Oric Adventures Nothing much has happened over the last few years in the Oric adventure world. As a reminder of some of the big events, in 1998 we saw the Scott Adams adventure series ported to the Oric (Adventureland, Pirate Adventure etc) and the arrival of Pinforic which allows many of the Infocom adventures to be run on an Oric Disc system. Games you can play include Zork and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. The Oric was an ideal machine for text adventures (with or without graphics). The following points illustrate this: 1. Good keyboard, especially on the Atmos & Telestrat models. 2. Large memory. The 48K models had 38K available for BASIC programs if Hi-Res graphics were required or 46K available if graphics were not required. Clever use of machine code could wring more memory out of the system if needed. 3. Good text display. 40 columns of clear, well defined characters provided a relaxing text view for the eyes. 4. Disc system. Although a little late in the day, a good disc and DOS combination was available for larger programs. 5. It was easy to write decent adventures using just BASIC. The BASIC was just about quick enough to provide resaonable response timesfor programs written in BASIC. This enabled a number of authors to produce programs without having to learn machine code. Recommended Programs If you are a fan of adventures then you'll want to know what programs were available for the Oric. Many of these are available for download online these days. Below you'll find my recommendations for programs to try and further down the page a more comprehensive list of Oric adventure programs, some good, some bad and some awful! I don't have very much information on French (or other language) adventures, but many of these were much more professionally produced than programs from the UK. Infocom Series: The production of Pinforic allowed several Infocom adventures to be run on the Oric. These programs are highly recommended for text adventure fans, although a disc system is required. More details of Pinforic can be found in a review elsewhere on this site, but here is a list of adventures known to work using this interpreter: Zork 1, 2 & 3 , Ballyhoo , Cutthroats , Deadline , Enchanter , Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy , Hollywood Hijinx , Infidel , Leather Goddesses Of Phobos , Lurking Horror , Moonmist , Planetfall , Plundered Hearts , Seastalker , Sorcerer , Spellbreaker , Starcross , Stationfall , Suspect , Suspended , Wishbringer , Witness. Scott Adams Series: Remember Adventureland, Pirate Adventure and The Count? Well, an interpreter for these programs has been imported to the Oric so you can now play these games on an Oric, although there are no graphics. Like Pinforic, a disc system is required. The full list of programs available is as follows: Adventureland, Pirate Adventure, Impossible Mission, Voodoo Castle, The Count, Strange Odyssey, Mystery Fun House, Pyramid Of Doom, Ghost Town, Savage Island Part 1, Savage Island Part 2,The Golden Voyage, The Sorcerer Of Claymorgue Castle, Return To Pirates Isle, Buckaroo Banzai, Questprobe 1: The Hulk, Questprobe 2: Spiderman and a mini sampler adventure. Mysterious Adventures Series: Another range of adventures, this time from Brian Howarth. These were actually released for the Oric rather than being later importations such as the Scott Adams and Infocom series. They incorporated graphics, although the programs could be run as text only - a nice touch. Very similar in style to the Scott Adams games. The following titles were released: Arrow Of Death Part 1, Arrow Of Death Part 2, Circus, Escape From Pulsar 7, Feasibility Experiment, The Golden Baton, Perseus & Andromeda, Ten Little Indians, Waxworks and Wizard Of Akyrz. Level 9 Series: A range of excellent text adventures were available for the Oric 1 (only, sorry Atmos users) from Level 9. These were huge text adventures with glorious descriptions and lots of objects and puzzles to play with. These games are as traditional to the origins of adventures as you can get. The series available for the Oric is as follows: Adventure Quest, Colossal Adventure, Dungeon Adventure, Lords of Time and Snowball. Tyrann and Tyrann 2: Le Fer D'Amnukor Released by No Mans Land these are true role-playing games in the swords and sorcery style where you have to take a group of characters into dungeons in a quest for treasure and advancement with minimal text. Tyrann 2 is in French only. That little list should keep you busy for a while. Below you'll find a link to a list of all the Oric adventures I am aware of. Let me know if you know of any more.