An Interactive Fiction Game for the TRS-80

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XENOS Memories

• By Sean Murphy (figment@figmentfly.com)
  
  I first played this Interactive Fiction Text Adventure game called XENOS back in the early 80's when we had a TRS-80 Model I (or maybe a Model III) computer. I was too young at the time to really get anywhere in the game but the fact that I could not kill the snake guarding the shovel stayed with me (especially since that lousy snake killed me every time).
  
  Then came the magic of emulation and I could once again take on the snake. It was surprisingly easy to kill the snake all those years later (it's amazing what you can do with a good shotgun) but I still needed help figuring out the game. Luckily the walkthrough helped with that. I just wish I knew who had originally written the game. Anyone know?
  
  
• By Chris Towles (Tufr@aol.com)
  
  Wow, I used to play Xenos on my old TRS-80 model III when I was in junior high. I could get the dynamite because I dug the sand (first with hand "Yeah man, I dig it too" then with shovel to actually dig). I could manage to kill one alien with the shotgun, but I never found a spaceship. I never knew what the game was about back then. One of my dad's co-workers told me about a spaceship and all that, but I wasn't sure whether to believe him or not.
  
  It's really cool that you were able to play it again. I figured that I was pretty close to solving it. I'd done most everything in town. I seem to remember an old prospector that sometimes showed up. My mom saw him, tried taking his gun, and the guy shot her saying something about city slickers or whipper snappers or something. If you tried digging the sand without the shovel: DIG SAND the computer asked WITH WHAT?. If you answered WITH HAND the computer would respond YEAH MAN, I DIG IT TOO.
  
  The only other people that I knew that played it all worked out at Stennis Space Center with my dad.
  
  
• By Eric W. Lund (elund@snet.net)
  
  Xenos Memories
  
  It may have been twenty years ago when I first put my fingers to a TRS-80 Model III. I was a pre-teen when my family moved to a new town and I formed a friendship with some of the neighborhood kids. They had a Saturday habit of riding their bikes two towns away and spending it at the local Radio Shack (followed by pizza), a habit I naturally picked up. The manager there loved having us around because -- since we fiddled with everything -- we learned quite a bit about the merchandise and helped serve customers when they came in. Anyhow, they had several TRS models there, but I liked to play on the Model III. Although I know I played with several programs and games, I could only remember one: An adventure game that began with "Xe..." It featured a dusty empty town, a hot desert, aliens, and a space ship.
  
  Lately I had a yearning to complete the memory, and luckily I found your site. A few emulators later, I'm in Purgatory, and this time I shoot that rotten nine-foot diamondback snake in two. And finally I get past the boulder and get in the spaceship that has taunted me since the early 80s. After this I admit to a little peeking at the walk-through, but I'm happy to say 20 years later I returned to town, this time a hero. At least that's what the game said as I won it. Thanks again!
  
  
• By Karen (Ds9Fan@webtv.net)
  
  When I originally played the game back in 1984, it was at a friend's house, and it was the first adventure type game I had ever played. I was immediately intrigued that you could tell the game what to do by typing in commands such as go north, go south, open door, etc. Up until that point, the only videogames I had played were the arcade types which were only based on how fast you could push the button to shoot the enemy.
  
  When I originally played Xenos, I got through the town and finished 50% of the mission, but then I got stumped. I kept thinking that there was something I had to do with the jeep to get it going so I could get across the desert, so I spent a lot of time on that. Boy was I wrong! Actually I'm a bit disappointed to learn that the jeep, after all my efforts all those years ago, ended up not playing any part in the solution to the game at all.
  
  I didn't know there was a UFO back then, until I found your website. I originally thought the game was going to be about ghosts or something like that because of the ghost town feeling in the first half of the game. I preferred the first half "old town" part of the game to the last half about the UFO. It was a lot of fun exploring the town, and the way it was written really made the town come alive for me in my imagination. I could almost hear the wind blowing and see the tumbleweeds moving through the desert.
  
  I am really glad that I finally got to see the end of the game after having thought about it for so many years, but to me, the second half of the game almost seemed like an entirely different game. There was too much repetition of "pushing the buttons" and "going through ovals", I thought. It almost makes me wonder if there weren't, indeed, two writers for the game. One for the first half, and one for the second half.
  
  Still, despite my dissapointment in the ending of the game, it was fun to finally track down the name of the game, find your site, get in contact with you, figure out how to use the TRS-80 emulator and then how to save the game on it.
  
