Jason Dyer
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jdyer.bsky.social
Jason Dyer
@jdyer.bsky.social
2.9K followers 290 following 680 posts
Game designer making mathematics and science interactive. I also do the All the Adventures project where I play and write about every adventure game ever made in chronological order.

http://bluerenga.blog
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Jason Dyer @jdyer.bsky.social · May 14
All the Adventures aims to give the history about and play every adventure game ever made in chronological order. The 1982 sequence has just concluded, and I've written a post looking back and collecting some notable games.

#history #adventuregame

bluerenga.blog/2025/05/14/a...
All The Adventures Up to 1982 in Review
It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to do one of these; my 1981 in review was posted December 20, 2021. The chart with plot types like Rescue, Escape, etc. just isn’t that helpful…
bluerenga.blog
jdyer.bsky.social
in which All the Adventures returns to England with Epic Hero #1: Ocean Hunt

containing a bloodthirsty merchant

an extremely bad pun leading to an existential crisis

a brief history of the Colour Genie

and a mostly unknown yet prolific author, Marc Leduc

bluerenga.blog/2026/02/09/e...
Epic Hero #1, Ocean Hunt (1982/1983)
In the April 1984 edition of Imagine magazine, intended mostly for tabletop gaming, Mike Costello (editor of Wargame News and Warmachine) started a column devoted to home computer gaming. Many read…
bluerenga.blog
February 10, 2026 at 3:35 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
My conclusion to the grand cinematic experiment for PC-88 from XTAL SOFT in Japan, Cosmo Cross. I get past the adventure section and reach a mysterious planet full of monoliths, and a cutscene which aspires for an era far past its time.

bluerenga.blog/2026/02/08/c...
Cosmo Cross: The Thing’s Hollow—It Goes on Forever—
(Continued from my previous posts.) I was missing one reasonably simple (but still hard to find) action in order to escape with the Bluestone; I did try the next part of the game but it didn’…
bluerenga.blog
February 9, 2026 at 3:49 AM
Reposted by Jason Dyer
eblong.com
“To fight a troll”: notes on the combat mechanics of Zork 1.

blog.zarfhome.com/2026/02/to-f...
To fight a troll
Everybody knows that you KILL TROLL WITH SWORD until he vanishes in a greasy black fog. If he kills you first, big deal; RESTORE and try again. It's too random to be a real obstacle. But do you know t...
blog.zarfhome.com
February 8, 2026 at 6:01 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
Cosmo Cross, the bizarre sim/adventure hybrid, continues

involving major issues with guess-the-noun

and one looming warning

bluerenga.blog/2026/02/07/c...
Cosmo Cross: Don’t Look Behind You
(Continued from my previous post.) I’ve made progress on but haven’t yet finished the ADV part of Cosmo Cross; while I suspect the section is short, I made it through enough content to …
bluerenga.blog
February 7, 2026 at 10:47 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
All the Adventures dips back to 1982 for a space sim-adventure game hybrid from Japan. I give the history of how a music company switched to games and the workings behind the space-combat section:

bluerenga.blog/2026/02/06/c...
Cosmo Cross (1982)
The company for today’s game, confusingly, goes by X’TAL SOFT, XTAL SOFT, or CRYSTAL SOFT depending on what document you are looking at. At least the title of the game is straightforwar…
bluerenga.blog
February 6, 2026 at 6:59 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
Today on All the Adventures:

an '83-vintage My Univesity/College game, including excessive drinking and zealous resident assistants

bluerenga.blog/2026/02/03/u...
University Adventure (1983)
Today sees the return of the tapemag T&D Subscription Software, which we last saw with the game Killer Mansion. The tapemag was started in 1982 by Tom Dykema to distribute Tandy Color Computer …
bluerenga.blog
February 3, 2026 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by Jason Dyer
quarterpast.bsky.social
Time to kick off a (year-long) commemoration of one of THE OLDEST video games known to history! 🎊

It’s “Bouncing Ball” — a candidate for the first-ever video game — celebrating its (75th) Diamond Anniversary this year!

