Text Hunter

Chapter 2

Gramps lived on the farm his whole life, but he wasn't a farmer. He kept a few animals like pigs and chickens, but his true loves were engineering and computers. His barn was home to broken down machines and old computers, not animals. He could fix anything. Surrounded by farmers, Gramps made a career out of fixing their broken equipment.  

He loved to tell stories, too. It wasn't until the near the end when he started talking about the buried treasure on the farm. By that time, he was tinkering with electronics and his barn was filled with gizmos and gadgets. Most of it was useless stuff, like his automatic ice cube washer. Gramps had a thing about clean ice cubes in his lemonade. All his inventions were a bit off, but so was Gramps.  One day, he sent me the computer disc in the mail.  

It was squarish, like a piece of bread. I had no idea what it was when I pulled it out of the envelope. It was Mom who told me it was a computer disc. She said people used to save computer programs and stuff on them in the days before you could just download everything. I had no idea why Gramps sent it to me. The note that came with it, didn't explain much.  

Aaron,  

Keep this safe. You are the only one who has it. You'll know when to use it. 

Gramps 

I had no idea what it meant, but I was curious about what was on that disc. I scoured the computer shops near school until I found a disc drive that would read this arcane technology. I brought it home, sat at the kitchen table and plugged the reader into my mom's laptop. I opened the disc. It had only one file in it: Treasure_Hunter.exe.  

I clicked it open.  

Ghostly green letters appeared on the screen.  

<Welcome to Treasure Hunter! You are on an abandoned farm. To the north is a large farm house. To the west is a crumbling barn. To the east is a dark forest. To the south is the main road.> 

Below the words, a cursor flashed with the steady rhythm of a heartbeat.  

I clicked the mouse on the screen. Nothing happened. The cursor just flashed.  

"This thing Gramps sent me is totally stupid," I said.  

Mom peered over my shoulder.  

"It's a text adventure." She smiled. "A video game." 

"That's not a game. There's no graphics. It's lame."  

"When I was your age, this was a video game," she said. "I loved playing them. So did Gramps. We didn't need flashy graphics to get lost in a good story or consumed by a devious puzzle." 

"Where do I click?"  

"You don't click. You type." She read the text on the screen. "You have four choices, North, East, South or West. Type in the direction you want to go."  

It still sounded pretty lame. The best part about video games are the explosions and blood and all that stuff. Reading a bunch of words on a screen sounded too much like, well, reading. And reading is not my idea of a game.  

But it was a gift from Gramps. He said I was the only one who had it. Not Rod or any of my cousins. I figured I'd humour the old man and play Treasure Hunter for a while.  

I typed 'West'. The game responded immediately.  

<You walk inside the old barn. The smell of animals still lingers in the air, but there is nothing living here anymore. Ahead you see empty stalls. To your left is a ladder.> 

I had to admit, it was kind of cool that this game responded to my commands. But now there was no direction to type.  

Mom pulled up a chair and sat beside me.  

"Try climbing the ladder," she said.  

I typed 'Climb ladder'. 

<You climb the ladder into a hay loft. The little room is dusty and damp. Scattered pieces of hay cover the floor. Sitting on a wooden crate is an oil lamp.> 

"I want to pick up the lamp," I said. "How do I do that?"  

Mom smiled. "Get lamp." 

I typed that into the game.  

<You have added the lamp to your inventory.> 

"Cool," I said.  

"Isn't it?" She had that glow parents get when you try a new food and actually like it.  

I had no idea where Gramps got this game or why he wanted me to have it. The old guy was really sick. Mom said he didn't have long left, so I felt I owed it to him to keep playing. I transferred the files to my phone, so I could play it in my bedroom. I stretched out on my bed and played it for the rest of the night, but I kept getting stuck.  

I went east to the forest, but I couldn't enter because it was too dark. I thought my lamp would be useful but it wasn't in my inventory. I knew I got it earlier, but it wasn't showing up. Clearly, the game had some bugs, but it was fun in a weird kind of way.  

I never got a chance to thank Gramps for the game. He died the next day.  

He had been sick a long time, but that didn't make it any easier. Mom ran around in a haze organizing his funeral, contacting distant relatives and basically keeping the family together.  

In his will, Gramps asked the whole family to head up to the farm for one last gathering. That's when I figured out why he sent me the game.  

Mom and I pulled into the long driveway leading up to my grandfather's farmhouse. My aunts, uncles and cousins were already there. Everyone hugged and was sad. I was sad too. I was also stunned.  

I stepped out of our rental car and stood in Gramps' driveway. Behind me, to the south, was the main road. To the west was a crumbling barn. To the east was a forest. Ahead of me, to the north, was a old farmhouse.  

I was standing in the starting point of Gramps' text adventure.