Mountain Valley Software — Australian made text adventure 1981–1987 — tribute site
← All games
Mystery Island box artwork

Mystery Island

Commodore 64CassetteDisk

Somewhere in one of the world's remote oceans lies an uncharted island, forgotten by time and man. Hidden on this strange island are ten treasures. It is your task to find and store them, but beware — many dangers also await you on Mystery Island.

Transcribed from the cassette inlay.

1983 · Copyright 1983 on the disk loading screen; advertised October 1984

Play it

The disk image is under “From the archive” below. It runs in VICE, which is free for Windows, macOS and Linux, or on a THEC64. Two-word commands: DIG, HELP, GET ROPE, GO NORTH, DROP HAMMER. The hint sheet below has the solutions.

How it plays

Commands the manual gives as examples: DIG, HELP, GET ROPE, GO NORTH, DROP HAMMER.

T = List of Treasures stored. Treasures are indicated with an asterisk, e.g. *PEARL*.

Screens

In game
In game
Loading screen — cassette
Loading screen — cassette
Loading screen — disk
Loading screen — disk

Design notebook

From Brian Betts’s working notes, scanned flat. Open a page to read it full size.

Mystery Island location grid and abbreviation key, with the list of ten treasures, handwritten in pencil
The location grid and abbreviation key. The page has no heading; it is Mystery Island because its rooms and creatures — a lighthouse, a tiger, sharks, rapids — are all on that game’s disk and no other. The game opens in a ship’s cabin, and the grid runs to the lighthouse and the “top of light”. The key covers the crab, the tiger, the crocodile, a raft and the rapids. At the foot are the ten treasures the inlay promises, most ticked off: a brass lamp became a gold one, and the dish was made silver. Below them: “11000 – CONGRATS” and “15050 – TRY AGAIN?”.
Graph-paper drawings of the giant crab in three poses, and the scenes it appears in
Graph-paper designs for the giant crab, drawn in three poses beside the scenes it sits in, with one marked “4 SPC FROM TREE”. The crab beside its tree is the shore scene under Screens above.

Earlier cover

A second, unbordered cover design for this title, and most likely the packaging it had before October 1984. That autumn Mountain Valley told dealers it had “completely redesigned and upgraded” its cover artwork, and the list of titles it sent out with the October offer shows every game in the bordered design at the top of this page. Only titles already in the range have a design like this one: the two released with the redesign, Himalayan Odyssey and The Volcano of Raka-Tua, do not. The letters are in the archive.

Mystery Island — earlier, unbordered cover artwork
Open the image to see it full size.

Reviewed

  • 80% — Commodore Magazine, vol. 5 no. 6, c. 1985 Read it

From the archive