Roger M. Wilcox's old TRS-80 adventure games

Rewritten as modern Windows apps

• Misadventure is the very first adventure game I ever wrote, and it shows.  Originally written for the TRS-80 in 1980, I finally got around to rewriting the game as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Misadventure.
• Star Cruiser is the second adventure game I ever wrote.  Originally written for the TRS-80 in 1980, I finally got around to rewriting the game as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Star Cruiser.
• Jailbreak is the third adventure game I ever wrote, and is also probably the smallest.  Originally written for the TRS-80 in 1980, I finally got around to rewriting the game as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Jailbreak.

  NOTE on getting Jailbreak to download: As of November 2024, Windows Defender thinks there is a virus infecting the .zip file. There isn't. It's a false positive. But in case Windows Defender won't let you download it, I've also put up the un-zipped .exe file. The link is here: jailbreak.exe . Depending on your browser, you may need to right-click on this link and choose "download link" instead of just left-clicking on it, because the latter action may cause the file server to try to execute it remotely (which you'll never see). Also, Windows is highly suspicious of downloading .exe files directly, and you'll have to jump through a couple of O/S hoops before you're allowed to run it.

  You can also try downloading the Debug build of Jailbreak, which was compiled with optimization turned off and which doesn't seem to bother Windows Defender as much.

• Space Traveller is the fourth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1980.  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  I drew a little bit of my inspiration from Scott Adams' Ghost Town adventure, and a tiny bit from his Strange Odyssey.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Space Traveller.
• Nuclear Submarine is the fifth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1980.  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Nuclear Submarine.
• India Palace is the sixth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1980.  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for India Palace.
• The Vial of Doom is an adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80 in 1980, which was based on a 25-page typewritten short story I'd written a year earlier (which in turn was influenced just a teensy weensy bit by Michael Moorcock's multiverse).  In many ways, this game was a watershed in my adventure-game-authoring career, as I originally thought the story was way too complicated to make an adventure game out of ... until I read an article about Greg Hassett's "World's Edge" adventure and turned green with envy and grim with determination.  I considered it my first "good" TRS-80 adventure game; it was the 7th I'd written, and 14 more would follow it (15, if you count that Star Trek adventure where you can't even pick things up).  When the IBM PC became available to me in 1983, I ported this game to GWBASIC.  (At some point afterward, I posted the source code to Usenet; it's now archived here.) I finally got around to rewriting the game as a WPF .NET application in 2012, as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for The Vial of Doom.  For an "authentic" adventuring experience while playing this game, play the theme song for the Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk TV series in the background, and sing along with lyrics: "The Vial of Doom / An epic storyyyyy / About destroying / Chaos's gloryyyyy / Although it may / Seem mildly goryyyyyy ..."
• The Poseidon Adventure is the eighth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1980.  At one point, I renamed it The Upsidedown Adventure out of fear that 20th Century Fox might sue me for trademark infringement; but frankly, if I can write a game named Another Star-Trek Game and not get sued, I'm probably safe.  (Then again, Scott Adams did get in trouble for naming one of his adventures Mission Impossible.)  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for The Poseidon Adventure.
• Interstellar War is the ninth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  Just as The Vial of Doom was an adventurized version of a short story I wrote with the same name, so Interstellar War was based (very loosely) on my original 40-page draft of The Pentagon War.  I finally got around to rewriting Interstellar War as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Interstellar War.
• In the Universe Beyond is the tenth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for In the Universe Beyond.
• Creatures that Live in the Sun is the eleventh adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  It was based on a creative writing assignment I handed in in fifth grade (all the way back in 1975).  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Creatures that Live in the Sun.
• The Staff "Slake" is the twelfth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  I finally got around to rewriting it as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for The Staff "Slake".
• Tanker Train is the thirteenth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  I managed to recover the program from cassette tape in 2013, and rewrote it as a WPF .NET application as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  Those of you who've played Scott Adams' Mission Impossible adventure will probably notice whence I got a little bit of my inspiration.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Tanker Train.
• Medieval Space Warrior is the fourteenth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  It was inspired, to a small degree, by Arthur C. Clarke's The City and the Stars.  I consider it one of the three best TRS-80 adventure games I wrote, alongside The Vial of Doom and The Last City.  I ported it to GWBASIC in 1983 or 1984 or thereabouts, and finally got around to rewriting it as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Medieval Space Warrior.
• King of the Jungle is the fifteenth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  I finally got around to rewriting it as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for King of the Jungle.
• Trash Island is a combination of the sixteenth and seventeenth adventure games I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  They were once billed as Parts I and II of the Trash Island trilogy, titled "In Search of Trash Island" and "The Hidden City of Trash Island", before I combined them into a single adventure game in GWBASIC.  (And, yes, I got the idea for a multi-part adventure with "Island" in its name from a certain famous Scott Adams two-parter.)  I finally got around to rewriting it as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Trash Island.
• Escape from Trash Island is the eighteenth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1981.  It was once billed as Part III of the Trash Island trilogy, before I combined parts 1 and 2 of the trilogy into a single adventure game in GWBASIC.  You're expected to have completed the previous adventure game, which gave you a password you need in order to be able to play Escape from Trash Island at all.  (Those of you wondering where I got that particularly oddball password from, go watch an old Bugs Bunny cartoon titled "Bushy Hare.")  I finally got around to rewriting Escape from Trash Island as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Escape from Trash Island.  (And, yes, doing so will allow you to find the password for the game without having to complete the previous adventure first.  Cheater.)
• Followers Adventure is the nineteenth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1982.  It was a rather sarcastic adventure game set in Palestine about two millennia ago, if you catch my drift.  I finally got around to porting to 32-bit Windows in September 2002.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C++ source code for Followers Adventure.
• Derelict 2147 is the twentieth adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80, originally in 1982.  By sheer coincidence, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, which came out 5 years later, was also set in the year 2147.  I finally got around to rewriting this adventure game as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Derelict 2147.
• The Last City is the twenty-first — and the last — adventure game I wrote for the TRS-80.  In 1983, I could feel my interest in the TRS-80 waning as the new IBM PC started to take over my computing life.  The previous TRS-80 adventure game I'd written, Derelict 2147, was a ho-hum treasure hunt adventure that could never compare with my two previous masterpieces, The Vial of Doom and Medieval Space Warrior.  It would have been a dull, bland note to go out on, and I wanted to leave with a bang.  So, bringing together all the elements that made those two previous masterpieces so good, I decided to write one last TRS-80 adventure game.  To this day, I consider The Last City to be the pinnacle of my adventure-game-writing oevre — so much so that I ported it to GWBASIC on the PC and posted the source code on Usenet (which is still archived here).  Later, in 1989, I ported it to Turbo C as a full-screen MS-DOS console application, and then finally in 2001 I turned it into a real honest-to-goodness 32-bit Windows app.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C++ source code for The Last City.
• In 1983, as a kind of footnote to my TRS-80 adventure game oevre, I wrote a brief adventure game based on Star Trek.  I don't remember the name I gave to this adventure, only that it wasn't Star Trek Adventure.  You didn't even have the ability to pick up or put down objects in this game.  The goal involved wiping out some Klingons and scoring with a beautiful female alien.  Sadly, I can't find the Level II BASIC source code for this adventure on any of the TRS-80 cassettes in my collection; there's a chance that, since I considered this game to be so much more simplistic than my other adventures, I wrote over it when a more "important" piece of TRS-80 software came along.

