Volcano! For the Commodore PET

Volcano!!!!  Where's Tommy Lee Jones when you need him?

Volcano for the Commodore PET.  I was actually rather surprised with how much enjoyed it!  The game starts by giving your the facts about the eruption of Mt. St Helens.  In case you don't know, on Sunday, May 18, 1980 at 8:32:17 am PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) Mt St Helens erupted.  An eruption column rose 18,000 feet in the air and spread ash across 11 different states.  Fifty seven people died.

Just a peaceful morning camping on Mt St Helens

This could be filed more under the "edutainment" banner, joining such games as Oregon Trail.  It is a text adventure of sorts, though the interface is much more simplistic, giving the player only multiple choice answers.

HOLY HELL!!!!  The pixilated mayhem!  Ohhh the digital madness!

You start as a camper on the side of Mt. St Helens.  The volcano erupts and then it's a mad dash for survival.  If you select a wrong answer, you die a horrible death.  The game does a pretty good job of explaining why it's a bad idea when you select a wrong answer.  Once you make it through the game (which lasts all of about 10 minutes.....5 if you're a fast reader) nothing ever changes....but it is kinda fun going back and purposely selecting wrong answers to see what would have happened to your character had you been foolish.  I only had to restart to game once as most of the multiple choices are fairly obvious.

Hhhhmmm....digging a hole with lava on the way sounds like a good idea!

It was a rather enjoyable 10 minutes spent with my Commodore PET emulator.  The game is well written and it hearkens back to a time when computer games were monochrome and quite basic.  Still, that doesn't make them bad!

If you have a Commodore PET or want to download and emulator (there are a bunch around...WinVice being my personal favorite) the game is fairly easy to track down.  If you are interested in the history of early personal computer games, there are worse things that you could do with 10 minutes!