These reviews are in alphabetical order according to the name of the game reviewed. I have added a few features that might be interesting to some of you out there. First and foremost is the instant gratification feature. If you see this hand:
Then you can click on it to ftp over to ftp.gmd.de and grab the game automatically. Pretty 'handy', eh?
In other news, you may notice that some email addresses are actually links, like Brian Moriarty. If you see this, and your browser supports the mailto: function, then clicking on this link will enable you to send instant feedback/questions to that person. Please report any problems with this feature (besides incompatibilty with mailto) to me, whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu. And no, the Brian Moriarty link above doesn't actually do anything. As a final note, the ratings that accompany many of the reviews are not my personal ratings, but rather the compiled ratings of the SPAG readers. Each score is out of a possible 10.0, and tells how many votes have been averaged into it. Enjoy!
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Table of Contents
The Adventures of Elizabeth (El Highe) Another Lifeless Planet and Me With No Beer Arthur: Quest for Excalibur Balances Ballyhoo Beyond the Tesseract Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor Border Zone Bureaucracy Castaway CosmoServe Crypt 2.0 Curses Deep Space Drifter Detective Ditch Day Drifter Dungeon Adventure The Dungeon of Dunjin Electrabot The Enchanter Trilogy Enhanced A Fable The Great Archaeological Race
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: The Adventures of Elizabeth (El) Highe GAMEPLAY: Poor, but adequate AUTHOR: Bill Larkins PLOT: Slightly below average EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Below Average AVAILABILITY: CIS Gamer's Forum WRITING: Average PUZZLES: Not so hot SUPPORTS: AGT CHARACTERS: Slightly below average DIFFICULTY: Trivial In THE ADVENTURES OF ELIZABETH (EL) HIGHE, you play Elizabeth Highe, a game designer for Sierra who must write a sequel to the hit, G-String Gertrude so that Ken and Roberta Williams will allow her to leave the building (all the names have been slightly changed, of course; i.e. Sierra to Appalachia, Roberta Williams to Robert Bills, etc.). You write your game by entering the computer (in a manner similar to the movie TRON) and physically retrieving it. The AGT manual, in describing various uses for adventure games, suggests that you could write a game about your co-workers and play it on a Friday afternoon. This seems to be exactly what Bill Larkins has done here (though I don't know if he ever worked for Sierra). The game is short (I was able to complete it in 42 moves), simple and lighthearted. The AGT parser is much maligned, but is really as good as the author makes it. It doesn't do much in this game, but it doesn't need to. The only problem I encountered was when I performed one important action and got no response at all, even though the action was registered. Some might mistakenly take this to mean that the action was not important and get sidetracked. The game is meant to be simple, cute, and quickly over, and it is. This game was rated 3.1 by 1 person.
From: "Magnus Olsson" <mol@df.lth.se> NAME: Another Lifeless Planet And Me With No Beer PARSER: Pathetic AUTHOR: Dennis Drew PLOT: Not very original EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Absent AVAILABILITY: GMD, S10 WRITING: Acceptable PUZZLES: Standard, uninteresting SUPPORTS: IBM CHARACTERS: Props DIFFICULTY: Average One of the most important skills shareware authors have to learn, at least if they expect to earn any money, is that of promoting their products - it's a tough world out there, tons of shareware gets published every year, and if you don't promote your program it's not very likely to get noticed. Dennis Drew, the author of this particular game, seems to have learned his lesson well in this regard. Not only the accompanying documentation, but also the starting - and ending - screens of the game itself are full of superlatives describing how interesting, fun, high-quality, professional, and generally amazing it is - as are all of Mr. Drew's programs; one of the documentation files is a catalog listing his entire "astounding software line" "from heavy-duty business programs to incredibly enjoyable games", all described in terms such as "incredible", "astounding" and "terrific". According to the docs, one of his programs was rated by COMPUTE Magazine as "One of the World's Best 101 Programs". I haven't tried that program, but from my experience of this game, as well as of my other sample of his products (included in the distribution was Compu-Nerd, "a highly professional and technical program designed to discover the age-old question, 'Am I a nerd?'", which after asking me some rather leading questions proceeded to feed me a few screenfuls of platitudes like "You are one of the millions of people who have found word processing to be an incredibly valuable computer function", and then rated me as a "Minor Nerd" - thanks a lot!), I can only conclude that Drew is right: it _is_ incredible. But back to the subject of this review: the game, which starts with the friendly greeting "WELCOME to another one of my incredibly interesting and logical adventure games". Does it live up to the great expectations the author goes to such lengths to build up? Unfortunately, any user naive enough to take Drew's documentation at face value is bound to be disappointed. The situation was aptly described 2000 years ago by Horace: "The mountains are in labour; an absurd little mouse is born". This doesn't mean that the game is a failure. Indeed, had it been written in 1979 or so, for the PET or TRS-80 or some other early home computer, it would probably have been a great game. After all, there are quite long room descriptions, a graphic picture for every room (character graphics with the incredible resolution of 15*15 or so), and colour (a particularly tasteful colour scheme in light blue, dark blue, yellow, green, and bright magenta!) However, the game was actually written in 1989 for MS-DOS, so we'll have to apply slightly different standards of greatness. Even by those, more modern standards, the game has a few points to recommend it. The plot may not be very original - you're stranded on an alien planet and have to find a way home - but at least the concept has been proven in hundreds of other games. Just as the author claims, the game really _is_ logical, in the sense that (in Drew's own