Madness and the Minotaur

An Interactive Fiction Game for the TRS-80 Color Computer

Madness and the Minotaur CoCo manual cover art

What is Madness and the Minotaur?

King Minos, one of the sons of Zeus and King of Crete, has erected a vast labyrinthine castle intended as a prison. Anyone confined to the Labyrinth has never escaped — killed or driven mad in the attempt. Rumor has it that treasures are hidden within. Are those treasures worth risking your life and your sanity?

Madness and the Minotaur is a text adventure created by Tom Rosenbaum of Spectral Associates, later distributed by Microdeal. Seven creatures guard six treasures, and eight powerful spells — VETAR, CROM, MITRA, AKHIROM, OKKAN, ISHTAR, BELROG, and NERGAL — must be discovered and mastered to escape the Labyrinth alive. Two hundred and forty points is the maximum score.

PublisherSpectral Associates / Microdeal
DeveloperTom Rosenbaum
Yearc. 1981
PlatformTRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo)
Part number26-3313 (cassette, $14.95)
Madness and the Minotaur intro screen Madness and the Minotaur first words screen Madness and the Minotaur first text screen

Play Madness and the Minotaur

Play Online

You can play Madness and the Minotaur right here in your browser using a CoCo emulator. Click the splash screen below to open the console, then press any key to begin.

Madness and the Minotaur

Click to start the CoCo emulator

To access tape functions, enter the QUIET command. Then press one of the following keys:

  • W — Return to game
  • ! — Save game to tape area below
  • ) — Load game from tape area below

The text area below is the virtual cassette tape. The "!" command writes 2111 bytes to the box. Select all (Ctrl-A) and copy (Ctrl-C) to save to a text file. Paste saved data back before using ")".

Also playable via the Mocha CoCo emulator: Mocha online — type CLOADM, wait for loading, then type EXEC.

Manual & Solutions

TRS-80 and CoCo Emulators

Game ROM

Source Code

Reviews & Remakes