PC Games – 24 Hours

Long before the TV show “24″ there was an early PC game, circa 1987, called “24 Hours”. The game was made similar to “San Francisco Earthquake – 1906″ in that is was programmed in BASIC and Assembler and was designed for the Radio Shack TRS 80. Like Earthquake, it was a text based game with no graphics at all. Many felt that it was simply a cheap knock off. But the game was not without its interesting points.

The start of the game was very similar to Earthquake. A man awakes to find out that his wife has been kidnapped and frantically begins his search, having been informed that if he doesn’t bring the ransom in 24 hours, she’ll be killed. The clock then starts ticking. The game is actually played in real time. Every second you play, another second in game time goes by. So you literally have to finish this game in 24 hours. And thus, the chase begins, focusing mainly on modes of transportation, of which there are plenty.

The guy starts out hopping in his car and driving all around town looking for clues. He stops at diners, liquor stores and magazine stands talking to people along the way. He finds some items along the way and buys others. Each item leads him to a new clue.

The early portion of the game covers a large area of the city itself and eats up about 4 of the 24 hours. It was apparent that the game was designed so that each section took up 4 hours, since there are 6 sections in the game.

The second section begins when the guy finds his way to the train station. Here, he has to leave his car and hop on a train. On the train he meets a number of passengers who also give him some clues. Ultimately, these clues lead him off the train at a certain stop. If he doesn’t get off, it’s okay as the train just goes back and forth like a subway. Eventually he’ll find the right stop. This also takes about 4 hours.

After getting off the train the next section is all on foot. The area covered will eventually lead you to an airport where you rent a private plane. The clues found that ultimately lead you to this conclusion, of having to board of plane, are rather convoluted. But if you think outside the box, you’ll figure them out. In the meantime, 4 more hours have gone by and you are now 12 hours into the game and halfway to either finding the guys wife or watching her die.

The plane trip takes you to a field. The field itself is a huge maze that leads to a cave. Finding the cave itself is very hard as the maze is huge. This part of the game takes another 4 hours to get through the maze, which is done on foot. We are now about 16 hours through the game.

Once in the cave you find some tracks. It appears the cave is some kind of underground railroad. Ultimately you find a small one passenger train that you have to figure out how to run yourself. The tracks in the cave seem to go all over the place. In a sense, you are in another maze. This takes another 4 hours to get through to the end where you find your wife.

Here is where it gets interesting. Your wife is handcuffed to something in the cave. The cuffs don’t have a key. Instead they have a combination lock. In the meantime, there is a bomb in the cave set to go off in 4 hours. There is also a complex code box on the bomb. Enter in the right code and the bomb will be defused. Enter the wrong code and it blows up. You have to decide. Do you defuse the bomb or try to figure out the combination for the handcuffs and get your wife out?

You better hope you have more than 4 hours when you get to this section of the game because either option you choose is going to be close to impossible to solve. This is the most frustrating part of the game. The end is ridiculously hard.

Whoever made this game must have loved torturing people because this game is one of the most frustrating things you will ever play.

But oh what a load of fun it is. Even without the graphics.

Michael Russell

Your Independent guide to PC Games