words) "everything (...) has a logical and understandable purpose behind it". The author clearly knows how to write (i.e. his spelling as well as his grammar are quite flawless). There are even some jokes thrown in - rather a lot of them, actually. Of course, every silver lining has a cloud within it, and the above doesn't quite suffice to make this game as great as the author claims. In fact, it doesn't suffice to make it good, or even worth the time it takes to download it. To start with, the parser is absolutely pathetic - clearly the worst parser I've ever seen in a non-freeware game. It's not only strictly limited to two-word sentences, but its vocabulary is extremely limited as well. There are no adjectives, which explains the fact that the first object you encounter is a "small-stone" that can't be referred to as just "stone". What's even worse is that the parser doesn't understand _anything_ that you can't do in the current game state, so, for example, if you try to go north in a room where the only exit is south, you get the message "I do not understand that. Is that logical?" (of course, the latter question must be rhetorical, since it can only be answered with a resounding "no"). Also, the prose being grammatically correct doesn't make it good, or even interesting. Even though the genre is the cheapest kind of space opera (complete with icky monsters and blaster-wielding aliens) which usually gives lots of opportunities for atmosphere and excitement, both these elements are conspicuous only by their absense. The attempts at humour don't improve things; at their best, the jokes aren't very funny (and, no, Virginia, telling four variations on the same bad joke in the first thirty rooms isn't four times as funny as telling it once). At their worst -- well, let me just quote the response you get when you try to walk north from the initial location, to see what is blocking your way: "Trivia question: Do you know what this is? 8P That's the head of a dead astronaut laying on its side with its tongue hanging out. That's what you look like after a really giant, huge, icky, nasty-looking monster standing there munched the rest of you!! Have a nice day. ;) <---that's a wink and a grin! (munch munch munch munch....) <---- sound effects" So for "Another Lifeless Planet And Me With No Beer" - do I have to continue? I'll just conclude by saying that somehow, I wish that this game had _not_ been logical; then it might at least have been interesting (see my review of Space Aliens Laughed at my Cardigan), and perhaps good for a laugh, too. Unfortunately, it is neither. Of course, if you happen to like humour like the example above, and if you think that good writing, atmosphere and logical coherence only distracts you from the puzzles, then this game may be worth trying. If not, it is best avoided. The prospective IF author would probably also do wisely to avoid Gamescape, "the ultimate stand-alone adventure writing system", "the incredible system that allows you to design and then play adventure games", that was used to create "No Beer" (a fact which is almost impossible to avoid noticing, since every time one exits the game one is treated to two promotional screen pages about Gamescape). The registration fee for Gamescape is $95 + $5 S&H. Considering that TADS is about half that amount, and Inform is free, and even more considering the parser and user interface of "No Beer", the decision about which system to use should be a simple one indeed. This game was rated 2.5 by 1 person.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Arthur: Quest for Excalibur PARSER: Infocom Advanced AUTHOR: Bob Bates PLOT: Very Good EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Very Good AVAILABILITY: LTOI2-CD WRITING: Very Good PUZZLES: Very Good SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports CHARACTERS: Very Good DIFFICULTY: Average In Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur, Infocom's final text game, you play the part of the boy Arthur. In the space of a few days, you must develop the traits necessary to lead England and challenge Lot, a local chieftain, before he is crowned King. The parser is Infocom's best ever, though unfortunately this is the only game it was used in. You can change your viewing mode with the touch of a function key. The bottom half of the screen is like a standard text game, but the top changes, depending on your mode. One mode shows you a graphic of your area. Another gives you an onscreen map, a third shows you your character's development, another constantly shows you a description of your area, and another gives you a constant report on your inventory. You can change modes without expending a turn. The graphics (in graphics mode) are helpful, but in true text game fashion they are not necessary. No puzzles require recognizing a clue in the graphics, and indeed one of the modes is text-only mode, in which the game resembles one of the Infocom classics. While the overall purpose of the game is to do things that will develop your personal abilities to the point that you are worthy to rule England, the main quest of the game is to acquire certain magical quest items that will allow you to get past the Red Knight to where the Lady of the Lake lies enchanted (Everything you always wanted on a bier...). Only with her help can you recover Excalibur from where Lot has disposed of it. Early in the game, Merlin will give you the ability to transform yourself into a variety of different animals. Many of the puzzles cannot be solved while you are in human form. There are few save/restore puzzles. Puzzles that you would be unlikely to get the first time around generally give you multiple opportunities to solve. There are not many "guess what the author is thinking" puzzles, but there are a few. When you try to read the writing on the wall in the ivory tower (for instance), only a burst of inspiration will help you along. Like several other Infocom games, Arthur has onscreen hints. However, Arthur's have a new twist, in that you are not given the entire clue menu at the beginning. To prevent you from reading them too far ahead, clue questions are added to the menu as they become relevant to your current situation. Sometimes, the clue will tell that you cannot solve a specific puzzle with the information and resources that you have at hand. Arthur was the ideal Graphic Interactive Fiction game, with graphics that helped set the mood and aided gameplay without taking over the game from the text part. This game was rated 8.6 by 1 person.