🧵👇
February 2, 2026 at 7:27 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
Next on All the Adventures, one of the buggiest published games I've ever come across, from the tapemag Chromasette

staggeringly, breathtakingly broken as published

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/30/h...
House Adventure (1983)
House Adventure first appeared in the “tape magazine” Chromasette, the January 1983 issue. We’ve seen Chromasette before with games like Williamsburg Adventure that were republish…
bluerenga.blog
January 31, 2026 at 2:32 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
Alas: I needed to do at least one more post on PRISM (the real life treasure hunt from 1982), as there's a version I didn't know about for Atari computers. The images are different enough to cause some of the potential clues to radically change.

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/28/p...
PRISM: The Atari Version
(Continued from my previous posts.) Curses, foiled again! The review that mentions PRISM (Creative Computing, May 1983) only lists the game for Apple II, and PRISM barely got any mentions later, so…
bluerenga.blog
January 29, 2026 at 2:27 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
Here's my last post on PRISM (for now), the Apple II game with clues to find real-life treasure. I work out how the game is likely hinting how to find a burial spot and I find an unexpected clue in the game's background sounds.

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/27/p...
PRISM: The Clinging
(Continued from my previous posts.) This is my last post on PRISM for now; just like with Alkemstone, if something comes up worth posting about I may return. Some things to get out of the way first…
bluerenga.blog
January 27, 2026 at 8:40 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
The study of PRISM continues, as I go back over some history of Masquerade (which the game was heavily inspired by) and try to get at the central question of: how do you specify the exact location of three different buried treasures with 1982 technology?

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/25/p...
PRISM: How to Hide Something So Almost Nobody Finds It
(Continued from my previous posts on PRISM.) Nobody is easy. Almost nobody, that’s the tricky part. On the night of August 7th, 1979, I set off with Bamber Gascoigne, who was chosen to witnes…
bluerenga.blog
January 25, 2026 at 6:21 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
I'm not doing any PRISM updates today, but if you haven't seen it yet, you can read my coverage of Alkemstone, another buried object with information buried in an Apple II game (this time a proper game! ... kind of).

bluerenga.blog/tag/alkemsto...
alkemstone – Renga in Blue
Posts about alkemstone written by Jason Dyer
bluerenga.blog
January 24, 2026 at 10:49 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
The grand conclusion of the PRISM story, including some riddles like

NOT A ROCK / NEVER HOT / NOT FRUIT / NEVER LOCKED

plus

IN AT 7 / OUT AT FOUR / FORWARD 8 / AND SLIGHTLY MORE

which lead to real buried treasure.

Solving continues in the comments!

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/22/p...
PRISM: Unspeakable Forms
(Continued from my previous posts.) First off, to share from the comments– Morpheus Kitami: The colored letters have different kinds of colors. Maybe instead of one word per page, it’s one se…
bluerenga.blog
January 23, 2026 at 2:21 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
Part 2 of my series on the (never solved) real-life treasure hunt PRISM, on a "Storydisk" from 1982 for Apple II.

We try to solve the game in the comments!

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/22/p...
PRISM: Colorless as a Tear
(Continued from my last post.) From a review by Brian Murphy (Creative Computing, May 1983) he writes that: I was unable to wrest any hints from ISM. Are the keys more than one hundred miles apart?…
bluerenga.blog
January 22, 2026 at 2:12 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
In 1982, a company out of New York made three golden keys and buried them. They put clues in an interactive book in the format of an Apple II program called PRISM.

The treasure has never been located, so today, All the Adventures embarks on solving the mystery.

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/21/p...
PRISM (1982)
PRISM is an ISM Storydisk which tells the wonderous tale of the theft of the three ancient Keys of Color, and the adventures of the young boy who must seek them in the monstrous kingdom of Yolsva, …
bluerenga.blog
January 21, 2026 at 1:40 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
I played The Colonel's House, a VIC-20 adventure game, about a year ago. The author contacted me not long ago and I did an interview, so I am able to give the history of how the game was made for the first time.

