Ultra-Touch and Tass Deluxe: Let's Play Tass Times In Tonetown!

[ManxomeBromide]

Let's Play Tass Times in Tonetown!



Tass Times in Tonetown is an illustrated text adventure from 1986, simultaneously published on a zillion different platforms, as was the custom of the time.

Was it a good game? Well... the reviews of the time praised its amazing color graphics. It also wasn't really ahead of its time, so a modern game reviewer would find little to praise here and several things to squint suspiciously at. So, no. But we're going to play it anyway.

Why are we playing it, if it's not so great?

A few reasons. One of them is as a healthy tonic against nostalgia. There's something to be said for remembering that the past was not merely full of classics, but also some stuff that was at least good enough to publish and make back what you spent on it. And despite my crack above about the reviews being most positive about the graphics, this came out the same year that The Legend of Zelda did. Look at that dog up there. The reviewers meant it.

I will look briefly at some of the other ports, but I will mostly be playing the Apple IIgs version of the game in this thread. This has the distinction of being the first commercial release for that system, so that also makes it interesting. I think the IIgs port is the best one of all of them, and it's for the platform with no prior art or tradition. The devs knocked one out of the park as the very first batters.

And speaking of the programmers, the credits list for this game is incredible. The main design is by Michael Berlyn and his wife. At the time this game out, Berlyn's most famous game was Infocom's Suspended, a deeply strange and complex game about mentally controlling a pack of robots to save your underground warren, with so much to keep track of that it's almost more sensible to think of it as a board game with a text adventure attached to it. (Alas, the most famous thing Berlyn is known for today is probably Bubsy.) The engine it runs on was written by Brian Fargo, who led Interplay at the time and was also the director for this game. And finally, three of the ports -- including both of the ones I'll be primarily looking at -- were primarily programmed by Rebecca "Burger Becky" Heineman, who was legitimately a legend in her own right, albeit a legend of the "very good at what she did, and everyone who knew her was glad to know her" variety rather than the "celebrity" kind. Overall, then, this is interesting because even if it's kind of mediocre, we get to see what comes out when a team of Very Major Players come together and get something shipped that will keep the lights on.

OK, but why are we playing it now?

Rebecca Heineman passed away last year. She was one of Interplay's founders and her credits list range from The Bard's Tale and Wasteland through Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, and frankly I can't do justice to her career or to the sheer scope of the shadow she cast along the way. But that means that interesting things can follow in her wake; a few weeks ago her estate discovered her old source code disks for the ports of Tonetown she'd done, they were imaged at KansasFest 2026, and were then posted to the Internet Archive. With those, and a bit of data mining, I now think I can at least do this game justice.

"Tass?" "Tone?" What kind of zorking unheamy dapes are these?

Tophth your jets, gostak. We'll work it out. Like I said, this game is pretty by-the-numbers, so if you find yourself asking if its doing something revolutionary, just figure the answer is "no" unless we end up with a reason to believe otherwise.

But remember: just because it isn't revolutionary or particularly important doesn't mean it wasn't competent. This is a game you wouldn't regret playing, but overall I don't think it's a game you'd go out of your way to play, either.

And isn't that what Let's Play is all about? Let's go have ourselves a time.

• Update 1: Departure
• Update 2: ACAB Includes the Fashion Police

[ManxomeBromide]

Reserved for future probably-not-nefarious purposes

[ManxomeBromide]

Departure

We begin in the middle of things, or in the kind of "the middle of things" that is traditional for text adventures:

This is your grandfather's main living area in a secluded, winterized log cabin, deep in the northern woods. The dining table has an order slip from the local pizzeria.
Spot is here, lying on the floor.

As you can see, we're prompted to scroll down if there's more text in one wodge than fits in the little area at the bottom. Once we're done we get our normal input, with a cute little happy face for a cursor:



We don't always have to type commands, either; clicking on a part of the illustration will sometimes do something sensible with it, and then we've got a weird sort of command-wheel there in the upper right, with TAKE, TALK TO, DROP, BUY, HIT, TELL ME ABOUT, LOOK, and ENTER, and a compass rose for navigation. These just fill text into the command region, though, so I'll be ignoring the mouse for the duration here.

Speaking of ignoring the mouse, if we press ENTER without actually giving a command, we swap between illustrated mode and text mode:



It can take upwards of a second to update the illustration, so if we've got a lot of navigation to do, or if we got ourselves murdered and need to quickly replay a bunch, text mode is the way to do it.

