Dukedom

I was exploring Macgui.com today in the Apple II download section.  I was looking at different adventure games and ran across a Dos 3.3 disk called text adventures.  The directory showed what looks like seven different games and a disk menu program.  First thing I did was use the SpyGlass feature to look at some of the games.

One of the programs looked familiar.  It is called Dukedom and is a relative of Hamurabi.  I’d seen listings before in Creative Computing, but had never tried it.  I downloaded a copy and gave it a try.  I didn’t play for long but managed about 21 years before I got fired by the king.  I’m going to play again and try to win, but have some initial observations.

The game is in Applesoft on a Dos 3.3 diskette and like many games of this era is all in upper case, which, I think, makes it hard to read.  Additionally, I would clean up the displays and move some of the stuff around.  It starts with a summary and then a table of the information.  I would move the summary toward the bottom and then clean up some of the input routines.