Twice Shy

Twice Shy is a thriller written by Dick Francis and published in 1981. This game is a text based adventure that puts you in the role of Jonathan Derry, a physics teacher in a comprehensive school in the south of England. Dick Francis is famed for his complex thrillers based around the English horse racing scene and this game is based around one of his classics. Without giving too much of the plot away, the story is based around some Spectrum software cassettes, horse racing and the bad guys who want them. As well as the adventure game itself there is a racing game which can be run either independently as a free-standing game, or part of the adventure, when the game requires the player to go to a race-course to look for clues.

The text interpreter is easy to use and has a wide vocabulary. It accepts simple commands such as Go South, South and even 'S' as well as more complex combined commands such as 'Go south, east, north and open the door'. Commands can be given to other game characters by typing "Say to Jane 'Tell me about Ted'", and "Sarah 'Go south and open the door'"

It is possible to save the game and restart from a saved position.

Search gameplay videos on YouTube (opens in a new tab)