ALF: The First Adventure (DOS) - Ending screen!

[samstokes80]

Since I have the day off tomorrow, I decided to once again see if I could beat that old ALF DOS game that confounded me as a kid. It's sort of like Pac-Man on speed and it is ridiculously difficult. Anyway after about thirty minutes, I got really frustrated and gave up, so I decided to see if there was any way that I could hack the game. I'm not really much of a hacker, but if the program was fairly simple and not encoded in a very cryptic way (as some of these old DOS games are), I can occasionally fiddle with them some.

Anyway, I figured out that if you change the names of the PIC files you can choose which PIC displays at different points in the game. I was able to view all the pics, and discovered the victory screen posted below. I hate to only get there by cheating, but sheesh, this game is really hard! From left to right, it appears to be ALF, Skip, Rick, a Melmacian girl (Stella perhaps?), and Rhonda.

The victory screen from the DOS game "ALF: The First Adventure"

[robodog]

Cool! I never even knew this game existed. All I knew of was the Sega Master System game. And is it me or does Skip look like someone cut off his forearm at the elbow and replaced it with a banana?

[Ninjadragon5]

interesting, I never knew this game existed, like robodog I only knew of the sega master system one. that one was pretty hard too.
what is the gameplay like in this game?

[samstokes80]

Ninjadragon5, yes, the Sega one was very difficult, too! The gameplay on this one is similar to Pac-Man. You control ALF, who runs around a maze (which is supposed to be a neighborhood of L.A.). You have to avoid pick up pizza in order to have the energy to catch all the stray cats and store them in the garage. After that, you have to pick up two boxes of spaceship parts and then the key to the level. Meanwhile, you must avoid Willie, who will make you get rid of all items you have collected so far (essentially, resetting the level). And you must also avoid the dogcatcher. If the dogcatcher catches ALF three times, the game is over. The concept is silly, but sound enough for a child's game of this type. The problem is that it is super hard! I worked hard at it when I was a kid and I think I only made it to level 3 one time. I believe there are four levels in all. I tried it again as an adult a few times and never even managed to get to level 2 again!

If you want to play the game, you can surely find it on Abandonware sites. Of course, to do it perfectly legally, you should technically purchase the original disk, which can occasionally be found on eBay, but I'm going to guess that you don't have an antique 5.25" floppy disk drive laying around. You can use the open source emulator DosBox to play this and any of the other ALF games for DOS.

Robodog, I hadn't even noticed that, but yes it does look like Skip has a banana arm. How strange!

[samstokes80]

I also just noticed that the artist (presumably) signed his name, "Joe," on Rick's shirt. Too bad this is probably the first time anyone has seen it, lol

[samstokes80]

This is a map of level one that I made. It is a montage of four different screens. Actually, the game would probably be considerably easier if you didn't have to travel between screens. Often you go from one screen to another and run right into Willie or the dogcatcher on the other side!

Level 1 map of ALF: The First Adventure (DOS)

[samstokes80]

Okay, played it some more and actually got to level 2. The map is below. Not much more interesting, I know, but I left the sprites on this time so you can see the characters.

[robodog]

The plot doesn't make much sense. Why would Willie want to prevent Alf from fixing his spaceship? Just think of the money he'd save on food if Alf left! Plus vet bills for Lucky, who I'm certain has a lot of psychological issues from living with an alien who is constantly trying to eat him. Kitty nerve pills don't come cheap!

[Ninjadragon5]

okay, I see now, yeah, it does l really look like pac-man rip off, I guess like many other games at that time, they trying rip off the success of the pac-man game. it is kind of weird concept that willie is the bad guy in this game, sure willie as scolded alf a lot of times, but he was never that mean to him and yeah, wouldn't willie encourage him to fix his spaceship, so he could finally leave him and his family be?

[samstokes80]

You're both totally right. It is odd that Willie wouldn't be supporting ALF in fixing his ship. It's a pretty odd game, but the Sega game is much weirder. ALF fighting bats in a cave under the Tanner house... I don't know why ALF didn't have a decent memorable video game. Maybe the new movie will prompt a decent, fun game.

[robodog]

Alf is one of those shows that doesn't really lend itself well to a video game format. There's really no action or conflict, at least none that would be reproduced well in video game form. Does that mean if an Alf game ever came out for a system I owned I wouldn't snatch it up in a heartbeat? Hell no. But I wouldn't really expect much out of it. Though a game in which Alf is running around outwitting Alien Task Force agents and defeating them in various slapstick manners might be fun.

[Ninjadragon5]

You're both totally right. It is odd that Willie wouldn't be supporting ALF in fixing his ship. It's a pretty odd game, but the Sega game is much weirder. ALF fighting bats in a cave under the Tanner house... I don't know why ALF didn't have a decent memorable video game. Maybe the new movie will prompt a decent, fun game.

yeah, not to mention he trying to beat the bats with a stick of salami. there was a part he was swimming the water of some reason ( i forget the reason why) and trying to escape from a nameless faceless person mostly throughout the game, what the heck? yeah, certainly a very odd game for Alf.

[Ninjadragon5]

Alf is one of those shows that doesn't really lend itself well to a video game format. There's really no action or conflict, at least none that would be reproduced well in video game form. Does that mean if an Alf game ever came out for a system I owned I wouldn't snatch it up in a heartbeat? Hell no. But I wouldn't really expect much out of it. Though a game in which Alf is running around outwitting Alien Task Force agents and defeating them in various slapstick manners might be fun.

so very true, there really wasn't much of a conflict plot in ALF to makes a good game out of it, most of the games made from ALF were pretty bad or educational. The only ALF game I think that would be cool for me if it based more the cartoon show when Alf was still in the orbit guard, and he is flying a spaceship and fighting off enemy ships.

[samstokes80]

I would love to see Telltale games make an ALF game in a point and click puzzle style like the Sam and Max games and the Back to the Future game they recently did. Both of them are fun and have good humor.

[robodog]

You're right. A point and click Maniac Mansion type game would probably fit best. They could remain faithful to the series and add plenty of Alf's trademark humor without adding nonsense like Alf killing bats with salami or Willie suddenly being a villain trying to keep Alf from fixing his ship for some reason.

[Ninjadragon5]

oh yeah, I game like that would be really good for ALF too.

[Melmac98]

I hope they make a game after the movie that can be played on my MacBook.

[robodog]

There will probably be a tie in game when the movie comes out. Unfortunately these types of games are rarely high quality. They're usually just thrown together as a quick attempt to cash in on the movie's fame. Alf deserves better than that. Whether he'll get it or not remains to be seen.

[Ninjadragon5]

yeah, I really hope they come out with a game too, even if it is a bad one, I might still get it.

[shreddinghead]

yeah, me three, not much of a gamer anymore though but still.