I know I have said it before, but I’m saying it again: I’m amazed at some of the games that can turn up on local online marketplaces. My go-to source for really old games, such as those from Infocom, is Ebay. Most of the things I seek are available there. And while a lot of games can be bought on Ebay for reasonable prices, a lot are also really expensive. The main reason that I don’t buy many games on Ebay anymore is the high shipping costs, especially from the US. The combined shipping costs and taxes are often just as high as the price for the game itself. And while I can use a shipping service, that opens up a whole new can of worms, because then I go on a shopping spree just to get the average shipping costs per game down. And the service itself also costs money. Therefore I have learned to just be patient and wait until the games that I’m looking for turn up locally.

And that just happened: a seller was offering five(!) Infocom games in one advert. I didn’t hesitate and put in a very reasonable offer for the whole lot. The advert wasn’t very detailed, but it stated that some of the games were still sealed. This also wasn’t a seller that I had encountered before and he also didn’t offer any other games, so I hoped that he wouldn’t wait too long to see if anyone else would put in a higher bid. But that went well and he quickly contacted me and asked for a slightly higher price, which I agreed to, and the deal was done! Sometimes, when sellers wait too long with responding, you just know that other people might join in. Or, sometimes, they just wait a really long time, and you still win the bid. The whole process is part of the thrill of the hunt.

Anyway, I received the games overnight and was very excited to see that four of the five games really still were in their original sral. It wasn’t like they were re-sealed or something. They were genuinely unopened since the mid 80s! How cool is that!

The games I bought were Starcross, Sorcerer, Seastalker, Suspect and Bureaucracy. Of those five, I already had three. Only Seastalker and Bureaucracy I didn’t have yet. I decided to give myself the pleasure of breaking the seals and opening them up.

Seastalker had extra cellophane wrap over the feelies, something that I have seen the remnants of on some of my other Infocom games. Bureaucracy didn’t have that. Both games have nice feelies, although not as cool as some of the other Infocom games.

After that I turned to the other three games. Suspect was also sealed, but not with cellophane, but only a small sticker from Ariola preventing the box to open. This version is for the Commodore 64 and 128 and the sticker says: “SOFTWARE FOR YOUR COMMODORE 64/128 (1541 DISK) IM3-C01”. The version I already have is for the Commodore 64 and Plus/4 and the label looks older and says: “C= COMMODORE^TM Recreational Software Commodore 64 and Plus/4 by INFOCOM^TM TC602″ and has a picture of a floppy disk on it. I thought it somewhat remarkable that there apparently are multiple releases for the same platform (C64). After I reassured myself that the version I have has all the feelies included, I decided to keep that one, so I can make someone else happy with a still-sealed version.

The same goes for the sealed copy of Sorcerer. The grey box release of that game doesn’t have very special feelies, so I decided to keep my version. I had a little bit of a hard time deciding on that, because the version I have is for the Atari ST and I would rather have the Commodore 64 one, but not enough to break the seal. And after all, maybe I someday will get my hands on the folio release.

The version of Starcross for the Atari ST however, I did decide to swap with the Commodore 64 version. That one was already opened and although it misses the little label on the side of the box, that doesn’t hinder me. I’d rather have games for systems that I actually own, then for systems I don’t have, like the Atari ST.

All in all a good buy and great feeling to unwrap those still-sealed games. Now I just need to look at which games I’m missing. And to actually play more of them.