Solved - girl is always late, town hall clock

[Tony Whittaker]

I'd love to reconnnect with this children's book we had from our local library, but despite extensive online searching, can find no trace of it, as cannot remember or even guess at the title.

Illustrated children's book from c. 1990, for readers perhaps 5 - 9. The young heroine (age 8-ish) is not good at timekeeping, and is often late for tea. She feels therefore that 'time is a monster, marching on'. She makes friends with the clockkeeper of the town hall clock, asks him about the nature of time, and he kindly on one occasion puts the clock back about 5 minutes, so that she does not seem late home for tea. The story and pictures have a mainland European feel to it. May have been a translation from Dutch.

Does anyone recall this one?

 

[Beth Rodgers]

I searched a bit and found a site that showed you had already found the answer (http://w1.loganberrybooks.com/stumpthebookseller/?p=2241#comments). Glad you were able to find it! I hate when I'm stumped and can't think of what I'm looking for. There is a computer game from when I was a kid that was on a floppy disk that I think about sometimes and cannot find anywhere and no one remembers. It's driven me crazy time and again, and one day I hope to find it.

 

[Tony Whittaker]

I searched a bit and found a site that showed you had already found the answer (http://w1.loganberrybooks.com/stumpthebookseller/?p=2241#comments). Glad you were able to find it! I hate when I'm stumped and can't think of what I'm looking for. There is a computer game from when I was a kid that was on a floppy disk that I think about sometimes and cannot find anywhere and no one remembers. It's driven me crazy time and again, and one day I hope to find it.

Thanks so much. Yes, I did find it in the end on a different site, after years of searching. (The book was 'Why does nobody have time for me?'

I can understand you wanting to trace an old game. Just as a children's librarian is the most likely, as it proved, to track down my book, probably gamers will be the most likely for your computer game. Can you describe it a bit? Object of the game? Characters in it? The pitfalls or enemies to avoid?

 

[Beth Rodgers]

I can describe it, and I can picture it really well (not that that helps). It was like a scavenger hunt around a house and there was a dragon. I don't remember if the dragon was the one doing the scavenger hunt or if he was what you were supposed to avoid, but if I had to bet, my money would be on the latter. There were different rooms throughout the house that you had to look in for different items. It was definitely a floppy disk kind of game. I don't believe I ever played it on a CD. This was probably the early 1990s, maybe late 1980s (not sure when it specifically came out). If you have any idea or know anyone who might, any help would be appreciated! Thanks, and again, I was so glad you were able to find your book!

 

[Occlith]

Just a guess - Adventureland?

 

[Beth Rodgers]

Thanks for the guess. The plot does look similar, but the cover of the box that I see when I search for it looks sufficiently scary enough that I would not have been interested in playing it as a young kid. I remember the game being more kid-friendly.

 

[Tony Whittaker]

[QUOTE=" If you have any idea or know anyone who might, any help would be appreciated! Thanks, and again, I was so glad you were able to find your book![/QUOTE]


I've asked on a list of Christian techies, and received these replies so far:

"Seeing as I don’t hard anything better to do today I took a look at an abandonware website, myabandonwave.com. Two games stood out as possibilities: Treasure Hunt (http://www.myabandonware.com/game/treasure-hunt-2d1) and Bob’s Dragon Hunt (http://www.myabandonware.com/game/bobs-dragon-hunt-317) I don’t know if either of these are what you’re looking for, but they are tiny downloads and will likely run nicely in a dosbox.
I myself was a big Commander Keen and Prince of Persia (the original) fan and will sometimes break them out on a dosbox install.

"

"Another website to search for great old games is www.gog.com "

Hope this helps, and you may recognise graphics. You may then be able to download within a DOS install on a Windows machine (a tech friend may be needed), or find that someone has put the game online in one of the many online games, in a form that will work on a normal browser.

 

[Beth Rodgers]

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I don't think the ones that were named are the ones, but I will definitely check out the sites mentioned. I really appreciate your trying to help!