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/20/t...

original post here: bluerenga.blog/2025/03/10/t...
The Colonel’s House: Interview with the Author
(Continued from a post from a year ago. You should probably read that post before this one.) While I occasionally reach a videogame in the All the Adventures project which is famous enough to have …
bluerenga.blog
January 20, 2026 at 1:41 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
the ending of Sword of Raschkil, which features a puzzle so inexplicable, so baffling, I have to coin a new word

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/19/s...
Sword of Raschkil: Supermoon Logic
I’ve finished the game; this continues directly from my previous post. I received warning on the puzzle I was stuck on from gschmidl that: “I have no idea how you’re supposed to f…
bluerenga.blog
January 19, 2026 at 2:15 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
A new quest emergence on All the Adventures, including a short history of H & E Computronics (as well as how they somehow sold the first known commercial "adult" game).

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/18/s...
Sword of Raschkil (1981 / 1983)
Written in 1981, not published until 1983. Take your pick. I didn’t have this one on any of my lists but El Explorador de RPG recently pointed it out; since it was not preserved otherwise, gs…
bluerenga.blog
January 18, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Jason Dyer
sharpworks.bsky.social
@jfroholt.bsky.social ‘s latest excellent article covering one of “Knights of Aberdeen” library tapes for the MZ-80A is now available !
January 17, 2026 at 9:13 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
in which I complete Lucas's Haunted House, figure out how to carry a 10 foot statue, and explore the historical web of plagiarism and semi-plagiarism surrounding the work

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/15/h...
Haunted House: Pray Hard with a Vengeance
I’ve finished the game (prior posts here). It turned out I had one bottleneck (the wolf) which opened up the rest of the game, and “puzzles” I was spending time on (like the ghost…
bluerenga.blog
January 16, 2026 at 2:41 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
in which I continue Haunted House by Steve Lucas (one of the most prolific text adventure authors of the 80s) and published by Silverlind (via a former ICL employee)

and find out that monsters don't like crisps very much

and I need to work on my praying technique

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/14/h...
Haunted House: Pray Harder
(Continued from my previous post.) Just to recap from last time, here was the state of my map, with special rooms marked. I also had access to a candle, a box of matches, a bottle of spirits, some …
bluerenga.blog
January 15, 2026 at 2:30 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
in which I tell the story of how a company called Silverlind got formed due to the shenanigans of the mighty International Computers Limited (a combination of 9 distinct companies) and one of the three adventure games that they published

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/12/h...
Haunted House (Lucas, 1983)
Writing an adventure game is very similar to writing a novel. Everybody can write a few unrelated sentences, but the novelist’s skill comes from stringing sentences together in such a way as to cre…
bluerenga.blog
January 13, 2026 at 1:56 AM
jdyer.bsky.social
the grand conclusion to my six-part series on Adventure 751, the long-lost game that was available on CompuServe most of its lifetime and only unearthed recently

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/10/a...
Adventure 751: Into the Sunset
I’ve never spelunked, although I’ve been in a number of caves around the country as a tourist. Like Carlsbad Caverns, Lava River Cave here in Oregon, Cave of the Winds in Colorado and others I can’…
bluerenga.blog
January 10, 2026 at 11:10 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
two quick Steam mentions

1. Pathologic 3 is out. Some very cool people worked on it and it takes a different tack than previous games (more strategy / medical detective elements)

store.steampowered.com/app/3199650/...

2. Steam Detective Fest starts January 12.
Save 20% on Pathologic 3 on Steam
In this psychological horror game, you are a doctor with only 12 days to save a town from a mysterious plague. Make ruthless decisions and diagnose with precision. Shape the town's future and rewrite ...
store.steampowered.com
January 9, 2026 at 11:19 PM
jdyer.bsky.social
Adventure 751 verges close to a finale (hopefully!) as I finally reach the castle I have seen since the start of the game.

Also, a puzzle challenge for you, the readers.

bluerenga.blog/2026/01/08/a...
Adventure 751: A Section of the Castle In Which You Have No Business
(Continued from my previous posts.) The good news is I’m fully clear of the 501 content (1978) and now tangling directly with the 751 section (1980). The bad news is the author clearly though…
bluerenga.blog
January 9, 2026 at 5:13 AM