Fred's Backyard

Fred's Backyard is a video game in the adventure genre and published by NielSoft originally released in 1991. It is currently playable on DOS.

Fred's Backyard is one of the most original text adventures you can find. The game makes up for its primitive parser and mediocre writing with fun ASCII graphics, sound effects and, above all, dozens of fun math puzzles reminiscent of Sierra Rama and IF's classic The Magic Toyshop.

The plot is nothing special: you find yourself at the beginning of the game in someone's backyard, not knowing how you got there. After exploring a bit, you discover that your goal is to help rescue Fred, the owner of the house, from the clutches of a sea monster roaming around. The gameplay is pretty standard pick up everything that isn't nailed down, and the parser is very primitive. If it weren't for the jumbled word clue given at the beginning of the game, I'd never know how to get to the bedroom bed to meet a crucial character (as logical phrases like 'APPROACH BED' and 'WALK TO BED') don't seem to work. Worse, the game doesn't understand common IF verbs like 'SEEK', and you have to be very precise because the parser doesn't understand synonyms or paraphrases. This means that most of the puzzles in the game that require typing something are difficult not because they are difficult, but because you will spend a lot of time trying to guess the exact syntax that the parser is expecting.

Fortunately, the rest of the game is a lot of fun. You'll soon come across pictorial puzzles that use ASCII graphics to the fullest, and many fun logic or arithmetic-based puzzles. You can replay many of the top logic puzzles you've solved by launching a separate program included in the game, a nice touch. The interface is also very intuitive: you will always see all possible exits from the current location (North, South, etc. ), as well as the objects you can collect.

Overall, Fred's Backyard is a fun game with excellent educational value in the form of math-based puzzles. The typing and parser leave a lot to be desired, but if you are willing to forgive these weaknesses and concentrate on the game, you will be pleasantly surprised with lots of fun puzzles and good ASCII graphics. Highly recommended.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.