Mountain Valley Software was one of the early home grown Australian
software producers, based in Victoria, they produced a number of
text / graphic adventure games for the Commodore 64 and
Spectra-Video home computers between 1984 - 1986.
Each of these adventures have the standard two-word entry, keyboard
graphics, very limited location description, a limited vocabulary
and each is written in BASIC. Then, you may ask, what is so special
about Mountain Valley Software adventure games? For a start,
Mountain Valley must have the neatest screen presentation ever seen
in adventure games. The screen is split up into three parts.
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Location descriptions
consisting of name of place, object visible and exits
available.
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A very neat graphic
representation of the location. The graphics are so good you
would not believe they were just Commodore keyboard
graphics!
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Command entry section,
displaying any messages etc.
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Although the
vocabulary is very small, the programmer has selected words commonly
used in adventure games, and the error message doesn't appear that
often during the game.
All the problems faced by the adventurer, although hard, require
just common sense, and can be solved easily with a bit of thought.
All Mountain Valley games feature lots of humour to relax the player
during those tense moments in the game.
The main thing that makes the adventure games so good is that they
are easy to solve, you won't find yourself spending months on end
trying to crack these adventures. Because the adventure is easy, it
prevents the adventurer from giving up too quickly. The neat screen
presentation makes game play very enjoyable, and encourages the
adventurer to keep coming back for more.
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