Game 532: Idol of Monterey (1985)

 

"Tough. There isn't any."

        

Idol of Monterey

United States

MicroSPARC (developer and publisher)

Released 1985 for Apple II

Date Started: 27 November 2024

Date Ended: 27 November 2024

Total Hours: 2

Difficulty: Easy-Very Easy (1.5/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later) 

      

Idol of Monterey isn't an RPG by my definitions, but it took me less than a couple of hours to master and win it, so what the hell. Here's a full (if short) entry. I didn't play The Great Ultizurkian Underland this week because it requires a numberpad, and I didn't have it with me for most of the week.

   

Monterey is a simple game that has your unnamed character wander a single randomized 30 x 15 screen looking for treasure in general and the titular idol specifically. You start with 3000 "strength points," which are basically just hit points, and as you acquire treasure, you amass "treasure points." When the game ends, it tallies your defeated foes and collected treasure and gives you a final score.

 

Starting on a fresh map.

        

Every square has a random chance of five things:

    

1. Nothing
2. An unguarded treasure
3. A treasure guarded by a monster
4. A whisper on the wind that tells you the direction of the idol
5. A trap

       

Zowie!, indeed.

       

About 50% of the squares have #3. When you encounter a monster, the game tells you what treasure it's guarding. You can fight, bribe, or run. If you fight, you have to spend a number of strength points against the enemy. If you don't spend enough, you die. Through trial and error (the game plays quickly), I figured out the minimum number of points, in increments of 25, necessary to beat each foe:

   

• Cyclops (50)
• Harpy (100)
• Troll (125)
• Griffin (175)
• Goblin (200)

       

That's pretty much the definition of "death."

      

• Minotaur (200)
• Skeleton (200)
• Wyvern (325)

 

Defeating a wyvern.

      

• Basilisk (375)
• Dragon (500)

   

Since you have a limited pool of strength (although slain enemies occasionally deliver a strength potion), you naturally want to get to the idol as quickly as possible. Whether you find the idol or not, the game ends when you die, quit, or walk off the screen. The last option is the only way that you can preserve the treasure that you found and gain points for it.

     

Final statistics for a winning game.

     

The idol is guarded by a dragon. If you make it off the map with it, the game says that "the dwarves declare you their hero," which must refer to a backstory that perhaps accompanied the game, though it's impossible to imagine a game this simple having a "manual."

     

       

Five more notes:

   

• Monsters occasionally guard "treasure eaters" instead of treasure. If you slay the monster, the treasure eater takes some of your treasure points.

• Bribing never worked for me. Enemies just took the money and I had to fight them anyway.

• The idol can spawn in areas completely closed off from the rest of the map by trees (X), which you cannot pass.

• The game asks if you want sound at the beginning and then, as far as I can tell, has no sound.

• As you move across the screen, the game replaces periods, indicating open spaces, with colons, indicating that you've been there.

         

The idol in this game is in the closed-off area of the northwest.

      

There isn't a lot of fun to be had here, nor challenge, and the game thus earns a 6 on the GIMLET, with 1s in a few categories.

    

The game is credited to a Glenn Archer, who also wrote a version of Concentration (1984) for SoftSide magazine. It was published by MicroSPARC of Lincoln, Massachusetts, which is more famous for publishing Nibble magazine from 1980 to 1992. They released a dozen simple software titles during that period. The only version of the game that I could find came on a compilation disk that the company published in 1986; other games included Will 'O the Wisp (1980), a text adventure; Castle Riche (1984), a graphical adventure; and Adventure Construction Set (1985), a writer of simple text adventures.

    

I don't know what to make of the title. My best guess is that the author was going for something along the lines of "Maltese falcon." The only other mention of the phrase that I can find occurs in the May, June, and October 1947 issues of Guernsey Breeders' Journal, in which a bull named "Don's Idol of Monterey" is said to be owned by Howard J. White (1884-1963) of Monterey Farm in Middletown, Delaware. His son, Howard J. White Jr. (1920-2010) earned a PhD in chemistry from Princeton University and was the executive secretary of the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam. Man, there's an international association for everything.