Presumably we aren't going to get murdered here, though. Instead, there is a dog. Time to put this game to the harshest of tests:

:LOOK SPOT
Spot's name, oddly enough, comes from the spot on his back.
:PET SPOT
He would purr if he could but he can't.
:TALK TO SPOT
Spot wags his tail and smiles.

Test passed. The manual doesn't actually tell us what we're supposed to be doing in this game, mind you, and the game hasn't seen fit to suggest anything either. 1986 is early enough that it's reasonable to expect the player to meet you half way and just mess around in the environment you dump them in. They weren't actually that careless, though; the player will have read the back of the box and knows that your grandfather has gone missing and that the point of the game is to find him, and the game's feelies include a newspaper from Tonetown itself that make it clear that "Gramps" is known to them as well and that he's gone missing.

They also, uh, didn't trust the player very much because the manual and the back cover copy basically tell you most of what you'll need to do to solve the entire first half of the game but without openly treating it as hints. I'll be ignoring those until we actually get to the point where they don't spoil the LP.

Anyway, here we are, bold adventurers, presumably summoned to visit Gramps and have arriving to find he's not here. Time to get adventuring, and by "adventuring" I mean "taking everything we can and looking at everything we can't."

:LOOK TABLE
There's an order slip on it.
:READ SLIP
You can't help but notice that the anchovy and pepperoni combo has been circled. It's gramps' favorite, but always gives him terrible nightmares.
:GET SLIP
Who needs a greasy order slip!
:W

You're in a hallway off the living area. A bedroom is to the south, while the lab door is off to the north.
:N
You try the door, but it's locked.

Aha! A tangible goal! But first, a bedroom to the south.

:S
You're in a messy bedroom. Gramps was never the best housekeeper, even though he keeps a spotless laboratory.
Spot sits by the foot of the bed whining softly.
:LOOK BED
The bed hasn't been slept in for a day or two.
:LOOK CLOSET
It appears as if all his clothes are still here.
:LOOK DRAWERS
Tsk Tsk! Where is your mind?

It's bent to the task of looking for clues, game. There absolutely could be clues hiding in the sock drawer. At least we have reason to believe that Gramps' disappearance is recent.

Incidentally, despite the graphical compass rose, it doesn't indicate exits, and as you've seen, the text itself is a little casual about actually telling us where exits are. Playthroughs are going to include a lot of this:

:S
Into the wall?
:E
Into the wall?
:W
Into the wall?

That said, we didn't check the first room as carefully as we should have, because we missed a spot. Let's just head back there, and...

:N
You're in a hallway off the living area. A bedroom is to the south, while the lab door is off to the north.
:E
This is your grandfather's main living area in a secluded, winterized log cabin, deep in the northern woods. The dining table has an order slip from the local pizzeria.
:S

You're in a small, familiar kitchen.
Spot is here, barking at the kitchen counter.

On the Apple IIgs version we actually get a little "Woof, woof" sound clip that plays after every command we type.

What is it, Spot? Did Gramps fall in the well?

:LOOK COUNTER
Sitting on the counter is an odd-looking cookie jar.
:LOOK JAR
There's a key in the jar!

"Obvious objects" get drawn front and center in the screen.

:LOOK KEY
It's a metal key.
:GET KEY
You got a key.
You're in a small, familiar kitchen.
:LOOK SINK
Adventurous souls aren't stuck in the kitchen.

Hey, maybe adventurous souls just want a snack!

: DRINK WATER
Aaah! Tastes just like the water grandma used to make.

One of the things that got me to do this LP was the ability to datamine the files more easily thanks to the source code release. This got me, among other things, the complete verb list.

The last entry in the verb list is "BURGER." Well, we are in the kitchen. Maybe we can do better than just water.

:BURGER
Death and disfigurement for all who chant the unholy word. A blood-stained axe lops down and leaves you headless.
It seems that the game has ended. Would you like to try again? (Y/N)

Wow, rude. I guess we would like to try again.

This is your grandfather's main living area in a secluded, winterized log cabin, deep in the northern woods. The dining table has an order slip from the local pizzeria.
Spot is here, lying on the floor.

Right. Fine. SOUTH, LOOK JAR, GET KEY, NORTH, WEST.

You're in a hallway off the living area. A bedroom is to the south, while the lab door is off to the north.
:N
You try the door, but it's locked.
:UNLOCK DOOR
You open the door and rush inside.

I know we can't all be Hadean Lands, but I really do miss doors that unlock themselves when you hold the key.

You're in Gramps's lab. It looks like it could use a good dusting. There is a half-eaten pizza and a fishbowl sitting on the lab bench.
You see a book.