From: "Magnus Olsson" <mol@df.lth.se> NAME: Balances PARSER: Inform AUTHOR: Graham Nelson EMAIL: nelson@vax.oxford.ac.uk ATMOSPHERE: Nostalgic, slightly surrealistic PUZZLES: Some old friends, some quite original ones AVAILABILITY: GMD, Freeware SUPPORTS: Infocom ports WRITING: Very good, rather minimalistic PLOT: Simple, non-linear CHARACTERS: Few and sketchy DIFFICULTY: Below average It is an interesting fact that one of the most talked-about adventure games of 1994, and certainly the one that caused the most controversy, was, according to its author, not intended as a game at all, but just as a demo. Despite this fact, the game/demo did not only become quite popular, but the debate about whether its puzzles are in any way "unfair" or "illogical" reached enormous proprtions, degenerating into the first big flamewar of rec.arts.int-fiction (a Usenet newgroup devoted to the art of writing adventure games). I have seen several people writing very kindly about this game, ranking it among their favourite pieces of IF; it was recently included on the companion disk of XYZZYnews; many people have expressed disbelief in the author's claim that the game is just a demo. [Had our esteemed editor been in the habit of putting more varied headlines over reviews than just the name of the game, this review may have been titled "The Game That Wasn't", or perhaps "The Little Demo That Could" :-)] The game in question is "Balances" and the author is Graham Nelson, of "Inform" and Curses fame. If this game is "nothing but a demo", then it is certainly one of the most ambitious and playable demos ever written; the fact that so many people played it as a game, never noticed the demo aspect, started criticizing it as any other game, and seemed to have difficulty believing the author when he told them it was just a demo, makes a very clear point. On the other hand, some aspects of the game, which would be serious flaws had it been intended as a game, are quite natural in a demo, at least in retrospect - but we're of course all blessed with 20/20 hindsight. Be that as it may: game or demo, "Balances" is in many ways a very attractive piece of IF, with great charm. Any Infocom fan is bound to recognize the setting of "Balances": it takes place in the same universe as the Enchanter trilogy, as a kind of epilogue to Spellbreaker. Not only that, but the user interface is almost identical to those games; spells are cast in the same way, and you'll recognize some of the spells, and even some objects. Indeed, the opening words reflect this: "This transcript is not from the Enchanter trilogy, but it does show most of the usual things you can do in those stories..." If the universe, interface, and general look and feel of "Balances" are almost identical to Infocom games, then "Balances" is considerably less detailed: there aren't many objects, there are very few locations, and neither the object nor room descriptions are very long. This is, of course, quite in line with the game being a demo: if you are going to demonstrate that you can implement certain advanced features of Infocom games, then you don't want to spend too much time designing or describing the rooms and objects that are the necessary framework for those features. Still, however, the author has taken the time to create a coherent, consistent world, albeit a tiny one. The whole game has a sketchy character to it, but that is sketchy in the sense of a sketch by a great artist: Leonardo's sketches are still considered great art. The prose is sparse, but of high quality; despite the small amount of text, the author manages to create a very pervasive atmosphere of nostalgia (a feeling of nostalgia for the golden days of magic before the Change, when seen from the perspective of the protagonist; from the perspective of the player, the nostalgia is for the golden days of Infocom), more than a little surrealistic, of a dreamlike quality that gets a twist in the very concluding paragraph. The puzzles are of varying quality, most of them rather easy. Some are familiar to all Infocom players (how do you open a locked door without a key in Enchanter?), while others are quite novel and innovative. The "lleps" spell in particular is perhaps alone worth the effort to download this game. Some puzzles have been criticized for seeming to require exhaustive exploration of all possible actions - this, however, is only natural for a demo, where you're really expected to try all possibilities just to see what happens. It is maybe unfortunate that a critical puzzle hinges on a pun that may be easily overlooked, but once you've got it, it's quite delightful as puns go. Perhaps the most notable feature of the puzzles - one which elevates this game high above the level of ordinary demos, and even of many serious games - is that many (though not all) of the puzzles not only advance the plot, but actually act to reinforce the mood of the game. I'm referring primarily to the puzzles involving balances - the constant repetition throughout the game of the concept of "balance" in various forms enhances its dreamlike quality quite a bit. If the prose and puzzles are of a quality (though not quantity) comparable to the very best of IF, then the playability aspects of the game are more "demo-like". According to the author, the game (being a demo) didn't go through any playtesting; this notwithstanding, its more playable than, say, most AGT games, but the parser and vocabulary are not quite up to Nelson's usual standards. The lack of synonyms had me playing the rather more disagreeable game of "hunt the word" for quite some time. Another aspect of the game that lowers playability is the complicated way spells are cast: you must memorize the spell before casting it, you can only cast it once before having to re-memorize it, and you can only keep four or five spells in your memory at once. Of course, Graham Nelson can't