Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Camelot (1982) Guidebook Finished by Game's Author

Excited about the renewed interest in Camelot from my series of 2019 entries (beginning here), author Joshua Tabin has developed a 101-page guidebook to the game.
           
         
The book walks you through setting up a Cyber1 account so that you can play Camelot and other PLATO games. It includes a quick history of the PLATO series, with screenshots. The bulk of the manual is tips, tricks, and instructions for navigating the game, including the full text of the in-game manual; lists of monsters and equipment; and full maps of all 10 levels (there's still plenty for you to annotate). 

This is a great opportunity for any reader who's thought they'd like to try one of the PLATO games.

*****

And one other random announcement while I have you: I finally updated my Dungeons of Avalon II summary entry to reflect what commenter LanHawk discovered about the game, plus the winning screenshots he was able to obtain after fixing the problem for himself.

7 comments:

  1. 101 pages! I wish every game had something that comprehensive!

    ReplyDelete
  2. To be this passionate about one of his creations so niche and so old, Josh must be a fascinating guy to meet. I hope some day he gives a postmortem of Camelot at GDC or a similar show, he must have a lot of stories to tell.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nifty, hopefully someone makes use of it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Haha, this is cool. I'm trying to imagine the buzz he must be getting out of interest in his baby!

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's cool, but if he's interested in more people trying the game, he should consider removing some of the odd requirements from registering. I was interested until I saw they wanted an address and a phone number.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wait, really? That's bizarre. I was planning to check it out one day, but if that's true then I'm afraid I'll have to pass.

      Delete
    2. That's not Josh Tabin's requirement. That's from the people who run Cyber1. They don't ask for your street address, just your city and state (if in the U.S.). You could put in a fake phone number.

      Delete

I welcome all comments about the material in this blog, and I generally do not censor them. However, please follow these rules:

1. Do not link to any commercial entities, including Kickstarter campaigns, unless they're directly relevant to the material in the associated blog posting. (For instance, that GOG is selling the particular game I'm playing is relevant; that Steam is having a sale this week on other games is not.) This also includes user names that link to advertising.

2. Please avoid profanity and vulgar language. I don't want my blog flagged by too many filters. I will delete comments containing profanity on a case-by-case basis.

3. NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS. It makes it impossible to tell who's who in a thread. If you don't want to log in to Google to comment, either a) choose the "Name/URL" option, pick a name for yourself, and just leave the URL blank, or b) sign your anonymous comment with a preferred user name in the text of the comment itself.

4. I appreciate if you use ROT13 for explicit spoilers for the current game and upcoming games. Please at least mention "ROT13" in the comment so we don't get a lot of replies saying "what is that gibberish?"

5. Comments on my blog are not a place for slurs against any race, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or mental or physical disability. I will delete these on a case-by-case basis depending on my interpretation of what constitutes a "slur."

Blogger has a way of "eating" comments, so I highly recommend that you copy your words to the clipboard before submitting, just in case.

I read all comments, no matter how old the entry. So do many of my subscribers. Reader comments on "old" games continue to supplement our understanding of them. As such, all comment threads on this blog are live and active unless I specifically turn them off. There is no such thing as "necro-posting" on this blog, and thus no need to use that term.

I will delete any comments that simply point out typos. If you want to use the commenting system to alert me to them, great, I appreciate it, but there's no reason to leave such comments preserved for posterity.

I'm sorry for any difficulty commenting. I turn moderation on and off and "word verification" on and off frequently depending on the volume of spam I'm receiving. I only use either when spam gets out of control, so I appreciate your patience with both moderation tools.