This is a collection of maps to the interactive fiction game Acheton by John Thackray, David Seal, and Jonathan Partington. This game came out around 1979 on the Phoenix mainframe at the University of Cambridge, later released commercialy by Acornsoft in 1984 and again by Topologika in 1987. It is speculated that this was the first adventure game released outside of the U.S.A. At its time, Adventure/Colossal Cave and Dungeon (later known as Zork) were Acheton's major contemporaries, but Acheton is notable for having been the largest IF game out there for some time. Even by today's standards, it is a huge game - there have been only a few games since Acheton with larger room counts - Zork Zero (only because of its 400 floor FrobozzCo Building), Time Zone, and I believe also Hezarin. These maps were made using Microsoft Powerpoint, of all things. It was actually relatively easy, though time-consuming because of the appalling complexity of the game. There were things I wanted to do with the room layouts that were well beyond the capabilities of the usual IF mapping programs out there, and I felt obliged to do the best job possible at giving this piece of history proper justice. I have spent some time checking the accuracy of these maps, but given the size and scope of this game, I would not be surprised if there are some mistakes. I am very interested in hearing about any you might find. Note that these maps were made from the PC version of the game available on the Interactive Fiction Archive at www.ifarchive.org. There are some differences between this and the original Phoenix version. Years ago I posted similar maps for Zork Zero. At this rate, my next set of maps will be ready some time in 2012. Sigh. For my next project I'm planning on doing either Spiritwrack or PolyAdventure version number whatever it is they're up to now. At least that one has source code available. Marco Cavagna 19 August 2006 cavagna_m@yahoo.com Archive Contents: Readme.TXT this file Notes.DOC explanatory notes on the maps 0_Legend.PNG map legend 1_Forest.PNG forest, Hades 2_Main.PNG central regions including slab room, lodestone room, wizard's lair, endgame 3_Colossal.PNG colossal cave, pillar maze 4_Mine.PNG lower levels of the mine (shudder) 5_Ice.PNG regions above the slab room 6_Garden.PNG wizard's greenhouse, privet maze, roc's nest 7_Sea.PNG sea, coral island 8_Desert.PNG desert canyons, pyramid, dusty trail rooms Note that these images are very large, and will be hard to read if your image viewing program automatically resizes them to fit on the screen. version 1 8/19/2006 version 2 8/26/2006 fixed error at entrance to endgame region fixed various transient passages previously marked ordinary cleaned up appearance of various rooms with complex exits (eg, Ningy Room) color-coded cold rooms color-coded danger rooms color-coded magic word passages added locations of endgame weapons added shortcut into caves from Miner's Hut added magic word passages from Hades added virtual room north of Giant's Prison added monster pathways added "jump" exits from Sailing in the Dinghy added colored stars added several "instant death" exits (eg, jumping from trees) added "down" alternatives for entering pillar in Colossal Cave added passage back to Middle of the Beach from Lost in the Desert labeled some Sea rooms (those with unique descriptions) replaced "DEAD" with skull and crossbones image added and changed some clipart version 3 4/14/2007 changed exits from Hades (1-6) to one-way exits changed magic word passages from Hades (1-7) to transient exits cleaned up map key page and changed some notation (eg, virtual rooms) added virtual room down from Balrog's Pit differentiated Roc Fledgling routes from Winged Serpent routes added idol pathway from Primitive Shrine added "instant death" notations in Long Thin E/W Passage cleaned up other monster routes added more "instant death" exits (jumping from ends of stone bridge, Giant's Prison) added "up" and "down" exits from rooms in the wizard's dungeons changed Gladiator's Arena to a "danger room" fixed two missing gnome pathways in Privet Maze added and changed some more clipart cleaned up grammar and clarified things in "Notes.doc" file