really be blamed for this, since he copied the system from Enchanter; still, in a game like this, where you really have to cast a _lot_ of spells (and the demo aspect makes you want to try out all possible and impossible spell combinations just to see what happens) you tire very rapidly of this rather pointless complication. I can only urge current and future IF authors _not_ to use this spellcasting system in their games, but try to find something more convenient, or, if they really want to make spellcasting hard, something novel, innovative and less time-worn. To summarize, is "Balances" really a game or a demo? I'm not certain of the answer, or even if this choice of categories is the appropriate one. As a demo, "Balances" has achieved a state of almost unbelievable sophistication; as a game, it is very enjoyable but rather sketchy and not quite as playable as one might wish. Perhaps instead "Balances" should simply be regarded as a piece of interactive literature. As such, it is original and very charming; the dreamlike, nostalgic mood is quite memorable - "Balances" is very small and quickly played through, but the mood and the images are likely to stay with you for a long time. Finally, let me just quote one line which might be destined to become a classic quotation of IF; a line that nicely exemplifies the surreal quality of this game: "Tiny in the blue sky, a tortoise flaps across the sun". This game was rated 6.4 by 2 people.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Ballyhoo GAMEPLAY: Infocom AUTHOR: Jeff O'Neill PLOT: Good EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Very Good AVAILABILITY: LTOI 1 WRITING: Very Good PUZZLES: Well Done SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports CHARACTERS: Colourful, Distinctive DIFFICULTY: Standard In Ballyhoo, you begin as a typical circusgoer. While wandering around, you discover that the daughter of the circus owner, Mr. Munrab (Barnum spelled backwards) has been kidnapped. Anxious for a little glory, you decide to look into the crime yourself. This turns out to be fortunate, as the detective Munrab engages turns out to be less than competent (surprise). Your search takes you on a tour through the underside of circus life. When I first played Ballyhoo, I strongly disliked it because of a technical problem. I got stuck about 3/4 of the way through. When I found a walkthrough of the game, I solved the problem, but found that I had done something wrong earlier and had to restart the game. When I did so, I found that I could not get past a part I had gotten through without trouble earlier. I then postulated a completely false idea of what I must have done accidentally the first time, and tried various ways to recreate it. By this time I was ready to throw the game under Monty Python's 16-ton weight. Eventually, I figured out what the problem was. It wasn't a bug, just one of those unfortunate things. It would not give away any part of the game to say that the command "WHIP LION" does not mean the same thing as "HIT THE LION WITH THE WHIP". Seemingly this game is plagued with bad luck, as when Activision put out The Lost Treasures of Infocom 1, they inadvertently omitted one page of the original documentation that gave the frequency for WPDL, an all-classical AM radio station (1170 AM by the way). This information is vital twice; once in the middle of the game, and again at the very end. But if you can get past these glitches, you will find quite a nice little game. There are several characters, all well developed. There are everal amusing little responses and sidelights, such as when you try to get the mousetrap, when you jump off the top of the cage, and when you are standing in line for ice cream. The game captures the circus feel in much the same way that Hollywood Hijinx captures the Hollywood feel. As an added bonus, you get an all text blackjack game in the bargain. Ballyhoo is neither a classic, nor a "must-play", but it is an enjoyable game well worth the time you will put into it, if you can avoid the little land mines surrounding it. This game was rated 7.0 by 3 people.
From: "Anonymous" <Virus2Wyrm@aol.comgt NAME: Beyond the Tesseract PARSER: 2 Word Syntax AUTHOR: David Lo PLOT: Science Fact EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Creepy AVAILABILITY: GMD WRITING: Good, but short PUZZLES: Great SUPPORTS: IBM CHARACTERS: Strange, inhuman DIFFICULTY: Hard* Taken from the docs: Scenario: --------- You have reached the final part of your mission. You have gained access to the complex, and all but the last procedure has been performed. Now comes a time of waiting, in which you must search for the hidden 12-word message that will aid you at the final step. But what choice will you make when that time comes? The scenario for the adventure is meant to be vague. Once the adventure has been completed, the scenario will hopefully become clear. ----- Vague is the word for it! At first glance the world is 4 rooms large, but don't worry, soon you'll be popping your stack and collapsing universes, looking for those key words. Also, you'll have a dream, read an IF book <!