Scholastic's Microzine Series

[xgeek]

Aloha, first time poster, and new member of this lovely BBS.

I came across your emulator and played Oregon Trail for hours. So I started going through some of my grade school memories and would like to request the Scholastic Microzine series (My favorite was called 'Malice in Wonderland').

Just thought I'd throw it out there. Great work!

[billm]

I will have to check on the copyrights of that series before we can post them to the site.

Cheers

--billm--

[spidermurphy236]

I second the request for the MicroZine series!

Information about this series is so hard to come by... The only things I can find on-line are forum posts of other people asking questions about it. I've even contacted Scholastic, who sent a very terse reply: "Due to the age of that product it is no longer available."

I remember Escape from Antcatraz, and Malice in Wonderland, and there was another game that I'm pretty sure was from the MicroZine series but I can't remember what it was called... you were exploring a castle, and it may have involved King Arthur and Merlin.

Anything that could fill the gaps in my memory would be welcome!

[bossk]

I have a couple of these disks. Did you decide the legal status of these yet?

[amnesoid]

Ahh! Yes! My mother used to teach in the computer room at school in the mid-1980's, and I would hang out playing these games til 4PM waiting for her to close up shop. 'MicroAgent of the Bodyguard' (with Arby Sea), 'Mission: Mix Up' (the one where you mixed up chemicals), 'Malice In Wonderland', 'Escape from AntCatraz'.

And I definitely remember one that had something to due with castles and King Arthur and Merlin and all that. Is that the one that had "The Chartreuse Room"? I just bought a house and i am going to paint one of the rooms chartreuse, and it made me think of that game. I can't remember the title, but i'm pretty sure it was in the Microzine series.

Can someone with the disks make these into ROMs?? Illegally, if necessary!

[spidermurphy236]

oh wow - now that you mention "the chartreuse room", that sounds SO familiar. i tried asking about it on yahoo answers once, but didn't get any helpful information. this was the other stuff that i thought i remembered (which may be way off after 25 years, who knows):

you started outside by a drawbridge, and if you ever "died" in the game, you would wake up back outside here. The first room had a cobweb in the corner, and the text description mentioned it. There was a wine cellar where you had to pick up a bottle for some reason. There was a well where a sea monster or something would jump out and attack you. There was a banquet room where a ghost would get mad at you if you sat in the king's chair. There was a ghost of a jester, and I think there might have been a ghost of a guy with a falcon.

i've been haunted by this game for years - i would die a happy man if i could remember what it was called or see some screenshots of it.

[Blackthorne519]

Oh wow. I grew up with Apple II's in the classroom - and I used to play Microzine ALL the time. So much, that the teacher would yell at me for neglecting my studies. I booted that up whenever I could.

I would really love it if someone could make some ROM images of them - reliving a bit of my childhood computing? That's worth it's weight in gold!

Bt

[spidermurphy236]

Hey everyone, I was able to dig up the name of the castle game!

Every few months I do some googling to see if anything new has popped up, and this is what I found:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/adventure/gamelist.txt

The Dark Tower
Type: G
Written 1984 or before.

Runs on:
* Apple II

Comments: Text/crude graphics adventure (cruder than Mystery House)
and in black and white. The idea was to enter a castle and work your
way upstairs to the tower. There were tons of rooms like The Jester's
Room (where a jester asks you what you say to a two headed dragon, and
if you didn't type "Hello, hello" in the most parser-perfect syntax,
he throws you out the window), the Ivy Room (where ivy tries to
strangle you), and a room where you find a monster taking a bath!
It
was probably produced by a company that was affiliated with Microsoft
(Microzone or Softzone maybe, or even Scholastic).

I hope this helps someone else and saves them from years of online searching!

Now I need to see if this game still exists in any form anywhere!

--- ALSO:

according to this issue of Hardcore Computist from 1988: http://www.computist-project.net/pdfs/h ... ssue60.pdf
The Dark Tower was part of a Two-Game disk published by Microzine called "Tales of Fantasy: The Dark Tower and The Frog & The Fables"

The Frog & The Fables is on the cover of one of Microzine's issues (as seen in this old for-sale listing: http://neighborhoodvalues.com/nv/else/Tech/071ev.htm) so that might have been the same one The Dark Tower was included with.


EDIT:

I found Dark Tower disk image! It is in the Asimov Archives here:
ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net/pub/apple_II ... adventure/

My life is complete!

[maggit]

Any news on the microzine files coming on board?

[ohaverma]

I have been cleaning out our basement and have found loads of old software including at least two dozen Scholastic Microzine pieces of software, some that have never been opened. Was able to resurrect some old computers and the seem to work; Macintosh SE, a 660AV. Will have to get a 3.6 lithium batter to see is the IIgs can work so I can try some of the old software. Now all I need is more time.