Note: Special thanks to Dphower and “2 Warps to Neptune” for the cover art images.
There was a time when the name Exidy ranked just behind Atari and Bally Midway among video game producers. A curious distinction, given that the company only released a handful of titles and never sought external funding.
Perhaps their guardedness explains why so little knowledge of their creative processes survives today. For that, I’ll have to eschew my usual development history and get right into the game:
Venture puts you in control of a smiley face named Winky™ 🙂🏹, trademarked because everyone wanted a mascot like Pac-Man (1980). Armed only with a bow, he delves into a dungeon in search of treasure.
You begin with a zoomed out view of the dungeon floor, moving Winky™ while he’s only a two pixels wide. These floors are patrolled by large, invincible, octopus-like creatures named Hallmonsters™ 👾.
Each floor has four rooms; stepping into one provides a zoomed view, allowing you to see Winky™’s enthusiastic grin up close. Spend too long in them and a Hallmonster™ will turn up like Berzerk (1980)‘s Evil Otto.
The controls are what you’d expect for the time: move and shoot. Unfortunately, it’s not not very smooth or satisfying, as every change in direction brings you to a momentary halt. When enemies start getting really fast — and they will do so before you know it — this becomes an unfair challenge.
Another thing you’ll have to plan around is that enemy corpses disintegrate slowly and remain dangerous to the touch. You’ll have to make sure their bodies don’t bar your exit before a Hallmonster™ shows up. This would be quite fun if enemy movement wasn’t so erratic.
Writing a detailed explanation of each room is a tad excessive, since most enemies share the same behaviour: they shuffle haphazardly, avoiding your arrows and sometimes the direction you face. Unlike Berzerk, there’s little fun in successfully lining up your shots here, because enemy movement is just too unpredictable.
The only distinct room in the first level is the Wall Room, which trades enemies for moving walls. They can be destroyed with projectiles ala Space Invaders (1978) but it’s easier to just slip past them. This feels more Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) than any other level, which I wish the game had taken more inspiration from.
There are three levels in all, with subsequent ones repeating this cycle. Each loop makes enemies faster and even the first loop makes their speed a bit much to deal with. Even for a greedy arcade game, this is gratuitous.
Fortunately(?), the treasures change up to three times in each cycle, and some are quite bizarre, so it’s fun to see what you’ll find next. Naturally, this charm wears off once you’ve seen them all, but it’s fun while it lasts. Just a shame that reaching them is such a hassle.
Perhaps there’s an error somewhere in the code, because the second level’s Spider Room has purple walls like the rooms in the previous level… or maybe the first world was supposed to have five rooms? Would be nice to know; again, a shame little insight exists on the game’s development.
Although it can hardly be heard in a noisy arcade, Venture has many musical tracks and plays a variety of stingers once treasures are collected. It’s a shame that most of the tunes aren’t original, but it is fun to hear the Arabian riff in the genie room.
Although its D&D-flavoured design lends it a fair deal of inspiration, it could’ve taken advantage of it more. Semi-randomised rooms and more obstacle variety could’ve gone a long way. Perhaps this was a tall order for its microprocessor, which was a bit weaker than its contemporaries.
I’ve always felt that the gameplay of Berzerk could lend itself well to more RPG-influenced design, as its core loop is very satisfying — carefully lining up shots and clearing rooms — but Venture just falls short of the mark.
So is this game good? No, I don’t think so. It’s certainly charming — the themed rooms are very cute and it’s fun to discover them all. It’s just a shame that the controls are so unwieldy and the enemy movement is so bad. Venture has always lingered in my mind because it’s a game that’s so very close to being good.
Venture saw a couple of home ports. The more impressive one, for the Colecovision, is actually superior to the arcade version in a lot of ways. It loses some of the fancier animations, like seeing Winky™ descend into the dungeon, or the decaying corpse frames, but the enemies are a lot more fun to play with, and the new sprites are pretty good.
The Atari 2600 version leaves a lot to be desired… but it does have most levels of the arcade original, decent enemy movement and it’s the only one without stop-starty player movement! Knowing how much worse this could’ve been on its meagre 4 KB of space, it’s actually a serviceable home port.
Call me crazy but I think both of these are better than the arcade version. Although they lack some of the arcade’s niceities and the rooms are often simpler, the core gameplay is better and that’s really what matters. Plus, it’s not like anyone actually destroyed the walls in the Maze Room anyway.
I couldn’t conclude this article without mentioning Venture 2 (1997), a fangame by Lafe Travis Fredbjornson. Although unmistakeably amateur, it has a lot of heart. There are nine worlds in all, each uniquely themed, and a few hidden levels beyond that too. I was completely smitten by this — this is a video game in its purest form, truly a tribute to human imagination.