OK, we're definitely about to get in trouble. Let's do what we should have done earlier.

:QUICKSAVE
Your game is saved.
:LOOK PIZZA
It looks mighty old.

... sure, I guess we did just save. That means we can do unwise things with impunity.

:EAT PIZZA
It's cold,slimy and rather repulsive but you manage to gag some down. You wish you hadn't.

This actually doesn't kill you or anything, but if we wish we hadn't, we can make that happen't!

:QUICKLOAD

We get more distinct load/save options as well, but the quickload/quicksave system is handy for when we're messing around.

:READ BOOK
The book is opened to a page whose date is just a few days ago. It says, "Shouldn't have had the pizza. Fell asleep with hoop on. Fear the worst. Grabbing some picks for barter. Am going thru to examine pizza-nightmare damages. Rips in space are feared to be...." Except for the first part of the book, encrypted with arcane symbols and mathematics, that's all you can make out.

As a Doomed Apocalypse Log, this leaves a bit something to be desired, but at least we've got a bunch of stuff to take here.

:GET BOOK
You got a book.
You're in Gramps's lab. It looks like it could use a good dusting. There is a half-eaten pizza and a fishbowl sitting on the lab bench.
:SEARCH FISHBOWL
A bunch of guitar picks sit in an otherwise empty fishbowl.

"Grabbing some picks for barter," he says in the journal. Presumably he means these. The Tonetown Times actually references this too; one of the articles discusses a town meeting where they decide to continue using "p" as their currency instead of switching to floppy disks. Well, we can grab some too.

:GET PICKS
You got a bunch of guitar picks.
You're in Gramps's lab. It looks like it could use a good dusting. There is a half-eaten pizza and a fishbowl sitting on the lab bench.
:I
You have a book, a key, and a bunch of guitar picks.
# of guitar picks: 50.

As you can see, the inventory actually tracks the number of picks we have, and it will update it as we buy things throughout the game. This is the most mysterious thing in the game; there's a bunch of game logic tracking all our purchases, and this is the only place in the game we can get money. You'd expect that this means we'll have to carefully marshal our funds and ensure that we only buy the things we'll need to beat the game, maybe needing to restart due to unwise budgeting or something. But no. 50 picks is ludicrous overkill; it's technically possible for us to run out, but we have to intentionally bankrupt ourselves to do so. To the extent that there's a puzzle here, it's finding the pick stash in the first place.

The last location in the cabin is to the east of here.

You're in the eastern part of the lab, standing before a silvery hoop which is large enough for you to walk through. A generator is bolted to the floor in the corner.
Spot is here, leaping through the hoop like a circus dog.

Spot is basically Navi in this part of the game.

:LOOK AT GENERATOR
A small plaque reads, "Brainwave Generators. Just throw switch for a jolting experience."
:THROW SWITCH
The generator springs to life and a hum of power pulsates through the mysterious hoop.
Spot leaps up with a glance over his shoulder, lets loose a little yip as he leaps through the hoop in a burst of bright sparks!

Well, if it's good enough for him...

:LOOK HOOP
It's about the size of a hula hoop.
:ENTER HOOP
You get dizzy for a moment, then find yourself in another place.

Next stop: Tonetown. Now that we've fully explored the cabin, though, here's a fun question to tide you over: How the Hell did we get in here? There's no front door in any room.

[ManxomeBromide]

ACAB Includes the Fashion Police

Last time, we turned on a brainwave generator and walked through a mad science hoop into a strange new world where the normal laws of reality do not apply. For example:

:BURGER
What do you want to burger?
:BURGER KEY
You can't burger the key.

Not only do we escape death and disfigurement, "burger" is apparently now a transitive verb.

But we have gotten ahead of ourselves. Where were we, again?

:ENTER HOOP
You get dizzy for a moment, then find yourself in another place.

Oh, right.

You're in a dirt-filled construction site. A trench running north and south starts here. It appears to be dug by unconventional means -- the walls of it are smooth.
You look at Spot and notice he looks radical! He turns to you and says, "say bye to Spot 'n 'Lo to Ennio! I have arrived! Let's blast!" Ennio is following you.

Radical, you say.

:LOOK ENNIO
"I'm a wee dog, wiseguy."
:TALK TO ENNIO
Ennio smiles and wags his tail.
:PET ENNIO
Ennio lets out a little purr.

Despite being informed by the narrator that Spot is both actually named Ennio and also is radical now, this is the only description or illustration we get in-game post-shift. The splash screen at the very start and the box art for the game overall depict Ennio as being still just an ordinary dog, but with a little hat.

