![]() ![]() It was basically a database front-end for editing the rooms, objects ("artifacts" in Eamon jargon) and "monsters" (including NPCs) in the adventure. To make this work, my new version of Eamon would need to store some player data directly in the browser.Ĭlassic Eamon included a "Dungeon Designer" utility disk which allowed adventure designers to write their own adventures. No account creation or login is required. The Eamon Remastered welcome screenĪlso, to lower the barriers for getting started, I decided to take inspiration from games like BrowserQuest, where you can just load the page and start playing. So I decided on doing a full web conversion, rewriting the old BASIC game engine to run in a browser. I would, of course, want to make it as easy as possible for people to play, so it should be possible to run it in a web browser. If I was going to rewrite Eamon for the web, how exactly should I do it? For this reason, I decided to make his work be the basis of my new version. Though it's an upgrade from the Apple II version, Eamon Deluxe still requires an emulator to play, and still has graphics limitations typical of DOS computers.įrank ported the entire game logic and dozens of adventures to Eamon Deluxe. He generally kept the same program logic and a flat-file database structure similar to the original. Frank converted the engine to Microsoft BASIC and added a few new features to the engine, such as an enhanced Main Hall and color text. In the 1990s, Eamon author Frank Black ported Eamon to the PC and called the new port Eamon Deluxe. There weren't such things as open-source licenses in those days, but the text at the beginning of the Main Program source code said "Non-commercial distribution encouraged." Eamon Deluxe Further, the Apple II didn't have a lot of RAM, and authors would frequently rewrite parts of the game engine to work around memory limits.Ĭlassic Eamon was also an early example of non-commercial software. Over the years, many new authors contributed adventures, and many new features were added to the game engine. The game and player data was stored in a set of Apple II "text" files, which were basically flat-file, fixed-record-length databases. The game engine was written in Applesoft BASIC. The intro screen from Classic Eamon, in the AppleWin emulator I'll call this version "Classic Eamon" from here on for clarity. The first version of The Wonderful World of Eamon, consisting of the Main Hall and the first adventure, the Beginner's Cave, was written around 1979–80 by Donald Brown, who also authored some of the earliest adventures. Third, the project gave me a chance to experiment with some new web tech. Second, I know quite a few people who still like and play text adventure games. Why do this? First, I like the idea of preserving some of our "heirloom software" for future generations. What if I could rewrite Eamon for modern computers? Specifically, how could I make it run in a web browser? I should be able to see more than 40 columns of text. Plus, my monitor is quite a bit larger than the 280x192 resolution of the Apple II. So, if you like interactive fiction and also liked slaying orcs, battling pirates, and occasionally going head-to-head with the likes of Darth Vader, it's a fun time.īut the Apple II is long dead, and playing the original Eamon now requires an emulator. Eamon is unique in that you can create a character in the "Main Hall" and go on dozens of different self-contained quests by different authors, building up better stats and collecting better items and gold. It's a mix of an interactive fiction game like Colossal Cave Adventure and a computerized role-playing game. Back in the 1980s, I started playing a series of text adventure games for the Apple II called the Wonderful World of Eamon. ![]()
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