Console: ColecoVision
Game: Venture
Genre: Action
(Exidy, 1981 / Coleco, 1982)
It’s Winky vs. the Hallmonsters! The purple stages, unique sound effects, and fun music cues made Venture an instant gaming classic! 😃🏹
ColecoVision port of the arcade classic ‘Venture’.
Venture follows the adventures of Winky (a smiley face with a bow and arrow), who is trying to collect treasure from three dungeon levels (each containing various rooms). Winky must collect the treasure as quickly as possible in each room before a dreaded Hallmonster enters to destroy him. If the Hallmonsters weren’t bad enough, each treasure room also has additional creatures like serpents, skeletons, goblins, and cyclops that Winky must either avoid, or destroy in order to obtain the next bit of wonderfully pixelated bounty.
Venture’s gameplay takes place in two main views; a zoomed out map screen of sorts, that houses all of the rooms you can enter on a given dungeon level (though beware those Hallmonsters, they lurk on this screen as well!) and the treasure rooms themselves, that give a closer view of the action. Stay on guard if you stay in a treasure room too long, as an invincible Hallmonster will enter the room to chase you down... and that can be quite a hilariously nerve-wracking experience that is guaranteed to get your heart racing!
Venture also provides some very memorable music and sound effects that really took advantage of the ColecoVision’s SN76489 soundchip. These short, catchy chip-tunes really enhance the overall experience (of special note, is a wonderfully whimsical version of Willam Tell’s Overture that plays after you obtain the treasure from, and are hightailing out of, any given room!). You’ll either be humming along, whistling… or potentially screaming when your adventure is rudely interrupted by one of the terrifying Hallmonsters.
With its 3 main levels, terrific atmosphere and sound, various rooms and treasures, and copious amounts of creatures to encounter, Venture remains an all-time video gaming classic that is just as fun to play today, as it was back in 1982!
Have you ever played Venture in either the Arcade or on home consoles?
*Bonus Stage: Venture was a launch title for the ColecoVision and was also ported to the Atari 2600 (1982), and the Intellivision (1983).
wow I totally forgot about this one, I loved this when I was like 7 or 8 (pre NES of course). I remember Rogue was at around the same time and the gameplay seemed deeper in that but this had, you know, graphics.