... and one by Roger M. Wilcox's dad:

• Darkpit was my dad's Magnum Opus of TRS-80 adventuredom, which he stared writing in 1981. Somewhere in another adventure, you fell into a dark pit and were left for dead. Any light source you may have had was either lost or broken. You awaken lying on a stone floor in pitch darkness, and must feel your way along if you're to have any hope of escape. Sadly, he never finished this game ... but in 2013, I rewrote it for .NET 4.0, and in so doing brought the game to completion. Like most of the adventures above, it's a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  You can also view the complete Visual C# source code for Darkpit, and if you're really interested, here's the original TRS-80 Level II BASIC version of Darkpit as my dad last left it, viewable as a virtual cassette in a TRS-80 emulator.

Roger M. Wilcox's old TRS-80 non-adventure games which require a TRS-80 emulator to run

NOTE: The links below are .cas files, which are binary images of data stored on cassette (as used by TRS-32 and other TRS-80 emulators). If these links don't work for you, I've bundled all the .cas files that appear on this page in a single .zip file that you can download with this link: RMW_TRS-80.zip.

• Armor Battle - A small game I wrote early on, not very sophisticated. Your tank's cannon could only shoot something if you got right next to it.
• ATV - Assault an enemy planet in your multi-role spaceship/tank.
• Interception - Based on the arcade video game called Intercept, where you tried to run into score boxes while avoiding your own ever-growing tail.
• Solar Nova - Space aliens are trying to blow up the sun! Your space ship must manufacture what it needs to survive each attack wave and shoot down the Hydron missiles, either with your own missiles or with your one-shot space lasers. But beware, the enemy has fighters, too. (Inspired by Stewart Eastman's Slag.)
• Empire Wars - Imperial Stormdrains are attacking! You must clear a path through them with your blaster and your photon sword, then face down the dreaded Darth Badguy. If the odds are stacked too highly against you, you can try to Use the Farce. Graphics are eerily reminiscent of Leo Christopherson's Android Nim. Audio is eerily reminiscent of Leo Christopherson's Duel-N-Droids. There is also an earlier, text-only version of Empire Wars.
• Another Star-Trek Game (yes, with the hypen between the "Star" and the "Trek") is perhaps the one game I spent more time perfecting on the TRS-80 than any other.  Inspired by Simutek's Graphictrek 2000, for which I had complete source code since it was written entirely in Level II BASIC, I embarked on writing my own Star Trek text game in 1981 or so.  My take on this classic here is, perhaps, the only TRS-80 Star Trek game wherein you'll do better if you fight the Klingons while your engines are running.

