When I was a kid I had a Commodore 64 with a disk drive and a dedicated TV for a monitor in my room. I guess you could say I was hot stuff. Go ahead. Say it.
While digging around in my parents’ basement for treasure, mostly in the form of forgotten coin collections and other items I can sell on eBay, I found my old Commodore 64. I managed to connect it to my modern TV and then had no problem deciding which game I wanted to play first.
Let me take you back to the 80s. I had a stack of C64 games in the form of 5.25″ floppy disks, most purchased and many pirated. Pirating was a gray area back then, like grabbing cash out of an open register when the cashier has turned around to get your cigarettes. Hey, if you’re going to offer me free money, I’m going to take it.
I played the classics. Zork. Ace of Aces. Zork II. Micro League Baseball. Zork III, probably, I can’t remember that one. The pirate text adventure where you had to say yo-ho. Bruce Lee. Summer Games. Yie Ar Kung Fu. Leaderboard. Beach-head. Raid Over Moscow. Seven Cities of Gold. Spy vs Spy. Karateka. Wow, my childhood kind of ruled.
A game I’ve never been nostalgic for is a frustrating little number called Time Tunnel. This game’s story is that you’re a gnome and you want to be the king of the gnomes and…you have a time machine…and to be king of the gnomes you need to collect some papers…and…forget it. It made no sense then and it makes no sense now. You have to use the time machine to go back to different eras and solve puzzles to get papers that you collect to form a message. Why does a gnome have a time machine? Why are the papers spread out in space and time? I don’t know. Why does the sun set? Why do you park in the driveway and drive on the parkway? Some things just be.
Where and when can you visit in this time machine? Glad you asked. You can go back to the Stone Age, ancient Persia, ancient Greece, the California Gold Rush, Salem back when people were surprised to see witches, a space ship, and…for some reason…a black hole. Good luck getting out of that one.
Examples of the puzzles you have to solve are using rocks and a log to make a lever and getting a horse to walk on a convoluted treadmill/pulley system.
Hey, Max, you’re probably thinking. Sounds like you hate this game. Why did you play it first?
Why? Why did Hillary climb Everest? Why did Neil step on another world? Why did Mary Lou Retton do flips? Why did Rocky take on the Russian even after the Russian killed Apollo Creed? Why? I’ll tell you why.
Because I couldn’t beat it.
I spent hours playing that game as a kid. I collected all of those papers and assembled them in the black hole. When I added the last one they came together to form a message. The message was mirrored, so I went and got a mirror from my mom. Why would she need one anyway? To avoid spoilers I won’t tell you the message here, but what I can tell you is I spent hours after that trying to figure out what I was supposed to do and never did. Sometimes you have to cut your losses, so I gave up.
When I played it today, I got right through the puzzles and back to that message. And I still didn’t know what I needed to do. The good news is I’m now an adult. I have a sharp mind. I can outthink lots of kids, so I figured I could solve this last puzzle. Did I figure it out? Yes, if going to YouTube and watching a walk-through is figuring it out.
After a couple of short steps I completed the game. What was I greeted by at the end? Credits? A cool animation of the gnome taking his throne and bringing down harsh judgment on his people? No. I played all the way through that game for a second time and all I got was this stupid image.
I don’t even know what language that is. What is it, ancient Sumerian? What does it mean? Probably good job, sucker. Thanks for the throne and your money. And what’s up with those feet? Gross! If I wanted to look at feet I would change my name to Quentin. I hate feet. Keep them covered, please.
My point here is sometimes it’s better not to go back, and sometimes it’s okay to decide you’ve taken something far enough and quit. Put that on an inspirational poster. If you do, send me royalties. I prefer tens and twenties.
That’s enough complaining about this 40 year-old game. I don’t want to ever think about it again, but I probably will.
Until next time, Gratulari!!!!!