The Adventure Game

A very clever and funny programme, this was aimed at children but much enjoyed by adults (especially this one). I hated to miss an episode. It was a great brain workout, with that great feeling of satisfaction when you got the answers right! I also always enjoyed the Vortex, when they stepped on the wrong square at the end of the game and were evaporated just before they reached their goal... I especially appreciated the use of anagrams of "dragon" for everything - character names, currency - the lot! Even now, whenever I see a word that looks similar to an anagram of dragon, I'm transported back to The Adventure Game. With its logic problems, so much better than any of the more recent "puzzle" type games seen on TV, and the guests who appeared had intelligence. So sad to see that some of the episodes are lost, but couldn't we have the rest on a DVD, please, BBC?

Grandpa, the pot plant, and the vortex game: good memories!

BBC 2. The 80's.

The Drogna Game... The Vortex... Chegwin... This is what classic TV is about: Minor celebrities of the era grovelling to a potted plant which just so happens to be royalty. Genius.

Can't really remember what exactly it was all about, or if indeed there was a point to it all - I just have incredibly fond memories of this show, mainly due to how daft and baffling it all was.

I seem to recall Moira Stewert being in there somewhere, Noel Edmonds, Fern Britton, Cheggers... probably Richard Stilgoe or the likes of...

They certainly don't make 'em like THIS anymore...

Inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, 'The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy', and the BBC microcomputer, 'The Adventure Game' was a particularly charming piece of children's television. Watching it now on DVD, a number of things strike you: how well-spoken everybody is, how the male contenstants casually patronise the female ones, and the preposterousness of inviting the presenter of 'Play School' to solve logic problems based on recongising Tschiakovsky's '1812 Overture' or the title of Lawrence of Arabia's book 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom'. Also that it's a strange example of reality T.V., with scripted aliens interacting with mostly genuine contenstants; and above all else, that no-one really seems to have a clue what they're doing. The problems are too hard, some of the gags are brilliant while others fall flat, the early episodes varied in length because they couldn't edit them into a consistent format (and apparently, in some instances, they even ran out of time in filiming them). And yet there's a magic here, with its bizarre sense of humour and challenges far more engaging than those seen on other vaguely similar programmes. Series 1 (featuring Moira Stewart, of all people) is the most improbable, it really feels like the producers are winging it; series 3, with the vortex, the aspidistra, and the backwards speaking man, is the one that surely sticks in most people's minds. They really don't make them like this any more.

The adventure game was one of my favourite programmes as a child. Set somewhere in the galaxy, the contestants had to solve problems to earn credits (known as drogma or something like that). The game had these plants that the contestants interacted with and at the end they had to navigate from one side of the vortex to the other side. I wish they would bring it back but the BBC had a habit of doing away with good programmes and replacing them with crap (eg the chess programme "The master game" and "The adventure game").

I don't know what it is, but TV programs back in the early to mid 80's were so much more interesting and stimulating than what we have today.