Bonaventura Di Bello

Bonaventura Di Bello (born April 26, 1963) is the co-founder, with his wife Adelaide and his brother Massimiliano, of Brainstorm Enterprise, an early publisher of games for home computers.Born in Centola, Italy, Bonaventura was the most active Italian writer of adventure-style game for personal computers, since 1985. [cite news |title=First part of interview to Bonaventura Di Bello and the Adventure Games market in Italy |url=http://zxspectrum.altervista.org/zxnotizie6.pdf |work=ZX Notizie issue 6 |publisher=Stefano Guida |date=2004-12 |accessdate=2008-01-10] For the large number of games and national popularity in the Italian IF tradition, he could be defined as "the Italian Scott Adams". [cite news |title=Interview to Bonaventura Di Bello in the magazine Terra d'IF (zipped PDF) |url=http://www.terradif.net/downloads/tdif_002.zip |work= |publisher=Italian Newsgroup about Text Adventure Games it.comp.giochi.avventure.testuali |date=2004-02 |accessdate=2008-01-10] Like Adams', his text adventure games used a minimal parser, recognizing 2-word commands of the form VERB NOUN and where released on most of the major home PC platforms of the day, including Sinclair Spectrum, Commodore 64, and MSX. The games were programmed using a software called The Quill and contained a form of Vector graphics while the MSX versions had no graphics and where programmed using the platform's BASIC language upon a routine reprogrammed from the original code written by Italian programmer Enrico Colombini. Some of Bonaventura's adventure games where co-authored by Gianpaolo Gentili, and credits are shown in the games' splash page where due.When the adventure games trend expired in Italy, Bonaventura became chief editor of the Italian version of Newsfield Publications Ltd's Zzap!64 videogames magazine and, one year later, of the italian version of same publisher's magazine The Games Machine.In the following years Bonaventura has worked on various editorial projects for several Italian IT publishers, planning, creating, writing and translating whole magazines or single articles, both on paper (GigaByte magazine), on disc (MacPower Interactive, MacOnly) and the Web with single blogs or whole blog networks. He's also author of the book, Internet Tour '95, which was one of the firs guides and directories about the Internet in Italy before the WWW era.He currently owns an editorial and communications services company called MediaMagic (http://www.mediamagic.it), and writes also under the nickname Jack Ventura, specialising in contents creation and management.Bonaventura's games are available on various Web sites in a format compatible with Commodore 64 and Spectrum emulators (see links below).

Games

Author Credits

"NOTE: All these games are in Italian."
* "Dimensione Sconosciuta" (c. 1986 ; Sinclair Spectrum)

Explorer #1 (Nov-1986)

* "Amos Newton - Mente aliena (Parte I)"
* "Roger Barrow - Il Triangolo Maledetto (Orrenda Scoperta - Parte I)"
* "Terry Jones - L'Occhio del Condor (Furto al Museo - Parte I)"

Explorer #2 (Dec-1986)

* "Amos Newton - Mente Aliena (Solo Contro Tutti - Parte II)"
* "Clive Sullivan - N.N. dal Campo Base"
* "Terry Jones - L'Occhio del Condor (Il Tempio - Parte II)"

Explorer #3 (Jan-1987)

* "Frank "Hero" Russel - Unico Sopravvissuto"
* "Nigel Stevenson - La Rosa Scarlatta"
* "Roger Barrow - Il Triangolo Maledetto (Missione Finale - Parte II)"

Viking #1 (Jan-1987)

* "Murray Shannon - I Semi del Male"
* "Roy Norton - Terrore al Castello"
* "Ted Barret - Naufragio"

Explorer #4 (Feb-1987)

* "Frank "Hero" Russell - Nel Campo Nemico"
* "Magnus Tanner - Dov'è Mark Williams?"
* "Nigel Stevenson - La Valle Incantata"

Viking #2 (Feb-1987)

* "Dick Ironside - Attacco al Bunker"
* "Morgan Tyler - Il Pianeta Maledetto"
* "Yarhko - Il Cobra di Cristallo"

Explorer #5 (Mar-1987)

* "Douglas Perkins - Computer Killer"
* "Magnus Tanner - Virus Delta II (Ultimo Atto)"
* "Phebos - Mythos"

Viking #3 (Mar-1987)

* "Ghost City"
* "Lycanthropus"
* "L'oro dello Zar"

Explorer #6 (Apr-1987)

* "Kurt Warren - Missione a Bangkok"
* "Roy Norton - I Misteri di Villa Parson"
* "Trevor Scott - L'Isola della Paura"

Viking #4 (Apr-1987)

* "Bronx"
* "La legge di Thorus"
* "Star plague"

Explorer #7 (May-1987)

* "Kenneth Johnson - Wild West"
* "Morgan Tyler - Eclypse"
* "Roy Norton - Fuga nel Tempo"

Viking #5 (May-1987)

* "Easy Rider"
* "L'idolo di smeraldo"
* "Tin Star"

Explorer #8 (Jun-1987)

* "Amos Newton - Incubo"
* "Dick Ironside - Underground Killers"
* "Murray Shannon - L'Orrore di Goldmine City"

Viking #6 (Jun-1987)

* "Montezuma"
* "Progetto Atlantide"
* "Il segreto di Obnyr"

Explorer #9 (Jul-1987)

* "Gordon Smith - Metal Crunchers"
* "Jeff Waldon - Green Dimension"
* "Morgan Tyler - Naufragio su Guyot"

Viking #7 (Jul-1987)

* "Lager"
* "Libertador"
* "Vuoto mentale"

Explorer #10 (Sep-1987)

* "Charles Bryan - Prigioniero del Futuro"
* "Elrick - Il Ladro di Camelot"
* "Jeff Weyss - Moonbase Delta"

Viking #8 (Sep-1987)

* "Bucaneer"
* "Oregon"
* "Spectral house"

Explorer #11 (Oct-1987)

* "Burt Everett - Primo Caso"
* "Kim O'Bryan - Professione Spia"
* "Lucius - Aut Caesar..."

Viking #9 (Oct-1987)

* "L'ira di Anubi"
* "L'ombra di Garmon"
* "Quinta dimensione"

Explorer #12 (Nov-1987)

* "Kenneth Johnson - Desperados"
* "Roy Norton - Missione Mistero"
* "Zoram il Guerriero - La Prova"

Viking #10 (Nov-1987)

* "Bronx II"
* "Homo sapiens"
* "Orrore a Providence"

Viking #11 (Dec-1987)

* "Nel regno di Ghorr"
* "L'oro dei Chibcha"
* "Street trooper"

Notes

Links

* http://www.ifitalia.info/Lazzaro/
* http://www.xgd.com/publisher/Di+Bello+Bonaventura/Commodore
* http://ready64.org/articoli/leggi.php?idart=56
* http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/backissues/spag51.html

Interviews

* [http://www.terradif.net/magazine/ Intervista a Bonaventura di Bello - Di Giovanni Riccardi] - Terra d'IF Numero 2, February 2004.
* [http://www.terradif.net/magazine/ Interview to the noir writer Marco Vallarino - Di Andrea Rezzonico] - Terra d'IF Issue 6, June 2004.
* [http://zxspectrum.altervista.org/ Intervista a Bonaventura di Bello - Di Stefano Guida] - ZX Notizie Numero 6, January 2004.
* [http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/backissues/spag40.html International IF Special - by Paul O'Brian] - SPAG Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games Issue 40, April, 12 2005.