom right corner of the screen), armor (better defense for the whole party), regen (magic regeneration over time), wielder (better attack for the whole party), healer (HP regen when out of combat for the whole party) and booster (mind points regen for the whole party). YOU HAVE TO ACTIVATE EACH SKILL IN THE CHARACTER SCREEN.

-You start with a few weapons; you also have to activate them in the inventory.

-The game is in real time; if you don't move, time will pass but you will not be attacked by random enemies. The combats are not in real time, but negative effects like poison are. Also, there is a day/night cycle, and even week days. Some places may be closed during specific days.

-Dwarves give a nice amount of gold when killed (usually 100 GP).

-Don't waste mind attacks on stupid animals like bats or spiders.

-Samurais and banshees can (and should) be equipped with dual weapons. And buy your priest a bow and a lot of arrows.

-Gaining levels takes a lot of time, even the first level requires 1000 experience points. The enemies in the first town only give 5-20 XP depending on their strengh and number...

-Food rations are consumed real fast when travelling on the main map. There are of no use inside cities.

-Some shortcuts: num keys on main keyboard can be used for most menus, Y/N should also work, and to get back to the previous menu sometimes N or B can be used. To give an item to someone else, you have to click once on it then click on the name of the character you want to give it to. Hit CTRL-U to use an equiped item.

Elite are in charge of today's release which features a previously unreleased game, Trivia Game Show which was released by Energize in 1991. However, before you can play the game, there's an excellent new Elite intro by DHS (Code: Evil, Logo: Lowlife, Music: Epic).

Grab the game from this download link and start refreshing those grey cells using this quiz game.

The game is not the prettiest looking quiz game that is out there (*) but it's a rare release.

After playing the game and poking around the files on the disk, I (Mug UK) can offer you a little "Advent bonus": if you open up the .DAT files on the disk using a decent hex/text editor, you can see all of the questions before your very eyes. However, the correct answers aren't as easily marked though!

(*) I'm probably saving ST Graveyard some time with this one line review!

We're back tomorrow with yet another release.

Today's release - Star Fleet I: The War Begins - puts you as a new graduate of Starfleet Academy in command of a starship. The Federation is at war with the Krellans and Zaldrons, so the player has plenty of combatants to engage from the beginning. Every ship system is modelled in meticulous detail, making it a must play for all every armchair Trekkie commander.

This was released in 1984 for the older 8-bit machines, with this 16-bit version released in 1986. It was originally designed by Trevor Sorensen and developed by Interstel.

It is a strategy game that is similar to the old BASIC games that a few of the 'older generations' used to type in from 8-bit computer books. So don't expect too much in the "whizzy graphics" and "amazing sound" departments. This is how games used to look.

Download the ZIP file here

The FGC (it's that CB again) has done the fixes required for it to work on Falcon machines, as well as running from a real (or emulated) hard-disk too.