Apple II Microzine Jr Games

[Ryaan1234]

Hey guys, I thought I'd jog some memories bringing up the old Microzine Jr. disks by Scholastic. These disks contain various games and programs, and were common in schools back in the day.

It was where you control a character, in a fun house, mall, or haunted house. There were 3 games in the series in these settings. It played like the original King's Quest. And it's not Hugo's House of Horrors. That's my "most wanted" Apple II game title. I distinctly remember we called the one that took place in a fun house "Bobo's Fun House" but a Google search brings me next to nothing*. If it helps any at all one of the items you could get in the fun house was onion gum, which you had to give to a clown blocking the way to another room.

I believe Bobo's Fun House is the correct title....

You've probably heard me mention (several times) my "holy grail" game, which was an adventure game on Apple II that takes place in a fun house. I always remembered it being called "Bobo's Fun House" but I could only find scant information on it online. Well I was doing one of my searches for it (I look on Google once every few months) and it turns out not only am I not crazy, but the game exists on the Microzine Jr #6 game disk. There were several other games in the series I recall and I think more than likely they're on the other disks.

The main game "series" on these disks were called the "twistaplot" games, and I believe my game is from that very same grouping, as well as the other ones (one in a department store, castle, and haunted house) I've already tried out a game called "Dark Tower" (found on #11) that plays VERY similarly to how I remember the games.

Here's a link to some disk images of this series (which sadly doesn't include #6). I know that talking about ROMs is frowned upon here but these disk images are now abandonware, and legal to play on an Apple II emulator. (Mods feel free to remove the link if you think that's appropriate).

Anyways, does anyone else here have memories of the Microzine "games"? I'd love to hear them.

EDIT: Eureka! #32 contains the game with the department store I remember (titled "A Night at Fleeners", sheesh no wonder I never found it before)! This is amazing. I've been waiting over a decade to see these games again!

[Jorpho]

Curious. We never did find out what this Apple II game is, or a bunch of the ones here. If you're going through this entire pile of images, do let us know if any of the games match the descriptions.

[calthaer]

I actually have one of the Microzine games (can't remember which one, exactly), and tried to get the disk image off of it, but the copy protection thwarted this. Disk images for these are hard to find, if they're out there at all.

I'm not sure what would need to happen to get the disk images off - what kind of hardware or whatnot. I recall on the BBS documentary that one guy (I believe it was Frank Segler) talked about all the memory tricks and hacks he had to do to get an Apple ][ game to copy...sounded like he either needed to modify his hardware or firmware and / or trick the machine into booting differently than it normally does.

Hope you're able to find these...please let us know if you ever figure this out. I'd be happy to lend out my disk to someone with the wherewithal to turn it into a viable disk image.

[Ryaan1234]

Curious. We never did find out what this Apple II game is, or a bunch of the ones here. If you're going through this entire pile of images, do let us know if any of the games match the descriptions.

I'll make sure to do that. The games on these disks are unique to say the least, and they are the kind of games that would get stuck in the back of your head for years.

Hope you're able to find these...please let us know if you ever figure this out. I'd be happy to lend out my disk to someone with the wherewithal to turn it into a viable disk image.

Actually the guys here are the ones that dumped that page of disk images I linked to. The thread talks about cracking the copy protection (which of course they did to make the images playable) but I don't know enough about programming to even begin to understand what they're talking about.

[kgagne]

I'm a big fan of the Microzine series (never tried the Jr. brand though) and have been amassing a small collection of the issues in the past year. I too had trouble with the copy protection, but I bet Computist has some relevant cracks.

[Ryaan1234]

I'm a big fan of the Microzine series (never tried the Jr. brand though) and have been amassing a small collection of the issues in the past year. I too had trouble with the copy protection, but I bet Computist has some relevant cracks.

I'm not sure if anyone besides myself actually tried those disk images I linked to in the first post, but the folks at Virtualapple.org managed to crack the copy protection. That's why the images are now playable. If you have the ability to copy those games to your computer I'm sure the guys there would be able to help with the copy protection on the games. As far as I can tell the protection doesn't keep you from copying that floppy... it causes the Microzine disk images to infinitely reset if you tried them with an emulator (or in the 80s, on a different disk in another computer).


And... I would be your best friend forever if you have #6

[Jorpho]

I don't suppose you found much more of great interest on those disks, did you?

[Kitsune Sniper]

If I knew how to run Apple emulators I'd play them. FOR SCIENCE.

[Ryaan1234]

I don't suppose you found much more of great interest on those disks, did you?

Yeah, that was mainly the reason why I didn't say anything more about the content. The rest of the content on the disks I was able to find is mostly simple edutainment titles or text adventure games. There's a few games about these detective kids that's basically a reading comprehension series. I only mention that because there are several games in that series. I didn't see any of the "mystery games" described in your links. I wish I was able to try the missing disks...

If I knew how to run Apple emulators I'd play them. FOR SCIENCE.

Try AppleWin 1.2. It's really simple. Get your disk images and then start up the emulator. Click on the picture of the floppy drive (the top one) and select your disk image, then click on the flying rainbow apple button. That will load your disk to the emulator and start it up.