  It took me a long time to finally finish the game, almost a year and a half from when I first strated searching for it on the internet. At that time I didn't even remember the name of the game. I only remembered vaguely that the name started with a Z or an X, and I had a vague memory of some of the events in the game, but that was enough for someone on a Usenet newsgroup to remember the name of the game, and to point me in the direction of your website.
  
  That means it took me a total of 16 years to finish the game from the first time I played it!! To me that shows that there was something special about the game Xenos for it to stay in my mind for such a long time, and to make me go to such great lengths to finally be able to finish it.
  

Introduction

XENOS
A 32K Disk Adventure for the TRS-80 Model I/III
Catalog Number 25-1955

Introduction

3:08 a.m.-RRRRIIIINNNNGGGG! At first, you bury your head under the pillow, hoping it will go away. But no...RRRRIIIINNNNGGGG! There it is again. What idiot could possibly be calling at this unholy hour?

You search your nightstand in the dark, clumsily grabbing the receiver. "Yeah?" you mumble at this nuisance of a machine, hoping to convey extreme crankiness and anger. "Dr. Sands?" the voice at the other end of the wire asks.

"Nah, it's Mary Poppins. Of course it's Dr. Sands! Who is this and what do you want?"

"Dr. Sands, it's General Thatcher, U.S. Air Force, at the Pentagon. Sorry to wake you, but I have an urgent situation here." The general's voice sounds close to panic.

"Oh yeah? What happened? Somebody push the button by mistake again? Don't worry. Just them them to unplug the blasted computer. The missles won't launch for atleast another five minutes. You're safe till then." You're ready to hang up and get back to sleep, but the generalwon't let you.

"Dr. Sands, I'm trying to be serious. We have a major incident on our hands."

Before you have time to say another word, the general is spilling out his tale of woe. He tells you of the sighting made yesterday by one of his top pilots...first the flash, then the strange glow coming from the canyon just outside of Purgatory, New Mexico...the Air Force investigators who were sent in...the lone survivor who managed to get out, though not with his sanity.

Somehow, they've managed to convince themselves that you're the only one who can help them out. Before you hang up, visions of immortal fame, riches beyond compare, a made-for-TV movie, and a ticker-tape parade. This is it. Your big chance to be a hero!

3:57 a.m. - You trip over the cat on your way out the garage door to speed to the airport, where a USAF jet is waiting to wing you to New Mexico. By now, you've had a little time to think. Could it be a radioactive meteor? Could it perhaps be a bonafide UFO? Could it be a secret test of a nuclear device gone wrong? What the dickens is it? And is a ticker-tape parade really worth putting your life on the line?

7:32 a.m. - You step out of the jeep, just west of Purgatory. Turning to the driver, you ask "Did the general give you any instructions to wait for me?"

"Are you kidding?" the edgy private squeaks. "I'm getting out of here as fast as I can!" The jeep does a 180 and roars off in the direction from whence it came.

Looking down the road you can see that you've made the mistake of you rlife. The air seems oppressive as you begin walking toward town. There are no signs of life - you should have known better than to get mixed up in this. "Next time I'm leaving the phone off the hook," you say aloud, to be answered by the ominous howl of the arid wind.

Xenos(TM) is an intriguing and complex adventure. Your mission is to explore Purgatory and its surrounding desert, find whatever has left the town deserted, and destroy it before it wreaks havoc on anything else. You could become a hero ot a small pile of ashes. What happens is up to your skill in logic and your ability to make use of any equipment you might find.

Your TRS-80(R) will help you discover what you need to survive. It will perform commands you might give, like TAKE THE SHOVEL or GO NORTH. (directional commands may be shortened to N, S, E, and W). You may use commands containing more than two words, like PUT JACK ON CAR. Each time you give the computer a command, press ENTER to see what happens next.

To find out how well your mission is progressing, type SCORE and press ENTER. You will be told the percentage of the mission completed so far. If, in the excitement of discovery or heat of pursuit, you forget where you are, you can find out by typing LOOK and pressing ENTER.

Other useful commands are I (short for Inventory) to see a list of the equipment you currently possess, and DIAGNOSE to see your physical condition. If you're in bad shape, you might want to seek medical attention. Unfortunately, you could have a hard time finding a doctor in this part of the world. By the way, it will help you to have linguistic talents, as you could encounter a few hieroglyphs to decipher.

By no means should you become so discouraged that you QUIT, unless you are going to save the exploration and return to it later. If you stop, you have no chance to get that hero's welcome. Who knows? If you keep going, there has to be a way out, right?

You can now start your investigation, and perhaps even wind up world famous, if your powers of logic are tuned finely enough. Good luck!

