Mystery House (Remodeled)

The "first graphic adventure" (according to itself), and the game that launched Sierra On-Line, with over 80,000 units sold worldwide, is now available for the Pico-8. Do **YOU** have what it takes to find the killer's treasure and become "a guru wizard?"

This conversion of the Apple 2 classic brings the full game, all text, graphics, ***and bugs***,  to your favorite virtual console. The entire 140K original has been crushed down to a single 60K Pico-8 cart.

**Keyboard REQUIRED (mobile not supported)

What Is It?

You might be confused by the concepts of "adventure game" and how a computer can be used to transport you to a fantasy world. Not to worry, time traveler from 1980, this painstaking recreation of the original flyer that advertised the game will explain this public domain classic.

Features

• Hand-drawn graphics! The original Apple 2 high-res 256px wide images have been lovingly redrawn, accurate to the original, for the 128px wide Pico-8 display
• Verb AND noun parser! "Guess the verb" has never been so much fun.*
• Save your game! The puzzle of the butterknife has you stumped? Does that shovel actually DO anything? While pondering the mysteries of the house, feel free to "SAVE GAME" at any time and "RESTORE GAME" later, even in the browser.
• Apple 2-style image transitions. Learn why it was called "venetian blinds."
• Sudden death. Even the most innocuous action can lead to instant, sudden, no f**ks given death. Save often, or don't, I'm not a cop.
• Weird bugs. You go `east` into a room, but can't go `west` to go back?  The staircase appears to go down, but you have to go `up` to use it? Teleporting jewels? Welcome to Mystery House!
• Weird not-bugs! How did so many people get killed when you saw them just seconds earlier gathered in the entry hall? Is that supposed to be a towel? Welcome to Mystery House!

*guessing the verb might not actually be enjoyable

Oh My God, This Is Impossible

Here's a nice walkthrough.

How It Was Made

As the original source code has been lost to time, this port was made possible by:

1. The analysis Inspecting the Foundation of Mystery House by J. Aycock and K. Biittner for the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology, 2019
2. I created a custom vector illustration program I call Versawriter-8, in honor of the Versawriter Roberta and Ken used in building the original Mystery House.
   
   1. Details and download at Lexaloffle (requires ownership of Pico-8 to use)
   2. Source code on GitHub
3. The creation of another companion program, 1 Bit Wonder, which offers a fun, sometimes overlooked approach to 1-bit image compression with "free" decompression.
   (source code coming soon)

Two extended blog posts are in the works to talk about the guts of the game, from a historical/archaelogical perspective, as well as how the Pico-8 implementation works (for those with aspirations to modify things for their own, unique games).

The Future of the Project

While every attempt was made during development to be truthful and accurate to the original implementation, some elements escaped my understanding. The project will grow in two foreseeable ways:

1. Increased accuracy
   Some elements of the original source code remain a little opaque. My goal is to implement the new source code in such a way that bugs from the original are replicated as a natural side-effect of accurate implementation. For example, a bug with inventory items, especially the "brick" and "jewels" is currently implemented as a hack to simulate the bug. However, a drawing bug with the "gun" inventory item is implemented in such a way that the same bug manifests itself for the same reason it does in the original.
2. General adventure game building for the Pico-8
   By eliminating the bugs and hacks to emulate the original accurately, a more robust, general-purpose approach to building graphic adventures for the Pico-8 is possible. The core "engine" combined with an updated version of Versawriter-8 (see "How It Was Made" above) may provide a decent pair of tools for creating standalone graphic adventures.

Regarding Bugs

This recreation of Mystery House has been intentionally built to contain the same bugs as the original game, but to *not* introduce new bugs. Feel free to report bugs, but it would help a lot if you could confirm the bug is unique to this version and does not exist in the original. New bugs shall be squished; classic bugs shall flourish.

Source Code General Availability

Source code, collateral images, tools, notes, and more are available now at
https://github.com/ChristopherDrum/mystery_house_remodeled