Urchin

URCHIN

A text adventure for the Commodore 64

THE STORY

It's 1920. You are a young urchin, alone on the streets of London.

You lost your family to the war. The Workhouse that took you in left you poorly treated and underfed, so you ran away — and now you wander the streets, left to your own devices. Winter is coming. The nights under the tree in Regent Park aren't too cold yet, but they will be.

You'll need to eat. You'll need to be quick, and light-fingered, and you'll need to know when to run. There are eleven things worth having scattered across London — a golden pocket watch, a fine necklace, a sparkly egg, a rolled canvas and more — and a pawnshop owner who asks no questions.

Find them. Bring them to the pawnshop. Survive the winter.

REQUIREMENTS

  - VICE Emulator OR:

  - Commodore 64 (PAL or NTSC), or a Commodore 128 running in C64 mode

  - 1541 disk drive (or compatible)

  - The game ships as a .d64 disk image

Runs on real hardware or in an emulator such as VICE. The same disk image works on both PAL and NTSC machines.

HOW TO PLAY

Type what you want to do, in the form VERB NOUN — EXAMINE FOUNTAIN, TAKE APPLE, GIVE PIE

Only the first five letters of any word matter. EXAMINE, EXAMI and EXAM are all the same word to the parser, so you never have to type a long word in full if you don't want to.

A FEW HINTS

  - EXAMINE everything. Descriptions hide details that matter.

  - You have small hands and no strength. When brute force fails, look for a tool, or someone to do it for you.

  - A distraction is worth more than a fast pair of legs.

  - Pockets are worth picking, but not while anyone is watching.

COPYRIGHT

(C) Copyright 2023 - Roy Riggs (Furroy) Uses DAAD engine by Udo.

PUBLISHERS

  I wrote this game originally back in 2023 and several publishers had an interest in publishing a physical version, but for whatever reason ended up ghosting me. If you are a publisher interested in publishing it, by all means drop me a line!

MOVEMENT

  NORTH / N        SOUTH / S       EAST / E        WEST / W

  NE               NW              SE              SW

  UP / U           DOWN / D

  ENTER            EXIT / LEAVE

  LOOK / L / R     redescribe where you are

  INVENTORY / INVEN / INV / I      what you're carrying

VERBS / SPOILERS

Words on the same line all do the same thing — use whichever you like. Some of these verbs are SPOILERS, so you might not want to read though them all unless you're stuck!

  Looking and searching

    EXAMINE / EXAM / X

    SEARCH / RUMMAGE / DIG

  Carrying

    TAKE / GET / GRAB / HOLD / CATCH / PICKUP

    DROP / DISCARD

    PUT / INSERT

    GIVE

    THROW

  Wearing

    WEAR

    REMOVE / UNWEAR

  Getting into things

    OPEN

    CLOSE

    MOVE / PUSH / SLIDE

    PRY

    BREAK / SMASH

    KNOCK

    TIE

    DIP

    CLIMB

    SIT

    GO

  People

    TALK / SPEAK / ASK / SAY / BEG

    STEAL / ROB / PILFER / PURLOIN / PINCH / PICK

    BUMP / JOSTLE

    SELL

    TRADE

    FEED

    ATTACK / KILL / MURDER / STAB / CUT

  Other

    EAT

    USE

    LEFT

    RIGHT

  Housekeeping

    SAVE

    LOAD

    QUIT / RESTART