|  Silk Dust | | Title: | Silk Dust | | Category: | Game/Adventure | | Release Date: | 2021-06-05 | | Language: | English | | Size: | 64K | | Device Req.: | Disk only (1 side) | | Machine: | PAL & NTSC | | Code Type: | Machine code | | Distribution: | Freeware/Commercial | | Product Code: | PP0196 | | Retail Price: | €27,00 | | Distributed by: | poly.play | | Written by: | Bucci, Davide | | Uncredited (Additional graphics by): | Luca | | Notes: | Beta versions for testing purpose have periodically been publicly available from the author's site. The commercial release has been available on 2022-10-03, version 1.0.1 is dated 25-09-2022. |
Download: Version 1.0.1:
Version 1.0:
Beta version:
External links:
itch.io
Official homepage
poly.play store
C64 release
User Rating: 9.0/10 (2 votes)
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| | Releases | | Name | Released By | Release Date | Distribution | Product Code | Retail Price | Format | Package | Rarity | Notes | Owned |
| Original release | poly.play | 2021-06-05 | Commercial | PP0196 | €27,00 | Disk | Lid box | Unspecified | | 1 |
| 1 found. |
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| | Covers | 
Box (Front) |
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Box (Back) |
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| | Additional Software Materials | |
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| | Description | SILK DUST
A text adventure, by Davide Bucci
Today is April 19, 1907. You, Emilia Vittorini, arrived yesterday
in Varenna, on the shore of the beautiful Lake Como. You are hosted at the
magnificent Villa Briccorosso; Princess Lucilla Briccorosso is preparing for
the Silk Road Race, a 10,000km rally raid between Cairo in Egypt and Peking in
China, to be done by car.
You represent ITA, founded by your father, the company that built the car the
Princess just bought to use during the rally. The car is supposed to be
delivered today. Your role will be to assist the delivery and make sure
everything is perfectly functional.
Not everything will work following your plans...
The game is available for many other 8-bit and 16-bit platforms.
A text adventure is a game where all the interaction takes places with text and
you instruct your alter ego by typing command at a prompt. The rest is done by
your fantasy!
Here are some important commands:
"look": describe again the location where the player is present.
"examine object": describe the specified object.
"north" or "n" or "go to north": moves to the north, if possible. Other
directions are "s", "e", "w", "up", "down". At a certain moment of the game,
you will have to use other commands, but instructions will be given at the due
moment.
The command "bye" allows to exit from the game and "restart" well... restarts
it.
You can "take" objects that you notice and you can have a list of carried
objects with "inventory".
The following abbreviations are available:
"l" for "look"
"x" or "ex" for "examine"
"i" or "inve" or "inven" for "inventory"
Draw a map! Examine every object mentioned in the description, it may reveal
other details of the story or contribute to the general atmosphere. Think outside
the box: to open a locked door you don't always need a key! In general, while
playing the game, do not adopt "use" to perform an action, try to be more
specific: "pour water on fire" may be better than "use water with fire".
The game is divided in four parts. When you complete one of them, you will get
a code that allows to immediately jump to the beginning of the next part. Those
passwords are important, write them down!
You can also "save" and "load" your progress on disk on most computers that can
load the game from disks. |
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| | Background | Silk Dust contains a number of references to some historical figures and to some specific places. I included them with the hope to add a certain depth to the game, but I think they may remain un-noticed by a non-Italian (or even non-Piedmontese) player. I thought it may be interesting to write something about them. I also took some liberty from historical facts, when I had the impression it would fit the story and the game. It is a game and not an historical account, but I think the player must be informed of what is historical and what is invented.
The image of the splash screen is inspired by a 1898 lithography by Alfons Mucha ("The Rose"), on which I drawn the face of the unforgettable Brigitte Helm as she appears in a photogram of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. The background comes from a very nice art nouveau wallpaper.
The inspiration of the game comes from the 1907 Peking-Paris rally, won by the prince Scipione Borghese with an Itala mod. 35/45 HP. I saw several times that car (perfectly restored) in the The National Automobile Museum in Turin. I read the incredible book by Luigi Barzini "Peking to Paris" and I was inspired for some details of the game setting.
Further notes about the game's background can be revealed here once a part of the game has been solved and a new password is given. |
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| | Plus/4 Version | This version still features the game split in three different parts.
The Plus/4 memory may be enough to contain all Silk Dust in a single file.
Write down the passwords at the end of each part of the game.
Type
DLOAD "*"
followed by RUN to start the first part of the game, with the graphic loader
and the Art Nouveau 64 font.
To load and run the different parts of the game, load the disk (or disk image)
and type:
DLOAD "P4-SILKDUST1"
or
DLOAD "P4-SILKDUST2"
or
DLOAD "P4-SILKDUST3"
followed by RUN. |
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| | Soundtrack | |
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![[ Large cover ]](/dl/covers/s/silk_dust_contents_large.jpg){kind=link}