Trivia
Tass Times supported a serial mouse back in 1986. Since it was originally a booting game, this means the programmers spent the time to support serial mice natively--a noble effort since mice were not common PC peripherals back in 1986.
Tass Times was re-released on Interplay's 10th year anniversary collection, published in 1993. It is still available from some online outlets.
There is a reference to Zork scribbled on the inside of a cave wall in the game. (Michael Berlyn, one of the designers, wrote several Infocom games.)
Michael Berlyn sets the record straight about Tass Times, in this informal 1999 interview with MobyGames:
On the main supporting character: "The game's original title (working title) was 'Ennio: The Legend Begins,' which refers to the dog in the game. Ennio, the heroic dog in the game, was based on a dog in our neighborhood, MacGregor. We called the character Ennio after the film composer Ennio Morricone. We liked the name so we used it. Right after the game shipped, we went out and bought a little dog, a Lakeland Terrier, and named him 'Ennio the Legend.' Ennio was a great companion and a great dog with a tremendous sense of humor who passed away last year."
On the meaning of Tass: "Muffy and I were employed there, teaching creative writing. And the motto of Harvard is 'Veritas,' which means 'truth.' We took to saying 'very tass' to mean, 'very true,' or 'too true.' Our students picked it up and started applying it to something that was cool. So very tass turned into very hip or cool."
Contributed by
Trixter 
(8865) on Mar 08, 1999.
