In a word: Arrrrgghh

There's this one old computer game I've been taken with the last few years: Redhook's Revenge, originally published by ImagiSOFT, Inc. in 1996 or thereabouts and now available as freeware on their website. The goal of the game is to collect the most gold doubloons---oh, right. Forgot to mention that the characters are the very images of 17th-18th century pirates.

On first glance, it's hard to determine why I keep playing this game. I already know the answers to all the trivia questions. I know where almost every Treasure space and Disaster space is located. The pirates' faces scare me when they get angry, and the music unnerves me when something bad happens. It ought to get dull after a little while, wouldn't you say?

Well, here's a few reasons why I do. #1: Winning the game is not a foregone conclusion. You can answer all the trivia questions right, get all four cannons and thus have a higher chance of gaining treasure when faced with other players or cities, and still lose. Something will end up happening: you could lose half of your treasure by landing on a certain space near the end of the board, or your opponents could win in a fight and gain a large chunk of your funds, or they could have more success in defeating their foes, or... anything could happen. Knowing the game inside and out gives me an advantage, but my win-loss percentage is not as overwhelmingly high as you would think.

#2: The variety. It happens, but it's not often that a game board shows up the same way twice. There are two different start points and two different end points that the computer is allowed to choose from, and at least 6-7...hmmm... let's call them "middle map pieces" that can show up in virtually any arrangement (with 3 of them actually being used). Depending on the layout of the board and the number of player- or AI-controlled opponents, each game could take anywhere from 15-45 minutes to finish.

#3: The bugs. Yes, the bugs. This is probably due to a coding error, but from time to time something bad will happen to one of the players: losing a turn, losing money or showing up too late to a razed city... and the pirate will be happy about it or at least remain neutral. The reverse can be true: treasure will be gained or what have you, and the pirate will be angry, as if gaining riches beyond his/her dreams was not how he wanted to spend his vacation. It's fun watching when this happens, although a few of the other bugs---such as certain messages disappearing too quickly for anyone to read the first word, let alone the whole message---is a bit annoying.

Anyway, that's part of why I like to play it. Another part is because I like to see how high the final scores can go; this might have happened only once in the 14-15 years I've been playing this game, but I've seen doubloon counts go as high as 90,000. Like I said earlier, though, it's not a given; don't be surprised if you finish a game and find out that your score is a straight flat zero.

Feel like you want to give the game a go? Visit the website above. Download. Play, whether using DosBOX or otherwise. And, if you're half my age, tremble in fear as Bastian Blood sneers at you.