> and have fun trying to get the improbability. I personally found this game hard...but that's because I'm in 8th grade and haven't had physics or quantum mathematics. These are the refrences the author lists for this game. The Beauty of Fractals. The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. The Heritage Illustrated Dictionary Of the English Language. Mathematics: The New Golden Age. The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary, Encyclopedic Edition. The Penguin Dictionary of Science, Fifth Edition. Roget's International Thesaurus. The Science of Fractal Images. The VNR Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. The World of M.C. Escher. Ummmm....I've heard of Escher ;). My favorite part was the dream where if you think, an idea will become an object, but then the hypothesis will come and you'll have to prove it. When in the interactive book, you'll find a machine that doesn't work. Now while you would think from what this game has been like so far, some heavy mechanical skills would come in handy. Nope. The charecters are not human, except the Professor, but he's in the dream. There's a plant that would really like some fluid....could you please fit it in my klein bottle? And of course the party of numerals! Don't worry. They won't hurt you. In fact, nothing will. You can't die or get stuck in this game. The game plays exactly like a Scott Adams game. Room descriptions are short and to the point. He does describe objects better than Mr. Adams though. That brings up another point: VERBS. You'll be doing a lot of popping and _y_ing. Yes, _y_ is a verb in this game. Over all this is a fun game that could take a long time to play, or a very short time to delete. Let it grow on you, and if you're really stuck, there's a solution on ftp.gmd.de P.S. The game also comes with a great philosophy on adventure games. Check it out! Tesseract: ---------- /*--------------/* / ' / ' / '| / '| */----'---------*/ ' | '| ' | '| ' | ' | ' | ' | ' | ' | ' /*----'--|--'---/* ' | ' / ' ' | ' / ' ' |' / ' ' |' / ' ' /*/----'---'----/*/ ' ' / ' ' ' / ' ' ' / '| ' ' / '| ' */----'----'----*/ ' | ' | ' | ' | ' | ' | ' |' | ' |' | ' /*-------|--'---/* | ' / | ' / |' / |' / */--------------*/ Not Yet Rated.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Beyond Zork: The Coconut of Quendor GAMEPLAY: Infocom Deluxe AUTHOR: Brian Moriarty PLOT: Roller Coaster EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Rich AVAILABILITY: LTOI 1 WRITING: Very Good PUZZLES: Multiple Solutions SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports CHARACTERS: Very Good DIFFICULTY: Advanced Beyond Zork, the first game in the Zork series since the publication of Zork III five years earlier, really owes much more to the Enchanter trilogy than the Zork trilogy The story takes place concurently with Spellbreaker and begins in the Guild Hall of Borphee shortly after your departure. The remaining Guild Heads (still in enchanted form), realizing that your quest in that game will result in the destruction of magic itself, decide that the legendary Coconut of Quendor must be seized from the Implementors and stored away, to be brought out again in the distant future. Considering that the Implementors are literally the staff of Infocom (try to ZIFMIA IMPLEMENTORS in Enchanter to see what I mean) this could present a thorny metaphysical problem if one thought about it too much. In a move reminiscent of Enchanter, they decide that an untrained initiate must be selected for this quest. Beyond Zork was one of the format experiments Infocom conducted during the 1987-1989 period, and certainly contains the best parser of any of the non-graphics games. The function keys could be programmed to represent any input desired, with or without a carriage return. The top left part of the screen contained a box that constantly displayed the room description, while the top right contained a small onscreen map that displayed the immediate vicinity. The game was an attempt to integrate role-playing with text adventures, and was surprisingly successful. While most text games have one or two random elements, Beyond Zork has many. You begin by setting your character's attributes from a pool of points that you are given (or you can select a preset character) as in a proper RPG. Several puzzles cannot be solved unless a certain attribute is high enough, even if you are aware of the proper action to take. Combat is conducted as in normal RPG's, with your attributes being cross-referenced against a computerised die-roll. Even the map changes slightly from game to game. The scale of the map areas vary greatly. Some "rooms" are as small as a tavern's common room, while others are the size of a city. The main playing area spans over several towns scattered through the Westlands, but parts of the game may take you through geological ages of time, or on a trip to the land of Oz (the name is changed in the game of course). Beyond Zork is a game with a great amount of play and replay value. Many of the puzzles have multiple solutions, and will keep players coming back to find more even after they have played the game to a conclusion. This game was rated 8.1 by 3 people.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Border Zone GAMEPLAY: Infocom Standard AUTHOR: Marc Blank PLOT: Well Interwoven EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Good AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2 WRITING: Serious but Light PUZZLES: Very Good SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports CHARACTERS: Good DIFFICULTY: Slightly above average Border Zone is another compartmentalized game, in the spirit of Nord & Bert and Shogun. Unlike Shogun, the chapters don't have to be played in order, and unlike Nord & Bert there is no single concluding chapter that you must earn the right to play. Border Zone involves the attempt to prevent an important assasination in and around the country of Frobnia. In Chapter 1, you play an ordinary businessman, who has been given a document with the details of the assasination, attempting to sneak it out of the country. In Chapter 2, you play the wounded agent who gave the businessman the document, attempting to escape from Frobnia himself. In Chapter 3 you play an American double-agent attempting to prevent the assasination without blowing his cover. All three chapters are played in real time. If you ponder your moves too long, the story may go on without you. This is both good and bad. The puzzles are generally the save/restore type; although they are generally logical and good, they are not the type that you are likely to hit on the first time. You