Name that Apple ][e game!

March 25, 2008 9:06 AM

What were those Apple ][e games that I played when I was younger?

My friend and I used to play two specific Apple ][e games when we were kids.

The first was a game where you were the pilot of a shrunken flying vessel and your flew into a body infested with various "diseases". It was your mission to rid the body of all the unhealthy elements.

The second was a game where you were stranded on an island and used various potions (and mixtures thereof) to create items you could use to help get you off of the island.

I remember that they were both in color, but little else about them. What were these games?

posted by LouMac to computers & internet (20 comments total)

Is the second one The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary?
posted by iconomy at 9:36 AM on March 25, 2008

If you're on Windows now (they're still working on an OSX port), you might find perusing this site and trying out the games helpful in jogging your memory. Or, you know, just wasting the entire day.
posted by middleclasstool at 9:55 AM on March 25, 2008

The first one is probably Plasmania. I remember that one because when it started, a voice saying "Sirius presents Plasmania!" would jump out of the speakers. Freaked me out. Screenshot.
posted by dr. fresh at 9:57 AM on March 25, 2008

I have no idea what the names of these games are, but they remind me of games that we played in elementary school. I remember there being a series of programs that had educational content coupled with a game. I want to say the boxes looked like newspapers or something like that - I think news was related somehow.

Anyway, I definitely remember playing the one with the potion mixing.
posted by o0dano0o at 10:08 AM on March 25, 2008

The second one is not Dr. Quandry because we played it well before 1993.
posted by LouMac at 10:22 AM on March 25, 2008

When did you play it?
posted by iconomy at 10:25 AM on March 25, 2008

The late 1980's. 1987-1989ish. Also, it wasn't ][e, it was on a ][c system.
posted by LouMac at 10:40 AM on March 25, 2008

I played Balance of Power, which could not be won, and Social Climber, which was fun. There was also a game of ferrying people from a haystack to another using a helicopter, and one called Chrysalis, or Chrystalis...
posted by parmanparman at 11:05 AM on March 25, 2008

The first one sounds like one of the minigames for 3D Body Adventure, released in 1994. I used to play it on Windows, but I'm not sure if it was made for Apple.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:29 PM on March 25, 2008

Let me see if you remember the same chemical-mixing game I remember. There was a map that was just a grid, and you had to traverse the challenges in each map location by putting together the right chemicals? For example, a desert could be crossed by mixing "hotium" and ... something, I don't remember, but which would make a hot air balloon. You couldn't mix it with the "rubber" chemical, because you would get "a stinky blob." Alternately you could mix coldium with, like, foodium or something, and get a popsicle that would take you halfway across.

At the top of the screen were test tubes indicating the amounts of each of the chemicals, yes? I'm going nuts trying to remember this.

Might it have been one of the games included in one of the monthly educational software bundles that one of those companies, maybe Broderbund but maybe not, would send to schools? Most of what I remember playing around that age was from those.
posted by darksasami at 3:09 PM on March 25, 2008

...you would get "a stinky blob."

That's the one I remember!
posted by o0dano0o at 5:52 PM on March 25, 2008

Yes darksasami! That was definitely the potions game! Now if I could just remember the name...

But the other one was not 3D Body Adventure. I played that one on my Packard Bell in 1994 too, though.
posted by LouMac at 7:11 PM on March 25, 2008

I remember a shrunk and sent inside the body adventure game as well - although I was playing on the IIe.

At the moment though I can't remember the name, but I know at one point you had to remember the name of your partner in the body, who was a red blood cell named "Arby Sea" (RBC). Does that ring a bell?

I know there was also another game similar to that one as well- same style although a different overall premise.

Lets see if I can a) find the name or b) find the old 5.25s
posted by langeNU at 7:50 PM on March 25, 2008

I just found a thread on a message board that said the name of the potions game was "Mission Mix-up". Found it by searching "arby sea body game" on Google. Tried to visit it twice, and it became blocked by MIS. Must use "games" as a filter for blocking sites.

But yes, the Arby Sea was the name of the vessel you piloted in the body game. Still can't find the name, though.
posted by LouMac at 6:56 AM on March 26, 2008

Mission Mix-Up is it! And better yet, you've dug up the series it came from -- the Scholastic Microzine! I don't understand how Google failed me, because I searched on some of those titles, such as "Malice in Wonderland."

This is pulling up all kinds of fantastic memories, like Escape from Antcatraz ("I'm bored." "I'm fat." "I'm fat and bored." "Well, I'm bored and fat!"), Operation Frog, and 2008, An Oval Office Odyssey (the answers are the Time Top Hat and sonar).

Given all that, could the body game be MicroAgent of the Body Guard?
posted by darksasami at 7:43 AM on March 26, 2008

Oh. My. God.

If I had the technology to rip ROMs of these...
posted by darksasami at 7:50 AM on March 26, 2008

YES! I knew it had to do with newspapers or magazines!

I think the potion one may have been Dr Maxwell's Molecule Magic. Maybe?
posted by o0dano0o at 8:13 AM on March 26, 2008

No, the potion one is quite definitely Mission Mix-Up. From the forum post:

When I was in elementary school back in 1986 or so we had this game for the Apple IIe at school called Mission Mix-up. You had this array of chemicals that you could combine to make different items that you used to overcome obstacles. The chemicals were things like Hotium (makes hot objects) Coolium (makes cold objects) Foodium (makes food) Transpo (makes vehicles) and Toolsine (makes tools). So for example, if you mixed Coolium and Foodium you'd wind up with a popsicle, or Hotium and Toolsine might make a blowtorch.
posted by darksasami at 8:17 AM on March 26, 2008

Ah ok - Mission Mixup on ebay.
posted by o0dano0o at 8:22 AM on March 26, 2008

Mission Mixup b/w MicroAgent of the Body Guard, no less!
posted by darksasami at 8:30 AM on March 26, 2008