Commodore.ca: The PET, VIC, 128, 64 & More Forum

Hello all.

In the mid-80s my dad (a high-school teacher) borrowed a PET from work a few times, and I remember the joys of pressing PLAY on TAPE #1, as I'm sure many of you knew all too well. We had a cassette with half a dozen games, the most memorable of which was something called Mission Impossible.

No, no -- not that Mission Impossible (or Impossible Mission -- with all the puzzle pieces, the elevator, and "Destroy him, my robots!"). This was a monochrome, ASCII-character game that I only ever saw on a PET. Maybe it somehow got misnamed on the cassette, but in any case I wouldn't know what it was called if not Mission Impossible.

Anyway, it was one of the most enjoyable simple games I ever played, and I've longed to play it again ever since. Here's a rough approximation of what it looked like: You would have to run from the right edge of the screen to the left edge, where you'd pick up a briefcase of money, then run back to the right edge to win. Meanwhile, arrows were falling down the screen -- first very slowly, though the speed increased with each successful money-grab -- which would knock you down if they hit you. At the start of each round there were three large blocks above you for protection, though these in turn would get destroyed bit by bit as the arrows collided with them. Each time you got hit (three times and you're dead), a little ambulance would run out to collect you.

Gameplay was nothing more than moving left and right. But a great feature (perhaps a programming bug which proved useful, who knows?) was that the arrows would only get you if they fell onto part of your body directly from above; if you slammed into one sideways (imagine running into one with your face instead of it falling on the top of your head) then it would just disappear and you'd be okay. This made the game more involved than simply dodging the arrows.

I've googled everything I can think of in my quest, to no avail (all I ever find is that C-64 game). I'm grateful for any information that might point me the right way.

Thanks for taking to the time to read this.

I myself don't recognize the game, but I will ask PET guru Larry Anderson if he knows anything about it. If he doesn't have any info, I'm wondering if it can be re-created in BASIC.

Truly,

Thanks, Robert.

I've actually contemplated trying to reproduce the game as you suggest ... I just wish I could see it in operation once again (or at least a screenshot) to remind myself of all the details. There's even a dim chance I might still have the game on a cassette tape in a box somewhere, though I've no idea what I'd be able to do with it; I live in a small town where I doubt there are any working PETs to be found.

Given that almost 700 people are members of this board (even if some don't check it very frequently), I'm holding out hope that someone will eventually recognize it and let me know.

Darn, Larry has not responded. That must mean he doesn't know the game. I will forward your message to another forum and see if anyone knows anything about it.

Truly,

I'll keep my fingers crossed. Thanks once again.

Here's the response I got --

----------- Forwarded message ----------

From: crock

That's Money Wars, but don't recall it being released on the PET, I only played it on the VIC. There are several videos on YouTube.

There's some more information at

http://www.commodore128.net/index.php?topic=2919.0

Unfortunately, the download link that is there doesn't work anymore. You may have to contact Robin Harbron directly in order to get a copy of the game.

Truly,

That's fantastic! Thanks for your help.

I just watched a video of someone playing it on the VIC, and what's amazing is that it looks so much more "modern" than the game I played, which was clearly for the PET. The VIC version actually used real graphics, where the PET version made do with whatever ASCII characters it could get its hands on, which I guess was part of the charm.

Anyway, I have a place to start from now.

I wonder: if I ever do locate this (or any other old PET program) on a tape cassette, would it ever be feasible for me to record it as a WAV or FLAC file in order to send it to someone with a PET (who would presumably make a tape from it, or perhaps some clever program exists to convert the sound into code) ? Or would my only option be to copy the tape and send that?

You can contact Robin by using his e-mail address found at the bottom of

http://my.tbaytel.net/macbeth/

Then you can ask him for a copy on tape (or whatever kind of file you need).

Truly,