## Description
Using a heavily constrained set (TAKE, GO TO, and SHOW TO) of the standard
text adventure buffet of options, this is the story of a teenaged boy in ’80s
suburban southern Ontario who escapes his humdrum existence by logging on to a
garish green-and-black monochrome Bulletin Board System (THE GUILD BBS,
depicted with clever illustrations thanks to Vorple) with his C-64 and
interacting with his peers in medieval fantasy personas (when not chatting,
which is all they really do) — which, ultimately, in some way reflect upon
their real-life character.
The player’s alter-ego is that of a thief, and he recruits members of the BBS
to join his “party” for off-line adventuring exploring a decrepit and
abandoned mansion on the edge of town, the Oakville Manor, in search of such
cruddy loot as a disaffected teenaged booster might imagine — water-damaged
porn, a blunt letter-opener, perhaps one piece of silverware. A demolition
notice indicates that the building has three days left in this world, so this
is the player’s last opportunity to infiltrate and explore this relic from
another time whose shadow he grew up in.
But the player is not the only one with designs on the Manor’s final few days,
and he may find himself standing on the sidelines of someone else’s role-
playing game.
Version 2 of the game appends an endgame to the story, allowing the player to
share a final treasure with one of his BBS cohorts, setting a trajectory for
how this episode changed his life decades down the line.
Guilded Youth