Tuesday, November 10, 2009

My Love Affair With Cave Girl Clair

When I was 9 or 10, my mom bought me a computer game for our old-school 80s computer. The game was called Cave Girl Clair and was part of a series of non-violent computer games for girls.

I absolutely LOVED the game. Poor Clair was accidentally left behind when her cave family migrated to warmer lands for winter (or maybe it was cooler lands for summer?). She had a pet rabbit and the entire game involved gathering food, gathering medicinal herbs, starting fires (with flint or sticks - your choice), and climbing trees to escape wild animals.

Sadly, I only got to enjoy it a couple of times before the floppy disk got all corrupted. (Yes...I said floppy disk. We used those things back then.)

Over the years, I've looked for this game repeatedly. (That makes me sound really geeky.) On Sunday, I found it!

All I had to do was add a Commodore 64 emulator to my computer and download the software. (That makes me sound even geekier!) In case you were wondering, emulators are legal and it's legal to download a backup copy for personal use if you already own the software and the software is out of print. But, if I am mistaken and someone wants to chase me down for the out-of-print, Commodore 64 version of Cave Girl Clair, I guess they can.

This reunion was 23 years in the making so I had to play it right away. Within 5 minutes, I had already killed Cave Girl Clair. Apparently, I took too long to start the fire. Since I can't remember how to start a fire, can't find any fire-making tools and keep getting Clair lost in the deep woods, I'll probably kill her a few more times. If only I could find an instruction manual! It's probably in a box somewhere in my parents' garage.

3 comments:

Evan said...

I swear there's an interesting story behind Rhiannon and Lucy Ewell / Elizabeth Stott - apart from a few press releases masquerading as copy, they and their company just disappeared off the radar.

Glad to see someone else managed to play their stuff back in the day though. :)

Eljabo said...

Oh yes...I was a girl obsessed! :)

Kristin said...

Hi! I'm desperate for this game! How do I make that happen?