Roger M. Wilcox's dad's old TRS-80 adventure games which require a TRS-80 emulator to run

• Dungeon 1 – Small enough to fit in 4K. Fight your way through a dungeon filled with wandering monsters, including the dreaded Arcing TRS-80.
• Darkpit – My dad's Magnum Opus of TRS-80 adventuredom. Somewhere in another adventure, you fell into a dark pit and were left for dead. Any light source you may have had was either lost or broken. You awaken lying on a stone floor in pitch darkness, and must feel your way along if you're to have any hope of escape. Sadly, he never finished this game. If you have way too much time on your hands, you might also want to see the Level II BASIC source code for Darkpit in human-readable ASCII format. I eventually rewrote it for .NET 4.0, and in so doing brought the game to completion. Here's the completed .NET 4.0 version of Darkpit, with complete Visual C# source code.

Old TRS-80 adventure games which require a TRS-80 emulator to run and which were written neither by Roger M. Wilcox nor his dad

• Star Trek Adventure – by Randy Hawkins. I typed this in from an article titled "Save Our Ship" in 80 Microcomputing's annual games issue (August 1982). This particular game avoided giving away spoilers to a casual reader of the program listing by storing all its text in substitution-cipher strings. It also features the planet "Teiras 80." Get it? 'Cause it's on a TRS-80? ... <crickets> (Geez, tough room.)

Roger M. Wilcox's old non-adventure games

• Another Star-Trek Game (a modern port of the same-named TRS-80 game above).  I ported this game to GWBASIC for the IBM PC in 1983, then to Turbo Pascal for MS-DOS in 1988, and finally got around to rewriting it as a WPF .NET application in 2012 as part of my "remember my past" endeavor.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands, you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for Another Star-Trek Game.
• Hack Up the Monster, Steal its Treasure, and Proceed On to the Next Room.  Helpfully abbreviated HUtMSiTaPOttNR, or just HUtMSiTa because it was originally written back when filenames were limited to 8 characters.  This was originally written in GWBASIC in the 1980s, then rewritten in Modula II in around 1990 or so, and finally ported to Visual C# in 2012.  Basically, this is a text-based "dungeon run" game based around the 1st Edition AD&D Unearthed Arcana rules — except that you can never gain a level.  NOTE: This is a .NET 4.0 console application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for HUtMSiTaPOttNR; which, due to originating in a language which lacked local variables, has all sorts of weird short variable name reuse throughout it.
• Hexagonal Minesweeper: I released this game as shareware in 1993, and made a grand total of $90 off of it because I set the price way too high.  Since it's been over a decade, I thought I'd release a Win32 build of the Registered Copy Version of this game to the world, which is what the link above points to.  (For authenticity, I even included the original, self-righteous README file that I distributed with the six Registered copies I actually sold.)  And since this app is now so old there's zero business potential in it any more, here is the complete VC++ source code for the Registered Copy version of Hexagonal Minesweeper updated for 32-bit compilation, including a compiled 32-bit version of the .exe.  Note: The sound API I was using in the old 16-bit registered copy version doesn't exist in Win32.
• Hack Up the Monster, Steal its Treasure, and Proceed On to the Next Room, version 2.0.  Helpfully abbreviated HUtMSiTaPOttNR 2.  This is a major revision of the above C# .NET port of HUtMSiTaPOttNR.  Think of it as 1st Edition AD&D with the Unearthed Arcana supplement, the command-line text game.  It's pretty extensive; the only things from 1st Edition AD&D with Unearthed Arcana that aren't (yet) included in HUtMSiTaPOttNR 2.0 are:
  • Most magic items
  • All but one artifact
  • Monster spell casting
  • Missile weapons
  • Spiked bucklers. I hate spiked bucklers.
  • Psionics
  • Holy water/flaming oil
  • Player characters surprising monsters
  • Companions that stick around after a combat is over
  • Weight allowances
  • Weapon proficiencies
  • Spell material components
  • Unidentified magic items
  • Ranged combat (all combat is assumed to take place at melee range, with each team conveniently lined up on opposite sides of the room)
  NOTE: As with the original HUtMSiTaPOttNR port above, this is a .NET 4.0 console application, and requires that you have installed either the full .NET 4.0 framework or at the very least the .NET 4.0 Client Profile.  If you have way too much time on your hands you'll also want to see the complete Visual C# source code for HUtMSiTaPOttNR 2.0.
• Hexagonal Minesweeper 2019, a 2019 rewrite of the above Hexagonal Minesweeper game using the .NET Framework's WPF library. There are only two files, an .exe and its .html help file. There is no installer program; just copy these 2 files into any directory and launch the .exe directly from there to play. If you're bored, or want to look to see if the game has any cheat codes, you can view the complete Visual C# source code for Hexagonal Minesweeper 2019.

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