I suppose that's enough. Ennio is a Certified Good Dog.

As long as we're here...

:LOOK HOOP
You see Gramps's lab.
:GO THROUGH HOOP
You can't. This hoop is one-way.

Yep, maybe a dozen commands in and we're already at a point of no return. If you didn't pick up something you needed from the first region, you are already screwed. We were pretty thorough, though; I've taken over the key, the book, and the guitar picks, which are the only objects in the region the game will let us take at all.

There's not a lot going on here, though. Let's go exploring.

:E
You're on a north and south sidewalk. To the east is the Jamac Salon, while the construction site is off to the west. Hovering before you is a floatfone.

This seems as good a point as any to reveal why, though I claimed that Ennio was basically this game's Navi, he is much cooler than Navi is:

:ENNIO TELL ME ABOUT FLOATFONE
"You can't dial M for murder or anything like that.

Under basically all circumstances, Ennio only speaks when spoken to. Let's keep heading north down the road for now, sketching out a map of the town before we set ourselves any goals.

:N
You're on a north and south sidewalk. There is a strange bullet-shaped building to the east and a construction site to the west.
Ennio sniffs the breeze like a young puppersnapper.
:N

:N
You're standing in the center of the town square. To the north are beautiful weeping willows, to the west is a pet store, and to the east is an oval shaped building.
Ennio stands beside you, sniffing the stone path. He lets out a little whine.

Sounds like the road ends here? Let's go west and start filling out our map.

:W
Snarl stands up and says, "You're not from around here!" Then he captures you and tortures you to death.
It seems the game has ended. you like to try again? (Y/N)

Wow, rude. The little smiley face at the end is also a nice touch. (Yeah, it's just the cursor, but still.) Fortunately, this is what quicksaves are for; let's go east now.

:E
You're standing in the Party Supplies shop, a place for party masks. The woman in charge stands behind the counter.
:LOOK WOMAN
She looks back at you.
:TALK TO WOMAN
"You have to use first names in Tonetown," warns Ennio.

The first-names thing here will come up in a few places over the course of the game. Here, it's really just checking to see if we're paying attention at all.

:TALK TO FLO
"I owned a Flo Rink in this game. Tough break, but the program got too big on the other side. So they says Flo, 'wait for the next game or sell party supplies.' Flo asks ya, what's a girl to do?" She wipes a tear away with a laugh. "Hey, maybe next game."
:FLO TELL ME ABOUT MASKS
"What color mask?"
:LOOK MASKS
They're small masquerade masks.

Mouse controls to the rescue; it lets us distinguish the two masks in the background, though it doesn't tell us anything.

:LOOK GOLD
They're small masquerade masks.
:LOOK BLACK
They're small masquerade masks.
You hear a muttering, faint but annoying: "Stupid tourist."

Screw you, dude, it's not my fault the illustration draws gold as white.

:FLO TELL ME ABOUT GOLD
"What's wrong with it? I like it fine."
:FLO TELL ME ABOUT BLACK
"On you it'd look good. I find the gold one ultratouch."

OK, we'll keep that in mind for later. Let's continue our exploration. South, then east...

The waitress has seated you at a booth and waits to take your order. From where you sit, you can see Fast Freddie's is really hopping. There are dancers whirling around on the dance floor, people eating and chatting at various booths along the walls, while rock music blasts out across the room. There is a small sign on the wall in your booth.
You see mitts.
:LOOK MITTS
They are made of thin silvery material.
:GET MITTS
You got mitts.
:READ SIGN
The sign reads, "Welcom to Fast Freddie's, the hottest place in town! Glo burgers are big, hot, delicious and glowing for only 3p. Activate your brain's neurotransmitters for just 2p with Fast Freddie's Fizzie!"

Well, as long as we're here, might as well mingle.

: DANCE
That was fun!
Franklin Snarl appears muttering, "I hate tourists!" He then grabs you and throws you to the Crocogators.
It seems that the game has ended. Would you like to try again? (Y/N)

Wow, rude.

The modern reviews of this game were kind of jarring to me because they all tend to be of the form "wow, what a cute, quirky place! I wish I could live somewhere like that, or at least visit it regularly," and I do kind of wonder if they, like, noticed that Tonetowners use "tourist" as a slur and if you don't fit in they will not bat an eye as you are plucked directly off a crowded dance floor to be torn apart by wild beasts. We aren't being particularly directly mistreated, at least until we get repeatedly gruesomely murdered, but the feelies are not exactly subtle about the opinions of the populace at large. This is literally the first real puzzle in the game, and it's that our grotesque nonconformity is completely unacceptable to polite society, so we'll need to make ourselves properly presentable if we intend to stay here for any length of time.

