I bought an interesting old adventure game called Mindfighter, a third text adventure from Acornsoft called Countdown to Doom, a game called Kobayashi Naru that completes a trilogy of adventure games in my collection and an Edward Norton movie from 1998 called American History X.

Browsing auction sites for Commodore 64 games sorted from cheap to expensive can provide interesting results. This time it resulted in Mindfighter, a text adventure from 1988 developed by Abstract Concepts. Although not very well reviewed, it has interesting cover art and a novel. Especially the enlarged cutout of the eyes of the figure on the front that is depicted on the bottom and the top lid of the box looks freaky. A sticker on the box also promises that a poster is included, but that isn’t the case in my copy. Either it wasn’t included or it is lost, although I cannot imagine someone putting a poster of this cover art on his wall.

If I understand correctly, Kobayashi Naru is part of a trilogy of games that were developed by the same team, alongside Venom and Shard of Inovar which I already had in my collection. I’ve only messed about with Venom once and although I haven’t got far in it, I do find the interface interesting albeit not very intuitive.

Countdown to Doom is the third game in my collection of Acornsoft games for the BBC Microcomputer B. The other ones being Philosopher’s Quest and Acheton. Like Philosopher’s Quest, Countdown to Doom comes on a cassette and the packaging is a little different from the disk based Acheton. Although it has the same aesthetic with the black case with white lettering, the front flap doesn’t have sides that cover the inner box and the artwork on the front has a different style.
All three games have a different description of other Acornsoft games on the back. This one lists Sphinx Adventure, Philosopher’s Quest and Castle of Riddles as “Other games from Acornsoft”, while Philosopher’s Quest lists three other games as “Other games in this series” and Acheton lists Philosopher’s Quest alongside two still other games as “Also available”.
Philosopher’s Quest is listed as SBG01 from 1982, Countdown to Doom as SBG19 from 1982 and Acheton as SNG37 from 1984.
The latter from a different address as the former. When I looked at Google maps, the earlier address looks like the building is still there and it’s a shop on a market square, while the later address looks like an office building which has been torn down two years ago. I don’t know why I’m even interested in this and why I looked it up. It’s not like I’m very into Acornsoft or the BBC Micro. I’m way more into other games/developers/systems about which I’ve never looked up this information. I’m weird and I’m rambling, which isn’t necessarily good, but it is on point!

The last thing I got was a dvd of the movie American History X. I like to collect old movies on DVD or VHS which I think are memorable and nice to own. This movie doesn’t necessarily fall into that category, but it might after I watch it again. I think I only watched it once when I rented it in the late nineties and I remember I thought it was good at the time. If I don’t keep it, it goes back to the second hand store and I’ve watched another movie for only 1 euro.