Tag: Commodore 64

Even a cold can be good for something

As the title suggests, I’m sick right now.  Have been, for about half a week or so, with a very irritating head cold.  It started with my throat hurting, and my voice dropping an octave, then only coming out as a croaky whisper, like a mummy that just woke up after a millennium-long nap in the desert sun.  It’s since migrated (somewhat) from my throat to my nose, and if you compressed all the tissues I’ve used back into solid wood, you could probably build, if not a house, then at least a garden shed.  All of which brings us to today’s word.

phlegm, noun –  The buildup of thick mucous in the respiratory passages.

Learned from:  Xenophobe  (Atari 7800, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Arcade, Atari 2600, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Lynx, NES, ZX Spectrum)

Developed by Bally Midway

Published by Bally Midway (1987)

Xenophobe was, at its heart, a ripoff of Aliens.  It’s a side-scrolling action game, where you have to travel from space station to space station, clearing each one of an alien infestation before the self-destruct sequence counts down.  All in all, it’s a decently fun game, with a good variety of weapons and monsters–from little ones that just crawl along, to ones that roll into balls, to the big ones that spit phlegm at you from a distance.

I know it was phlegm and not acid, because the instruction manual (remember those?) said so.  As a kid of about seven or eight, I of course knew the term “snot,” but I knew “mucous” as well; phlegm was new to me, though.  So much so, that I thought this weird amalgamation of letters was a typo (which weren’t really uncommon in manuals at the time).  So, I asked my father–pronouncing the word wrong, I’m sure–and boom, I had a new entry in my burgeoning vocabulary.  As well as a hilarious mental image of a hulking alien beast killing your character by covering them in snot.  (Hilarious to seven-year-old me, at least.)

Fun fact:  Xenophobe also taught me a bit of the Greek alphabet, as each station was Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.  I won’t be including those as entries here, since they’re just letters, not full-fledged words, but I think it’s neat that this simple run & gun shooter taught me so many varied things.

xenophobe

Hideous alien hellbeasts–you know, for kids!

Deep freeze

Things have been very, very cold lately, in my neck of the woods, so let’s go with a word that captures that idea this time around.

permafrost, noun  –  A permanently frozen region of land.

Learned from: Neuromancer  (Apple IIGS, Amiga, Apple II, Commodore 64, PC)

Developed by Interplay Productions

Published by Mediagenic (1988)

In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been playing Neuromancer as early as I did.  It’s a game that involves corporate espionage, existential crises, red light districts, organ harvesting, and a whole slew of other themes I didn’t fully appreciate until years later.  Still, adventure games were things I could play with my father, and we both enjoyed the experience of puzzling our way through the narratives.  It was also my first exposure to the cyberpunk genre, and it’s a love that’s endured to the present day.

“Permafrost” was a password you needed to give someone on a forum, to enter into a shady arms deal, if memory serves.  I’m pretty sure that deal resulted in your character getting arrested, but then, there seemed to be little in that dystopian world that wasn’t illegal, so that’s neither here nor there.

neuromancer

Cutting edge graphics for the time, really.