Mechanically, what's actually going on here is that a timer starts ticking down as soon as we enter Tonetown, and we hear someone muttering about us at one point and then we get captured and fed to the Crocogators a bit later. It doesn't really care where we are or what we're doing, though if we encounter Franklin Snarl directly while the timer is running, as we did the first time, he just kills us immediately. Or, uh, perhaps at great length.

I think I'll be restoring from the save before I went through the hoop just to keep the timer as comfy as possible.

:LOAD GAME
Last game saved was #2. Which game do you want? (0-9)

The "Load Game" and "Save Game" menus at the tops of these screens also let us just pick slots directly. It's a little weird to have slots instead of named saves, but I guess it's mouse-friendlier.

This time we go east twice from our entry point.

You are sitting in a chair in the Jamac Salon. Off to the east you see a rack of brightly colored clothes through a doorway. Chaz, Tonetown's famous BodyStylist, hands you a dyecut dyeorama.
:READ DYEORAMA
You can't read the dyeorama.

Tsk. Sloppy.

:LOOK AT DYEORAMA
It reads, "Pink - 2p; Glitter - 3p; Royal Blue - 4p; Sparkle Plenty - 5p; Feather foil - 10p."
:BUY BLUE
Chaz puts a wild streak of Royal Blue in your hair and says, "Now you're looking tone! Better than that Jonboi Waltune look you had! Let's jet back to the 'Tique."
:E
You are standing in a clothing boutique.

Jonboi Waltune is someone who, according to the newspaper feelie that came with the game, was recently legislatively exiled from town for his continued refusal to meet their standards of dress and appearance. I don't think they actually intended Tonetown to be a vicious satire of how people who make nonconformity their main source of identity ultimately go horrifically toxic, but it's kind of hard to ignore here in 2026. I promise I won't be spending the whole LP complaining about this, but I won't be promising that you've heard the last of it yet, either.

Anyway. We've dyed our hair a respectable shade of blue, and now we need to a get a suit that will maybe make our dance partners think that feeding us to the Crocogators is a bad thing.



I will have you know that I am here under duress, and I do not appreciate...

:LOOK JUMPSUIT
This remarkable jumpsuit was designed by a BodyStylist. It comes complete with a built-in backpack. There are pockets all over the front of it. A label on it says, "TroppoWear from Down Under 5p."

Never mind, all is forgiven! :neckbeard: Give me all the pockets.

:BUY JUMPSUIT
You purchase a jumpsuit for 5 picks.
Chaz says, "A hooplet would look very Tass!"

Hmm, can I afford that?

Can you afford not having it? It's not safe out there, you know.

Good point. Better safe than sorry.

:BUY HOOPLET
You purchase a hooplet for 2 picks.
:WEAR JUMPSUIT
You slip into the jumpsuit.
:WEAR HOOPLET
You put on the hooplet.
:LOOK AT ME
You're ultratouch and tass deluxe.

Unfortunately, this jumpsuit's pockets are a lie. You see that inventory bar there in the middle of the screen?



That's all we get, and the inventory limit is harsh. Our outfit, built-in backpack, pockets, and all, decreases our total carrying capacity by two items because worn items count too.

( Having read through the source code, this is actually kind of funny; their underlying engine doesn't have an inventory limit, but it does have a weight limit. They just gave every item in this game a weight of 1, so they never have to worry about overdrawing the inventory window.)

Time to put our new outfit to the test. Both of the times we got brutally murdered it was by the same guy, Mr. Franklin Snarl. Let's go back west from the town square to pay him a visit directly.

You're standing inside Snarl Pets. There is a glassed-off wall of Blobpets making strange squealing sounds. Franklin Snarl sits behind a black plexiglass register, grinning in your direction. There is a small sign near the register on the wall.
Ennio appears very nervous.

:READ SIGN
The sign reads, "Sonic Lock Alarm."
There is a small, unlit red light next to it.
:TALK TO SNARL
"Nice critter you got there, Ennio," Snarl says, curling his lip in a grin.

All right, even if the pockets are just for show, the jumpsuit has clearly proven its worth. Time to leave before Snarl gets wise. Once the coast is clear...

:ENNIO TELL ME ABOUT JUMPSUIT
"What of it?" Ennio says with a wag of his tail. "Let's get on to more important stuff! There are legends waiting to be made!"

Well, you heard the dog.