Loading Instructions

It is assumed you have reviewed the general operational procedures for your equipment as explained in your TRS-80 Owner's manual and your TRSDOS and Disk BASIC Reference Manuals. You should now be familiar with how to power up your computer and load your disks.

 

Model I

Insert your Xenos disk in Drive 0. The square notch should be at the top and the label to the right. Close the drive door.

Press the Reset button. The screen will show:

TRSDOS-DISK OPERATING SYSTEM-VER 2.3

DOS READY

Type: XENOS and press ENTER. In a moment, this message will appear at the bottom left of the screen:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>XENOS<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

STRANGER, BEWARE!

 

Press any key to start the adventure.

 

Model III

Insert your Xenos disk in Drive 0 (the built-in drive closest to the keyboard). The square notch should be at the left and the label to the top. Close the drive door.

Press the Reset button (the orange button on the keybiard). The Model III TRSDOS logo and copyright paragraph will be displayed. At the bottom mof the paragraph, you are asked to enter the date. Type today's date in the MM/DD/YY format, and press ENTER. Press ENTER to answer the time question.

TRSDOS Ready will appear on the screen. Type XENOS and press ENTER. In a moment, the bottom left corner of the screen will show:

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>XENOS<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

STRANGER, BEWARE!

 

Press any key to start the adventure.

Saving a Game

If you investigation is interrupted and you must stop for a while, you can save your progress thus far. When you return to the mission, you'll start off where you quit, with all the equipment you've collected intact.

To save an investigation, type: SAVE and press ENTER. A message will be displayed: SAVE DISK IS IN WHICH DRIVE <0-3>? If you are using only one disk drive, save the game on your Xenos disk by pressing 0 (you do not have to ENTER). You can continue playing or exit the game to TRSDOS by typing QUIT and pressing ENTER.

If you are using a computer with more than one disk drive, you can save the game on a formatted disk in any drive. With your Xenos disk in Drive 0, place the formatted disk in Drive 1 (for example), type SAVE, and press ENTER.

A message will ask: SAVE DISK IS IN WHICH DRIVE <0-3>? Press the number of the disk drive in which your formatted disk resides (for our example, 1). Continue playing, or exit the game by typing QUIT and pressing ENTER.

Returning to a Previous Game

You can return to a game stored on disk as easily as you saved it, even if you have been killed. Load Xenos and get ready to play. For your first command in the adventure, type: LOAD and press ENTER. A message will ask: SAVE DISK IS IN WHICH DRIVE <0-3>?

If you are using only one drive, press 0. If you are using extra drives, place the disk containing your saved game in Drive 1 (for example), and press 1 (or the number for the drive in which your data disk resides).

In a moment, you will see the location at which you left off. All the equipment you previously collected will still be with you, and you can continue your investigation.

Helpful Hints

Since Xenos is such a complicated adventure, not all clues and objects you'll need are obvious. For instance, to find the place where a useful explosive is waiting, you must DIG.

The Anomaly is particularly intriguing - although you might begin to think you've come upon an impossible situation, it's not hopeless! There is a way out, if you use logic and see the pattern developing.

If you make it to the spaceship (your ultimate goal), you'll soon discover that directional commands are of little use. You must ENTER rooms (or holes in the wall) and proceed with caution. Once again, look for patterns developing, and you'll have the mystey unraveled!

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Xenos Solution

The Town of Pugatory

The point of the game is to stop an alien invasion. The story takes place in the extremely small town of Purgatory. You are the only person in town, not counting the three or four aliens that you will encounter.

There are several main areas to explore in the town and these include a gas station, a junkyard, Harvey's Bar and Grill, Bob's Hardware, a hotel, the sheriff's office, Slim's Groceries, and a bank. To learn more about the rest of the game, check out the walkthrough.

A highway runs through the town to the east and west. To the east on the highway is an alien that will attack on sight. If it successfully hits you, you will be poisoned and die several rounds later. You can kill an alien with the shotgun or by fighting. The best bet seems to be to run away. A second alien can be found on a east-west trail that lies north of Bob's Hardware store. The aliens turn to dust when you kill them.

What follows is a detailed description of the town of Purgatory and what you can find there.

• Gas Station (1 room)
  
  Here you will find a locked Gas pump and three items you can take : a Skeleton key to the bathroom on the outside of the gas station, a Crowbar, and a car Jack (PUT JACK ON something to use it)
  
  

• Bathroom on side of gas station (1 room)
  
  This door is locked and needs the skeleton key to open. On the inside you find a sign that reads "When you are through, please return the key"
  
  
• Junkyard behind gas station (1 room)
  
  Here you will find a Jeep with no engine, a flat tire on the jeep and a new tire.
  