have to learn from several failures before you hit on the correct strategy. This is fine for puzzle fans, but not so good for realism fans (you can't RESTORE in real life). However, the whole idea of doing the game in real time seems to be geared towards pleasing the realism fans, though this may not have been the best game to do it. The second chapter is the largest and seems to be the centerpiece of the game, but I liked Chapters 1 and 3 better. Chapter 1 is small and easily mapped, but rich in detail, and quickly concluded, making it an excellent introduction to interactive fiction. Chapter 3 has some clever puzzles (especially how you figure out which room the sniper is in), and like Plundered Hearts, it has several different relatively successful endings, but one which is clearly better than the others. Blank does a good job of tying in events from previous chapters, creating an interlocking "big-picture". The game is fairly light on gadgetry; featuring only an exploding pen in Chapter 2. I'd have liked a shoe phone and the Cone of Silence myself. Still, this is Infocom's only spy story, and is quite a good game. This game was rated 6.7 by 4 people.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Bureaucracy GAMEPLAY: Infocom Standard AUTHOR: Douglas Adams PLOT: Great EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: Excellent AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2 WRITING: Excellent PUZZLES: Difficult SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports CHARACTERS: Archetypal DIFFICULTY: Expert In Bureaucracy, you have just moved to a new town and must get your bank to acknowledge your change of address form before embarking on your all-expense paid trip to Paris, as well as untangle several other Bureaucratic mishaps from missed connections to surly waitresses. The game is divided into four parts. In the first, you must cash your check to get money for the cab ride to the airport. In the second, you must get through the airport to reach your flight. In the third, you must escape from the wrong airliner you have found yourself on before it crashes (or does it?). In the final part, you must take care of the computer hacker who is responsible for most of your problems. This game has become the standard by which almost all tongue-in-cheek games about real life are measured, and has been imitated many times, but seldom equalled. The atmosphere is not surprisingly, very much like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but is in many ways funnier since it hits areas that the gamer will have experienced firsthand. By the time this game came out Infocom had abandoned their difficulty rating system, but this game is as difficult as any other Infocom game with the exception of Spellbreaker. Many of the puzzles are intuitive rather than logical and force you to recreate Douglas Adams' twisted thinking to make sense of them (for example, the way you get your check cashed at the bank). Others are logical, but require you to grasp complicated patterns to solve them (i.e., the way you dispose of your Zalagasan Stew on the airliner). There are many well-developed characters that represent a cross-section of the most annoying people in daily life from the llama treat delivery man (who comes up with the brilliant idea that you should get your expired credit card replaced) to the surly waitress, to the survivalist, to Random Q. Hacker himself. One problem with the game is getting to the end of it. The story is so rich in detail that many will not want to remain stuck indefinitely on one of the puzzles. Unfortunately no editions of Bureaucracy contain onscreen hints, and it was included in Lost Treasures 2, which had no hint books enclosed. If you get stuck, your best bet is to download a walkthrough from GMD or the Compuserve Gamer's Forum, or to call Activion's 900 hint number. [I suggest ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive/solutions/infocom/ for you ftp capable readers. -GKW] The freebies are some of Infocom's best. One is a copy of Popular Paranoia magazine, which gives you the low down on the conspiracies that threaten to destroy your life. Another is the infamous carbonless triplicate form. Most people sign these daily, taking it for granted that the lower copies are identical to the top one. Activision did this itself, and only reproduced the top copy for their Lost Treasures documentation. But if you look more carefully, you may find that the line for your zip code on page 1 may ask for your wife's weight, or the number of pancakes that you have eaten today on succeeding copies. Too bad Adams never made this into a book... This game was rated 8.3 by 3 people.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Castaway GAMEPLAY: No synonyms AUTHOR: Conrad Button PLOT: Rudimentary EMAIL: ? ATMOSPHERE: None AVAILABILITY: MS-DOS WRITING: Basic PUZZLES: Basic SUPPORTS: MS-DOS CHARACTERS: None DIFFICULTY: Novice In Castaway, by Conrad Button, you are first mate of the cargo ship, Katie Sue (I don't know why, but I suspect that this is Button's daughter. A little nepotism here, hmm?). When your ship is smashed on a reef, you fortunately wash ashore on an island that has a rescue ship anchored a mile away. Your job is to find the fixins' for a signal fire, as well as locate ten treasures hidden on the island. The mixing of the rescue theme with the treasure hunt theme produces some bizarre results. Though you will probably spot the ship a few moves after landing, you will avoid signalling it until you've gotten all the treasures. In real life you'd be much more concerned that the ship might leave. You can get around this problem by signalling the ship but not boarding it until you've gotten all the treasures, but this creates another bizarre situation: the ship sitting in the lagoon waiting around until you feel like being rescued ("Snap it up fella, we haven't