K.C’s Arboretum - A K.C.’s Krazy Chase Variation

To maximize the playability of some of their limited games, Odyssey would often create a game program and put it on a cartridge, but then in the printed manual would offer written instructions for game variations that changed rule sets or just utilized the same software in unique ways.

Monkeyshines is a great example of this, and while the software is called Monkeyshines, cracking open the gorgeous, quality printed manual reveals that it is really just a software package consisting of five games: 

• Monkey Tag!
• Tailspin!
• Shuteye!
• Monkey Chess!
• Bananas!

The keyboard is used to alter the play screen in different ways in each variation. Application cartridges Type & Tell! and Keyboard Creations! had several games written in the manual, but a quick search on YouTube reveals no speedrun of Nincompoop! Amateurs.

And there were more such suggestions in the pages of Odyssey 2 Adventure magazine. I was a player that sent in and got printed one such variation for Invaders from Hyperspace! Which leads me to one such game variation I created back in 1982 for K.C.'s Krazy Chase! which I called K.C.'s Arboretum.

Using the game's programmable mode, the player can add and remove walls thus creating their own maze layout. One day I was playing around with that mode when a thought struck me...will the trees regenerate in closed boxes and be out of the way if I create a maze with that?

A quick test lead to a few prototype mazes scribbled on graph paper and also tested before settling on the final design for K.C.'s Arboretum. The goal was to rescue 6 trees from consumption by the Dratapillar and regrow them on 6 pedestals, untouchable by either the Dratapillar or K.C.

Below is the document I created that day, for decades tucked inside a folder with various other Odyssey 2 advertisements and such:

 

One can see the maze design for the arboretum, and along the right the programming steps used to create the maze. The series of numbers in the middle represents the first successful arboretum achieved, with all 6 of the trees trapped in the six pedestals. 

The trees are eaten by either the Dratapillar or K.C., so the goal of the variation is to get the lowest score possible to get all 6 trees on their pedestals. Each time a tree is eaten, it regenerates somewhere else in the maze. As the Dratapillar circles the perimeter, he clears any trees out there, and the player has to clear them out of the interior area. Here is the maze:

The sequence of numbers from the sheet are 4-15-16-21-26-34 which represents the first tree being trapped at a score of 4, the second tree at 15, and so forth until the sixth tree was trapped at 34 for a final score. Another score on the sheet is 3-15-24-38-45-79 and apparently dated April of 2004. Another set of numbers stops at 49 for the fourth tree and I vaguely remember giving up the last time I tried.

And so the Arboretum was lost to time until this week. I dusted off the keyboard part of the Odyssey 2 and did some very, very old school level editing. Here is the program used to create the maze. Note that ENTER, CLEAR, and YES are keyboard buttons on the Odyssey 2.

• RESET (SELECT GAME should be on the screen)
• P
• ENTER
• 4 A CLEAR
• 7 A CLEAR
• A 2 ENTER
• A 4 ENTER
• A 5 ENTER
• A 6 ENTER
• A 7 ENTER
• A 8 ENTER
• B 2 CLEAR
• B 3 ENTER
• 3 B CLEAR
• 4 B ENTER
• 6 B CLEAR
• B 7 ENTER
• C 1 CLEAR
• 1 C ENTER
• 2 C ENTER
• 3 C ENTER
• 6 C ENTER
• C 6 CLEAR
• 8 C ENTER
• C 7 ENTER
• 1 D ENTER
• D 3 ENTER
• D 4 CLEAR
• 4 D CLEAR
• 5 D CLEAR
• D 8 ENTER
• 2 E ENTER
• 3 E ENTER
• E 5 ENTER
• 6 E ENTER
• 7 E ENTER
• E 7 ENTER
• E 6 CLEAR
• 2 F ENTER
• F 3 ENTER
• F 4 ENTER
• 5 F ENTER
• F 6 ENTER
• F 7 ENTER
• 3 G CLEAR
• 6 G CLEAR 
• YES

So, not only did I enter all that and play a round, I broke the world record:

I actually felt a bit crestfallen after getting that score. Maybe this variation isn't the cat's pajamas I remembered it being, but I bet they would have published it in Odyssey 2 Adventure magazine back in the day. Odyssey 2 was a system where the programmers squeezed the most out of the machine and the players squeezed even more using their imaginations.