  
• Sheriff's office (1 room)
  
  This building is locked and needs the brass key to open (See the Hotel for Brass Key).
  Here you will find a locked Gun Cabinet which needs the Small Key to open and a desk. There is a shotgun in the gun cabiner. The desk has three drawers and they contain :
  
  
  • Top Drawer - A Small Key for the Gun Cabinet
    A Steel Key for the Bank
    A Red Key to Slim's Groceries (Which I have found no use for yet)
    
    
  • Middle Drawer - A Wanted Poster
    
    
  • Bottom Drawer - Empty
    
    
• Harvey's Bar and Grill (1 room)
  
  Here you will find a Radio that will do a broadcast about a UFO landing, a bottle filled with a brown substance which is either a poison or whiskey, and water in a sink.
  
  
• Storm Shelter on west side of Harvey's Bar and Grill (under the sand) (1 room)
  
  Here you will find a stick of dynamite (STRIKE FUSE to use it).
  
  
• Slim's Groceries (1 room)
  
  Here you will find food.
  
  
• Bob's Hardware (2 rooms)
  
  Here you will find an empty aquarium and a shovel that is guarded by a snake. The shotgun from the Sheriff's office does a real nice job on the snake. The shovel is needed to uncover the storm shelter on the west side of Harvey's Bar and Grill.
  
  
• Bank (2 rooms)
  
  Here you will find a locked vault that can be blown open with the dynamite from the storm shelter. In the vault you will find money. You don't get any points for blowing up the vault and the dynamite doesn't seem to work anywhere else.
  
  
• Hotel (3 rooms, one hallway, two floors)
  
  Here you will find a master key to the hotel and two hotel rooms upstairs. The brass key to the Sheriff's office is in the dresser in the room with red door.

Scoring In The Game (Warning, there are spoilers here)

 

• 10% of mission for turning on radio to hear broadcast about UFO landing.
  
  
• 10% of mission for opening middle drawer of Sheriff's Desk.
  
  
• 10% of mission for opening gun cabinet with small key.
  
  
• 10% of mission for killing snake with gun.
  
  
• 10% of mission for digging in sand and discovering the door to the storm shelter
  
  
• 10% of mission for seeing the dead alien.
  
  
• 10% of mission for blowing away the boulder blocking the ship's entrance.
  
  
• 10% of mission for gaining alien knowledge via the white cube.
  
  
• 10% of mission for Setting the alien ship to blast the mother ship.
  
  
• 10% of mission for returning to Purgatory after the mother ship has been destroyed.

 

 

This walkthrough is courtesy of Jim Bakman (jbakman@earthlink.net) who solved the game way back when and created this walkthrough recently for people like me who needed the help. Any corrections, please email to above address.

Xenos is an older game (1979), yet the parser is actually somewhat flexible. On the TRS-80 Model I emulator version, the parser will pick out the particular word it did not understand and give you a chance to in-line edit the word.

The basic story is that you are called in to investigate a possible UFO landing that has caused the citizens of the neaby town of Purgatory to evacuate.

In order to help in sanity retention, I am taking the liberty of use a few simple abbreviations.

 

PREO is shorthand for : Push Red Button , Enter Oval

PBEO is shorthand for : Push Blue Button , Enter Oval

PYEO is shorthand for : Push Yellow Button , Enter Oval

[And so, on with the story. Beginning at the western edge of the tourist hot-spot Purgatory, we can either head into downtown for the sights, or grab something quickly that we'll need much later. Let's do the latter.]

 

West

West

West

North

North (Score +10%)

Get Cube

Get Rod

 

[And now, back into town.]

South

South

East

East

East

 

[No doubt Purgatory is full of nifty things. Let's get a simple breaking-and-entering tool so we can see more of the town, and then head on in to downtown.]

East

East

Open Door

South

Get Crowbar

North

East

East

East

 

[The desert is hot and our character wants to learn more about the situation. How about hitting up the local tavern?]

Open Saloon Door

North

Get Bottle

Open Bottle

Fill Bottle with Water

Turn on Radio (Score +10%)

South

East

East

 

[Okay, so we have a clue. Perhaps the sheriff has some information. However, his office is empty. Perhaps something is in his office, though the door is locked. Let's go find the key...]

East

East

Open Hotel Door

North

Read Sign [Not a necessary move, but it is a hint.]

Get Master Key

East

Open Red Door With Master Key

North

Open Dresser

Get Brass Key

South

West

South

 

[...and then we'll open the sheriff's office and enter.]