got all day!"). In your search, you will encounter the lost city of Pango Tongo, which has several of the treasures you need. We are never told anything about this city like "what is it doing there", and "what happened to the people". It is just there. The game features the traditionally bad Buttonware parser; two-word input and absolutely no synonyms. If you call the "parrot" a "bird", the game will have no idea what you're talking about. The game's difficulty level is Novice, so you probably won't have much trouble solving it anyway, but generally introductory games should be as user-friendly as possible, to encourage the player to play more text games. This one doesn't. One nice feature (that I wish more Introductory games would emulate) is that each room lists the directions that you can travel on a separate line. This is much easier for the novice trying to draw his first map than having to pick all of the directions out of the room description. Castaway is not up to scratch by 1995 standards, but one must remember that it was written in the pre GAGS/LADS/AGT/TADS/Inform days of 1986. Under the circumstances, putting out any shareware text game at all was an impressive feat. This game was rated 1.1 by 1 person.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: CosmoServe PARSER: AGT 1.32 AUTHOR: Judith Pintar PLOT: Linear EMAIL: 76636.2067@compuserve.com ATMOSPHERE: Unusual AVAILABILITY: GMD; Freeware WRITING: Fair PUZZLES: Clever; logical SUPPORTS: AGT ports CHARACTERS: Fairly Flat DIFFICULTY: Easy to Medium In Cosmoserve, you play R.J. Wright, a plumber and freelance computer programmer in 1999. The program you are using to complete one of your assignments has a glitch in it, and you must sign on to Cosmoserve to download a patch file. Along the way you will encounter computer viruses, virtual reality games, lost passwords, online conferences, FBI raids, online stalkers, and Rick's Cafe Americain. I think that Cosmoserve is my favourite non-commercial text game, and certainly the all-time best AGT game. Judith Pintar performs wonders with the AGT parser. You can actually navigate through the hard drive of your 786 computer using DOS commands. When you logon, you are treated to phone dialing and modem sounds. When you are in an online conference the other users' statements come one at a time, as in real life. Maxis could market this game as "SIM BBS". The plot is delightfully interwoven, as the simple task of finding your patch file takes you on a trip through a myriad of forums, file directories, conferences and e-mail encounters. There is limited online help in three places. There is a hints forum (GO HINTS) that will answer a few questions. Also, Ms. Pintar herself makes a cameo appearance in the Virtual Reality game as Judith, the Cosmoserve Hints Sysop. Thirdly, your Aunt Edna will drop by early in the game if you are unable to find your new password. The atmosphere is superb. Watching the debate in the Plumbers & Electricians forum over which profession provides a better metaphor for the human condition (one purifies with water, the other with fire) is frighteningly funny. Tongue-in-cheek games about real life are invariably compared to Infocom's Bureaucracy, and they usually fall far short. This one doesn't. This is probably not a game that can be completed in one pass. You are on a time limit of less than 12 hours, and some things can only be done at certain times. It is likely that you will have to restart the game from the beginning at some point to optimize your time utilization. A couple of points. Although Cosmoserve is available for all AGT ports, MS-DOS users will have a slight advantage, as the game is keyed to simulate a PC. Also, people who have logged on using generic communications software will be better prepared for the game, as there is no "Cosmoserve Information Manager". Incredibly this game only tied for first in the AGT Game Writing Contest. ALSO ON COSMOSERVE: From: "Donna McCreary Rodriguez" <drodrig@tenet.edu> "CosmoServe: An Adventure Game for the BBS-Enslaved" has a "play-within-a-play feel." You are an absent-minded, self-employed computer consultant/programmer and erstwhile plumber who is trying to beat a project deadline. Solutions to the bugs in your creation may be found on CosmoServe, but--alas--you have forgotten your password, and , what's more, you've go a bbs hacker time-bandit to contend with once you finally logon. Things escalate from there to a fairly engrossing set of subplots and games-within-games. Much of the game is set in a simulated computer/bbs environment, and therein lies its appeal. The novel atmosphere more than makes up for the flat characterization. The puzzles are clever and logically solved, and the plot is tightly written, with only 86 locations. Give this one a try. Hats off to the author, Judith Pintar, who doesn't ask a fee, just that you e-mail her "the meaning of life, in 20 words or less." This game was rated 8.7 by 2 people.
From: "Konstantin Yu. Boyandin" <MBO@ccphys.nsu.nsk.su> NAME: Crypt v2.0 GAMEPLAY: 0.5 AUTHOR: Steve Herring PLOT: Linear EMAIL: N/A ATMOSPHERE: Good AVAILABILITY: GMD S12 WRITING: Good PUZZLES: Average SUPPORTS: MSDOS CHARACTERS: Primitive DIFFICULTY: Medium Crypt is a small gothic horror story about an adventurer discovering the mysteries of the old church and its old history. I can only add that I liked the story, but found it a bit straightforward and predictable. The main flaw of the game is a poor vocabulary and the existence of traps one cannot get out of (for example, if you fall into a grave without a ladder). Characters are 'part of the interior' and behave like special places rather than intelligent beings. Nonetheless, the story is impressive and the whole game is worth registering. Alas, I have been unable to finish the game yet. Hope to do that after registering. This game was rated 5.0 by 1 person.
