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BORG ATTACK! (VIC-20) – Captain Picard has chosen you for a mission to stop the Borg from assimilating the peaceful (and defenseless) Chandrans, who possess secret knowledge that could allow the Borg to eventually assimilate the entire universe!  The game requires 3K RAM expansion in "Block 0" ($0400 to $0FFF), and can be played with a joystick or from the keyboard.  Disk and tape files, plus documentation -- including some amazing artwork by The Webdoktor himself: Masterhit1 -- are in the linked ZIP archive.  Health Warning - this game has a rapidly flashing screen at some points of play, so be advised. (It is not difficult to disable this "feature.")

TINY PILOT (C16 or PLUS/4) – PILOT is a high-level programming language with roots in the early days of Computer-Aided Instruction for the classroom.  This version stems from 1979's Tiny PILOT for the SYM-1 and KIM-1 computers by Nicholas Vrtis, and later augmented in 1980 by Bob Applegate and Robert Schultz.  I've added new statements and commands for text color, full PETSCII graphics capability, and some basic sounds.  PILOT is a superb dialog engine, and writing adventure games or "choose-your-own-path" stories is a breeze with Tiny PILOT.  The ZIP file contains the interpreters (two!), full documentation including the source code, and over a dozen games and demonstration programs.

PALLIDA MORS (PLUS/4 or expanded C16) – Written by someone then-known only as "The Doppelgänger", somewhere in Yorkshire in the early '80s, comes an adventure game sinister and spooky, the name of which in English is "Pale Death."  You'll have to fight off a horde of medieval demons, wraiths, and monsters to gather all of the treasure and bring is out of a haunted manor.  This appeared in the first issue of Oric Computing magazine, in the UK.

DEADLY ADVENTURE (C16 or PLUS/4) – Your mission is to return the prince's "Elector's Ring," stolen by an unscrupulous burgermeister in a neighboring duchy.  You'll have to navigate hazards, puzzles, and beasts over mountains, through a forest, and ultimately attempt to confront the burgermeister and take back the ring.  Originally unfinished (and in Hungarian) by the well-known programmer "Jimy" in the mid- to late-80s, I found this game in a huge program archive, and I liked it so much I decided to finish it and give it a scenario.  It just fits into a stock C-16, leaving only 148 bytes to spare, once it's running.

FRESITAS (C16 or PLUS/4) – Harvest the strawberries while avoiding unwanted items and the deadly worm.  I found this game on a disk from CompuClub, based in Mexico City in the '80s and '90s.  I fixed a glitch in the title tune and added joystick control.  The original version can be found at Plus4World.

LIL' ZILCH (VIC-20) – A small-sized dice game similar to games you might also know as Greedy or Cosmic Wimpout.  Originally for the PAL-1 in Tiny BASIC, this version has animated dice and sound effects and runs on the unexpanded VIC-20.

THE VALLEY (PET) – A mega-classic RPG for the PET that was huge in the U.K. in the early '80s.  computing today magazine devoted most of an issue to it in April 1982, and for the next year, readers modified and expanded the program -- it was clearly a much-loved game.  There is a souped-up version for C64 on the 'net, but not the original PET version...so I typed it in (for that late-night, teenage nerd experience) and now it's here, in a D64 format.  Also in the archive are scans from the magazines and some of my notes, as well.

THE VALLEY (VIC-20) – This is a hard-to-find VIC-20 version of The Valley (.PRG), kindly sent to me by Paul Kitching.  The physical valley is a little smaller (obviously!), but the gameplay is the same as the original.  The program is also in BASIC, so while the line numbers won't match up, it should be easy enough to identify the various modules from the PET documentation, if you want to mod the program.

HATE (VIC-20) – Based on a card game called Switch, Hate pits you against the computer in a race to get rid of all of your cards.  Another game found on a 6800 FLEX archived disk image.  Requires an 8K RAM expansion.  And my apologies to Gustav Holst.

SWEDISH WHIST (VIC-20) -- 16K RAM expansion is needed for this simpler variant on the 18th century game Whist, an ancestor of Bridge, in which you and your partner 'Lars' go up against the former champs of Uppsala City, the seemingly robotic twins Karin and Keri in an effort to take more tricks (usually) than your opponent.  Sometimes, Lars is a wonderful, insightful partner; other times, you want to kill him!  I found this on a 1980 TSC FLEX 9 OS archived disk...in Swedish.  With help from The Webdoktor (Nils A.), we modified and augmented this to run under both KB9 and MITS Altair 680 BASIC 1.1, and now I have a VIC-20 version, too.  The program plays a good game, and if you're unfamiliar with Whist, Wikipedia has a good, concise article on game play.  It might work with just 8K expansion, if you take out all the REMs and cut the instructions.

TRAIL WEST (VIC-20) – Well, if nothing else, this classic from Micro-Ed allowed VIC-20 owners without RAM expansion to "travel the trail," ala Oregon Trail-style, albeit in a much less complex environment.  Still, it's fun to play, and it's an amazing achievement to do this in the RAM of an unexpanded VIC-20.  The linked file is a TAP, so you'll want to haul that into the VICE emulator, then make a .d64, then get that into your actual VIC-20.

MAKING TAPES FOR and FROM VIC-20  (VIC/C64/C16) – Don't have an XA1541 cable, or a parallel port on your PC any longer?  These notes will help you create readable Datasette cassette tapes for the noted machines from PRG files gleaned from the internet, or wherever.  All you need is an old cassette recorder, tapes, and some free software.  Also, how to read in old tapes so the contents can be used on emulators, archived, etc.

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