Pallida mors

Pallida mors, Coworth park horrors ? encore un jeu avec deux noms! Mais pourquoi ?
Cela faisait un moment que ça me titillait  
En décembre 2008 un commentaire de l'auteur du jeu, sur Oric.org expliquait:
Dop: "The game was called 'Pallida Mors' - that whole Coworth Park Horrors nonsense was entirely the idea of the guy who ran TUG and later the OOUG. I was not happy about it at the time"
Visiblement, il n'était pas content que l'éditeur de la revue dans laquelle sont type-in fut publié, ait changé le nom du jeu. L'éditeur  n'avait visiblement pas capté le petit côté intello de l'affaire...

Ce qui suit, n'est pas issu de ma culture personnelle, mais de quelques recherches que ma curiosité m'a poussé à faire sur Internet  
Comme cela m'a paru intéressant, j'ai pensé en partager le résultat ici.
En effet, DOP semblait être un latiniste distingué puisque PALLIDA MORS est le début d'un vers d'Horace:
PALIDA MORS AEQUO PULSAT PEDE PAUPERUM TABERNAS REGUMQUE TURRES
soit : Pale Death, with impartial step, knocks at the cottages of the poor and the palaces of kings.
Un autre indice de l'admiration de l'auteur  pour Horace se trouve dans la devise gravée à l'entrée du château et sur la tombe du côté de l'église :
NON SUM QUALIS ERAM qui est le début d'un autre vers d'Horace:
NON SUM QUALIS ERAM BONAE SUB REGNO CINARAE
soit :  Trust me, I am not the man I was in the reign of good Cynara
Alors évidemment, "Les horreurs de Coworth park" ça gâche un peu l'ambiance    

D'un autre côté, c'est l'auteur lui même qui dans le listing écrit :" Written by The Doppel-Ganger...with Coworth park in mind" Autre enigme ? De mémoire Coworth park était le quartier général de l'équipe des pères de l'Oric au début de années 80 (Oric l'histoire sans fin).

Internet encore, m'apprend que, de nos jours,  Coworth Park est un hotel 5 étoiles non loin du village d'Ascott, mais en fouillant un peu dans l'histoire du bâtiment on apprend que dans les années 70-80 il a servi de bureaux, il est donc vraisemblable que ce Coworth park soit bien celui qui a hébergé la naissance de nos Orics    Est-ce la raison qui a poussé l'auteur à situer son jeu dans ce lieu ? Mystère!

En tout cas, l'image ci dessous confirme bien que le plan du jeu correspond, dans les grandes lignes au plan de l'hôtel 5 étoiles actuel. Front garden à gauche, Roses garden à droite de l'allée principale. Allées rectilignes faisant le tour du bâtiment; Les deux ailes latérales s'avançant tandis que le corps central du bâtiment semble reculer...


L'archive jointe contient:

1 - une version disc du jeu avec option GPS et sauvegarde de partie en cours ajoutées
2 - Le plan des lieux (png)
3 - La solution (pdf)

Merci Dom.
Tu vas trop vite pour moi :-D

Bravo Dom, encore des mystères élucidés.
Pour les amateurs, le tape-ins est sur Oric Computing 1, de Novembre 1983.

The game was listed in Oric Computing as Cowarth Park Horrors, but there was absolutely no mention of this name in the listing, so I called it Pallida Mors, (Pale Death), when I typed it in and sent it in to OUM where it ended up on a OUM disk. So I may be to blame for the 2 names, but as you've found it seems to be what the author intended.

I assume the person mentioned is Bob Green who ran TUG which became OUG with their magazine becoming Oric Computing on their switch in focus to the Oric-1. The firm seems to be part of Kenema Associates which explains how they got the Hello's Temple artwork on the front of one issue.

I think an early version of the game appears in TUG 35 as House of Death, which explains why the name was changed, as that name was used by Tansoft. They are different programs with House of Death being much shorter - but you can see the similar idea. And they did use the same artwork for Cowarth Park Horrors.

I searched to try and find who "The Dopple-Ganger" was and eventually came up with the name A J Shepherd. He wrote some further adventures for the Atari computers, but I don't know what happened to him. There is a car sales company under the name A J Shepherd, but I haven't plucked up courage to ask if he knows what an Oric is.

I do have some OUG tapes which includes Cowarth Park Horrors.

Hi Steve, welcome to the forum
Thank you very much for those precisions about Pallida mors. Very interesting indeed!

You spoke about an early version named "House of death", I would really be interrested to have a look to this game. Do you own a .tap or a .waw version? Perhaps a photocop of the TUG35 listing ?

We are also in search of some British adventure games , some of them (the red ones) probably produced by oric enthousiasts and perhaps published in OUM or Rethoric discs.
Maybe, if we are lucky, you own one or two of these games, or maybe you know where to find some of them...
Anyway, thanks again for the information about Pallida

Dreadnought               Disaster Apocalypse Dungeons of Intrigue    ASL Indiana Smith              HGC Quest J.                     Wolstencroft Psycho 2                    LA Software Enchanted               Mirage Software Grandad                   Mirage Software Haunt, The               Mirage Software Sausages                 Mirage Software Caverns of Hellville     Oric User Group Crowley's House        Oric User Group Balrog Castle            Sigma Black Orc Castle       Sigma Cave Quest             Tevward Microtech Oric Adventure         Tevward Microtech Death House            Tomorrows World Dracula                   Mister micro

HI,

I've been trying to transfer Grandad and Sausages without success. I have 2 or 3 copies and none seem to work properly.
I have the master copy of Enchanted which I've not had much success with either.

I don't have the Haunt on tape. I'll need to check if it is on disk, but I don't think so. Dave should have had a copy of all the Mirage titles, but I think he gave things away sometimes. His collection of software is spread over numerous 3" disks which made things harder to find the more he got. Once he was disk-based he didn't seem to save all the tapes. A lot were given away to Frank Bolton who sent them to a school in Romania where children were taught on the Orics using some of Franks own programs. Boxes of tapes were handed to Frank before others got chance to bid for them.

The good news is I have found a copy of Hellville. (that's the title on the tape - no 'Caverns of'...???)
I've converted it to disk along with the tape of Cowarth Park Horrors, but I haven't converted it to the PC yet.

I think I have Indiana Smith on 3" disk. At the moment my 3" system isn't up and running. I have a good interface but need to sort out the cables to connect power supplies etc to get it all working properly. (My main system is twin 3.5" disks)

The TUG mags are dopwnloadabel from the Microtan website. http://www.microtan.ukpc.net/
(Click on Magazine). There's some interesting articles/ programs there!

Steve sent me Grandad and Sausage recordings last April, gave a try at Grandad. It had two different recordings, one looking good, the other not. From the good one, a bunch of bytes still resist... It's a Quill game (like Krystal Worlds) so no expectations on finding what the faulty bytes could be.

Don't think I ever had time to try Sausages, but I only found back one recording that looked like the bad one from Grandad.

Thanks Symoon.
Raaaahhh ! These quilled games are a real hassle for archivists and.... cheaters

I was about to give up, when I ultimately tried to compare the two last tries and correct one from another... And magic, it works!

As The Quill begins by a checksum that reboots the Oric if false, I suspect the file is 100% OK. Lost of time and luck...

I can't find back how to attach files here, so I'll update Oric.org.

Fantastic Symoon! You are the best
But you forgot to say you spoke about Grandad

Oh yes, Grandad
Sorry, too many things at the same time I suppose