Ever stumbled across something you’ve been looking for for a long time while you’re doing something else entirely? Well, I’ve just found the digital equivalent of my cat’s favorite toy which I found last week while reaching under the television stand to try to reset our infernal TV box. I’ve found the game Escape!, the Apple II maze game that inspired Richard Garriott to program the 3D dungeons of Akalabeth. Turns out it was written by Silas Warner of Muse Software, about whom I’ll have much more to say shortly. In the meantime, I’ve updated the old post on Garriott to reflect my discovery. Or, if you’d like to cut to the chase, here’s a screenshot and a disk image for ya. Type “RUN ESCAPE” after booting the disk to get started.
matt w
January 23, 2012 at 6:22 pm
How did you find it?
Jimmy Maher
January 23, 2012 at 6:44 pm
Was listening to a presentation by Silas Warner on the history of Muse Software for my next topic. Lo and behold, talking about the earliest programs from Muse, he mentioned a “maze game” called Escape! He also mentioned that many of these old programs had been rereleased on disk — the originals were on cassettes — as “The Best of the Muse Cassettes, Volumes x-x.” With that bit of information in hand, I started trolling through disk image archives with renewed purpose, and unearthed it at last. My small moment of triumph for the week. :)
ZUrlocker
January 23, 2012 at 8:07 pm
I spent many an evening playing Castle Wolfenstein and the follow up sequel on my Apple ][+ in the early 80s. Good times! I nearly jumped out of my chair the first time the guards started shouting at me.
Richard Garriott
September 1, 2015 at 11:49 pm
How do you run this version? PC / Apple ][?
Jimmy Maher
September 2, 2015 at 4:50 am
It’s an Apple II disk image. Should run fine in just about any emulator.