I recently cataloged all of my old Commodore 64 diskettes using DirMaster from Style (highly recommended). While browsing through the list of programs, one title jumped out at me: MAGIT MANSION. That particular title jumped out at me for three reasons: one, because it was located on disk 001 (my very first disk); two, because even though it was located on the front side of the first disk in my collection, somehow I had no memory of ever playing it; and three, somebody didn’t know how to spell MAGGOT.

I fired the game up in an emulator and typed RUN. “Welcome to MAGGIT MANSION,” the screen declared. Great. Not only could the author not spell the word MAGGOT, he couldn’t misspell it the same way twice. Obviously the game was a text adventure, and a primitive looking one at that.

The game begins with the player in the most trite of text adventure locations, the front porch of a haunted house. The last line (“YOU SEE A DOOR HERE.”) prompted me to type “OPEN DOOR”. I did, and soon found myself inside the mansion’s foyer, with options of going west to the living room or east to the kitchen. I decided to head east to check out the kitchen first. While it’s a matter of personal preference, I tend to find that authors of text adventures (especially beginning ones) like to hide needed objects in their virtual kitchens.

Inside the game’s kitchen I was greeted by a floating knife. This scenario immediately set off mental alarms for me. I have spoken and written many times about an identical scenario in Haunted House, a game I played as a child on our TRS-80. The solution in that game, as deceptively simple as it seems, was GET KNIFE. After typing that same command in this game, the game responded with “YOU NOW HAVE THE KNIFE” before unceremoniously dumping me out into BASIC.

That was rude. Let’s try this again.

“WELCOME TO MAGIT MANSION…”

(Yeah, yeah, yeah…)

Thinking there might be more to do outside the house, instead of opening the door I typed “OPEN MAILBOX” and hit enter. (Authors of text adventures also love hiding things in mailboxes.) But instead of interacting with the mailbox, I got the exact same response as before and was automatically moved into the foyer of Magit Mansion. Huh. Again I entered the kitchen to face the enchanted knife. Instead of attempting to take the knife this time, I decided to examine it closer.

“> LOOK KNIFE” [enter].

“YOU NOW HAVE THE KNIFE.”
“READY.”

Seriously, what the hell?

A quick examination of the BASIC code explained the game’s multiple issues: I wrote it.

10 REM MAGIT MANSION
20 BY ROBBIE O’HARA

Upon digging into the code a bit further I found that my “text adventure” wasn’t a text adventure at all. Anything you type while standing on the front porch moves you to inside the house. Entering any room but the kitchen crashes the game, and any command entered within the kitchen takes the knife.

To quote Luke Skywalker’s initial opinion of the Millennium Falcon: “What a piece of junk!” And while Han was quick to defend his ship’s honor, I cannot do the same with MAGIT MANSION. Not only was it incomplete and riddled with misspellings (including the first word of the title), but it wasn’t even a game.

I estimate I wrote MAGIT MANSION back in 1985 or 1986. I graduated high school in 1991. Over the past 20 years I’ve written lots of useful programs, and in 2011 I even wrote my own text adventure. I’ve come a long way since MAGIT MANSION.

You know what they say: fake it until you make it. Take it from me… it works.