West

West

West

West

Open Sheriff's Door with Brass Key

South

 

[Hey, there could be lots of neat things in here, but these pesky locks are in the way. No problem. After all, we have a crowbar.]

Open Top Drawer with Crowbar (Score +10%)

Get Small Key

 

[And now we have a small key. All these keys floating around...]

Open Cabinet with Small Key (Score +10%)

Drop Small Key

Drop Master Key

Drop Brass Key

Drop Crowbar

Get Shotgun

 

[Nifty. Now let's go explore the town. First, the local hardware store.]

North

East

East

Open Bob's Door

North

North

Shoot Snake with Shotgun (Score +10%)

Get Shovel

South

South

 

[Remember the hotel sign, and how it mentioned a storm shelter near the bar?]

West

West

West

North

Dig Sand with Shovel (Score +10%)

 

[We've found the storm shelter. What's inside?]

Open Door

Drop Shovel

Go In

Get Stick

Get Out

South

 

[Well, we're this far. We have a shotgun, a stick of dynamite, and an alien-kicking attitude. Let's head into the desert to now.]

 

[First, a west-to-east tour of Purgatory to reach the other end of town.]

East

East

East

East

East

East

East

 

[Once at the end of town, it's time to enter the desert. The idea is to reach an alien ship hidden in a nearby canyon. Wandering out in the desert is a prospector who will give you a clue to the alien ship's location, and also another alien that will try to claw you. If you see the alien, don't bother to shoot it. Just stay on the move.]

 

[The following directions will work to reach the east end of Purgatory to the alien ship. If you make a mis-step, then head back into town and try again, since the desert is a <gulp> maze. If you collapse and the game says you need to drink water, then do so.]

East

East

North

North

 

North

North

North

North

 

West

North

West

South

 

West

North

North

West

 

[Wow, look! The alien ship! Complete with a boulder blocking the entrance! Well, we can take care of that...]

Strike Fuse

Drop Stick

East (Score +10%)

West

West

 

[Nothing like alien technology. However, we brought along a couple of alien bits of our own.]

Put Cube in Hole

Put Rod in Hole

Push Yellow Button

Enter Oval

 

[See the note at the beginning of the file about abbreviations. The idea behind this series of rooms is to push a button to create an oval, and then to step through that oval to another room. Between every room of interest is an "airlock" room with only buttons in it.]

PBEO

PBEO

 

[Huh, what's this? Another cube?]

Get Grey Cube

PBEO

PBEO

 

PBEO

PBEO

 

[This is TSOM solution, a kind of healing drink. If you're in the desert and dying of heat again, you can drink this.]

Get Vial

PBEO

PBEO

 

[What we're doing here is not clear in context, but it is useful later.]

Put Grey Cube into Hole

Get White Cube

 

[And now, we'll wander through a bunch of useless rooms.]

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

[Hmmm. See Hole. See Cube. What to do now?]

Put White Cube in Hole (Score +10%)

 

PBEO

PBEO

 

PBEO

PBEO

 

PBEO

PBEO

 

PBEO

PBEO

 

PBEO

PBEO

 

PBEO

 

PYEO

 

PBEO

 

[Oooh, the fire control. While I am tempted to blow up the earth on general principle, we're here on a mission, folks.]

Push White Button

Point to Mother Ship (Score +10%)

 

[Now to get out of here. We can keep going Red-ward and find another exit, one trapped within a landslide. Getting crushed by rocks isn't my thing. So, we're going on another little tour, back to the entrance.]

PREO

PYEO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PREO

PREO

 

PYEO

 

East

 

[Hey, we're out! Now to get out of the canyon and back to civilization. By the way, feel free to blow away the little critter with the shotgun now.]

East

South

South

South

 

South

West

West

West

 

South

West

South (Score +10%)

 

[And so, you have solved Xenos.]

 

Recap of points (Warning - these can be spoilers!)

10% of your mission is completed for each of the following tasks : 

1. Seeing the dead alien.
   
   
2. Turning on the radio in the Saloon.
   
   
3. Opening the top drawer in the Sheriff's office.
   
   
4. Opening the shotgun cabinet in the Sheriff's office.
   
   
5. Shooting the snake with the shotgun.
   
   
6. Finding the storm shelter.
   
   
7. Blowing away the boulder blocking the ship's entrance.
   
   
8. Gaining alien knowledge via the white cube.
   
   
9. Setting the alien ship to blast the mother ship.
   
   
10. Returning to Purgatory after the mother ship has been destroyed.
    

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This document was last updated on 6/10/16.
Maintained by Sean Murphy (figment@figmentfly.com)