Golden Voyage  (1983 - Commodore)
Alternative title: Adventure #12
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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The 12th and final adventure in the main Scott Adams series, and most likely the one with the fewest packaging variations as well! The king is ill, and only YOU can save him. You must retrieve a magic elixir from a far away land, before it is too late.

In this game, you take to the seas and journey through magic lands with temples, magic fountains, and more. Although this is the last of the main series, it still uses the same basic 2-word parser.

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Description from the packaging:

I stood at the bottom of a deep chasm. Cool air sliding down the sides of the crevasse hit waves of heat rising from a stream of bubbling lava and formed a mist over the sluggish flow. Through the swirling clouds I caught glimpses of two ledges high above me: one was bricked, the other appeared to lead to the throne room I had been seeking.
A blast of fresh air cleared the mist near my feet and like a single gravestone a broken sign appeared momentarily. A dull gleam of gold showed at the base of the sign before being swallowed up by the fog again. From the distance came the angry buzz of the killer bees. Could I avoid their lethal stings as I had managed to escape the wrath of the dragon? Reading the sign might give me a clue to the dangers of this pit.

I approached the sign slowly.
And so it goes, hour after hour, as you guide your microcomputer through the Adventures of Scott Adams in an effort to amass treasures within the worlds of his imagination.
By definition, an adventure is a dangerous or risky undertaking; a novel, exciting, or otherwise remarkable event or experience. On your personal computer, Adventure is that and more.
For the user, playing adventure is a dangerous or risky undertaking in that you better be prepared to spend many addictive hours at the keyboard. If you like challenges, surprises, humor and being transported to other worlds, these are the games for you! If you dislike being forced to use your common sense and imagination, or you frustrate easily, try them anyway.

In beginning any Adventure, you will find yourself in a specific location: a forest, on board a small spaceship, outside a fun house, in the briefing room of a nuclear plant, in a desert, etc.
By using two-word commands you move from location to location manipulate objects that you find in the different places, and perform actions as if you were really there. The object of a game is to amass treasure for points or accomplish some other goal. Successfully completing a game, however, is far easier to state than to achieve. In many cases you will find a treasure but be unable to take it until you are carrying the right combination of objects you find in the various locations.

How do you know which objects you need? Trial and error, logic and imagination. Each time you try some action, you learn a little more about the game. Which brings us to the term "game" again. While called games, Adventures are actually puzzles because you have to discover which way the pieces (actions, manipulations, use of magic words, etc.) fit together in order to gather your treasures or accomplish the mission. Like a puzzle, there are a number of ways to fit the pieces together; players who have found and stores all the treasures (there are 13) of Adventure #1 may have done so in different ways.

In finding how the pieces fit, you will be forced to deal with unexpected events, apparent dead ends and Scott's humor, which is one of the best parts of the puzzles.
If you run into a barrier like not being able to discover more rooms, don't give up. Play the game with some friends; sometimes they'll think of things you haven't tried.
While I pondered how to reach the throne room- which I was sure contained the treasures of Croesus- the fog grew thicker and the hours passed. I realized I would not be able to outwit Adams today... but maybe tomorrow. I marked my present location on my tattered map and began the long trip to the surface. As I dragged myself off to bed, I thought about the other possible adventures.
But enough for tonight. Tomorrow- another crack at the chasm.
