Hyperdrive: The Lost 1982 Text Adventure

A Lost Game, Recovered

For years, the VIC-20 game Hyperdrive survived only as a rumor and a damaged cassette. It was written in 1982 by Ken Stone, building on earlier work he and John Hardy created together. That earlier project began on a Sinclair ZX81 as a fantasy adventure called Caverns, then grew into something larger when it was ported to the VIC-20 with a 16K expansion cartridge.

Hyperdrive took the ideas that came before and pushed them into science fiction. It traded dragons and dungeons for derelict starships and uncertain technology. The tone is different, but the same DNA is there: curiosity, exploration, and the slow accumulation of knowledge that lets you survive just one more move.

Typical of text adventures of the time, it also carries a few frustrating quirks. That is part of its character. It is a game from a moment when players were expected to map the world by hand and live with the consequences of a bad guess.

The only surviving copy lived on an aging tape. Around 2019 that tape was transferred to a WAV file, and from that capture the original BASIC listing was recovered with what appears to be complete fidelity to the 1982 program.

What the Game Feels Like

You are the pilot of a small space yacht damaged in a freak accident. You dock with a massive derelict cruiser to find what you need to survive and get home. The ship is cold, dim, and silent. Its corridors are cracked, its machinery is half alive, and its air is not always safe to breathe. Every room description feels like a clue and a warning at once.

The joy is in discovery: charting the ship, learning its rules, and keeping calm while the game tests your patience and your nerve.

What You Will Find Here

This repository keeps the original program and its recovery artifacts together so the full story remains intact:

• src/hyperdrive.bas: the restored BASIC source listing
• src/hyperdrive.wav: the original cassette capture
• src/hyperdrive.tap: pulse-accurate tape data derived from the WAV
• src/hyperdrive.prg: the reconstructed VIC-20 program file

Supporting material and notes:

• docs/recovery-notes.md: the technical narrative of the recovery process
• docs/peek-poke-notes.md: VIC-20 hardware notes used by the game

A Small Addendum

Later, John Hardy wrote a sequel titled Hyperdrive II for the Australian Microbee computer. It is its own game, but it echoes some of the atmosphere and themes established by the original VIC-20 Hyperdrive.

Original ad for Hyperdrive and Caverns, from Talking Electronics Issue 8 (published in 1982).