Re: Dutch Gold Mine

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

George Mendenhall writes ...
> 
> Does anybody remember the game "Dutch Gold Mine" or the "Lost
> Dutchman's Mine" for the Apple //e? ....
>

     Yes. While doing transfers from AOL's A2 games archive, I came across 
"Lost Dutchman". The game started and seemed to run okay; so, it was 
included along with four other text adventures in a file in Ground's AOL 
Role Playing games folder.

 
> Is there a walkthrough available?  I got the game in running in
> emulation, but got farther as a kid.  Now, I can't even find the mine.  I
> remember going north something like eight times in the desert, but you
> have to do something first.

     You do need to be sure to find the Map (in the miner's shack).


>  I can't get the help to say "The desert's
> big, keep on truckin'."  It only says "Roads go places."
> 
> I seem to remember the game crashing after I was in the mine.  Maybe this
> was specific to my machine...  However, that was 10 yrs ago.
> 
> If you know the solution or have played this, don't hesitate to post /
> email!
>

     After reading your post, I unpacked my copy of the Ground/AOL archive 
file and played Lost Dutchman 'for real'. It's a pretty good adventure, 
especially when you consider it's just 28 blocks and entirely in BASIC. 
However, there were a few bugs, at least in the copy originally uploaded to 
AOL.

     The crash you experienced in the mines could have been the result of a 
typo which specifies an O4() instead of an O$() array. I ran into such a 
crash when trying LIGHT MATCH. There were a few other bugs. One messed up 
the end of game score calculation. Another problem was that the game 
expected to save and load saved games from a specific directory named 
"LDG/".

     Anyway, since I was into the program and wanted to play the game, it 
seemed like a good idea to fix any find-able bugs, diddle the score calc 
routine, and do a little polishing.

     The result is Lost Dutchman, Version 2.0! The game and a text info 
file are in a ShrinkIt file named LOSTDM2.SHK. It has been uploaded to 
Apple2.Caltech's Incoming folder and will be uploaded to Ground's AOL Role 
Play games folder. 

     The info file mentioned above should answer your questions about 
playing the game. It also includes a kind of locations "map".


Rubywand