From: "Molley the Mage" <mollems@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU> NAME: Curses PARSER: Similar to Infocom AUTHOR: Graham Nelson EMAIL: nelson@vax.oxford.ac.uk ATMOSPHERE: Excellent, Well-Researched AVAILABILITY: Freeware_GMD WRITING: Literate, Educated, Amusing PLOT: Excellent PUZZLES: Logical (mostly) SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports CHARACTERS: Often Quite Funny DIFFICULTY: Rather (7 out of 10) This is the finest work of IF which I have played since Trinity, bar none. Curses is perhaps the most "literate" work of IF to come along in years. I really cannot say enough good things about this game, so you have no choice but to go out right now and get a copy for yourself. You can't really make any excuses about it, either, since Curses is completely free and is written using the old Infocom story file format, which means that it's playable on just about any computer in existence with one of the existing Infocom interpreter programs (I recommend Mark Howell's Zip but InfoTaskForce's will also work, as will any of several others). You are an aristocrat who is preparing to go on vacation in Paris. All you want to do is find one lousy tourist map which you KNOW is in the attic somewhere, and then you're off. Sounds easy, right? Right... I can't even begin to describe this game without spoiling the plot, so I'll simply ask: How would you react when a seemingly simple situation in your attic transformed into ancient magic, past and present places and times, a mental tour of your own history, a "chance" to control the fundamental basis upon which the universe is founded, the discovery of ancient powers utilized by Merlin himself, Heaven, Hell, robot mice, and of course curses? I don't know about you, but I reacted by becoming glued to my terminal for about 50 hours straight. Graham Nelson, the author of Curses, deserves the highest kudos for his accomplishment. I can't wait to see what he's going to do next -- if you are going to play one IF game this year, make it Curses. Be warned that some of the puzzles are fiendishly difficult, and one or two are a bit non-intuitive, but there are legions of loyal Curses fans just dying for the chance to help you out anyway just so they will have someone else to talk to about this wonderful game. Go get it NOW. This game was rated 8.3 by 7 people.
From: "Lars Jodal" <joedal@inet.uni-c.dk> NAME: Deep Space Drifter PARSER: TADS standard AUTHOR: Michael J. Roberts PLOT: Mostly linear, rather slow EMAIL: mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com ATMOSPHERE: First good, then shaky AVAILABILITY: GMD, shareware ($15) WRITING: Fair PUZZLES: Some good, some tedious SUPPORTS: TADS ports CHARACTERS: Only in the text DIFFICULTY: Easy (to medium) You are a space explorer who are almost out of fuel. With the last reserves you manage to reach a space station. However, the station seems to be under attack and nobody is around. What is going on only gradually becomes clear. To get really rescued you must go down to the planet below and find an escape vessel. The part of the game on the space station is good, with quite a bit of atmospheric details and generally good puzzles. But down at the planet things are less convincing. Everything is deserted, but no real reason for this is given. Several of the puzzles here are also very time-consuming and tedious. Among these puzzles are the game's two infamous mazes. The mazes are novel (no "twisty passages, all alike"), but too large and take a _long_ time to solve. The story contains two characters apart from the player, but they are not actually part of the _game_. This is to mean that they are mentioned in the text, but the player never gets a chance to interact with them. Thus the characters are not really NPCs but part of the story. The game is shareware. Upon registration one gets a very good hint book with many hints for each puzzle. The hint book is arranged so that you won't read hints by mistake. This game was rated 5.5 by 1 person.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Detective GAMEPLAY: Limited AGT AUTHOR: Matt Barringer PLOT: None EMAIL: ??? ATMOSPHERE: None AVAILABILITY: GMD WRITING: Baaaad! PUZZLES: None SUPPORTS: AGT PORTS CHARACTERS: Cardboard DIFFICULTY: Zero Detective was previously reviewed in SPAG 4, but I'd like to do it again, as I have a slightly different take. This review stems from an e-mail conversation with Magnus Olsson, in regards to his review of Space Aliens Laughed at My Cardigan (also in SPAG 4), which had stated that despite its flaws the game had some cult value, calling it "Infocom on acid". I agreed with him, stating that Mystery Science Theater 3000 had demonstrated that there were "good" bad movies (which provide loads of unintentional laughs), and "bad" bad movies (which were merely painful), and that Space Aliens was definitely a "good" bad game. He responded by comparing it to Detective, a "bad" bad game, that has no puzzles, and requires only compass directions to win. Now that I've played Detective, I'm not sure I agree. I think that it too is a "good" bad game. Oh, it doesn't have the whacked-out psychedelic Eraserhead surrealism of Space Aliens, but it has more than its share of entertainment (not to mention equally bad spelling). I feel that I may owe a slight apology to Electrabot, which I criticize for lack of plot. Detective is like a stripped-down version of Electrabot. Like Electrabot, it has a fairly linear path that you must run, with several rooms of instant death, but at least Electrabot had a Rogues Gallery of hostile characters who could be killed by incongruous objects. Detective only has one hostile character, who can be easily bypassed. The game begins with your being told that the mayor has been murdered and that you must solve the crime to avoid bad publicity (!!). You can then go into the next room and get your gun. The description of the gun tells you that you only have 10 shots and should use them wisely. Fair enough, but no matter how many times you fire you will still have 10 shots. Another interesting feature is what I call the closets of teleportation. At one point you are in a hallway, with closets to the east and west. If you go east you will enter the west closet, and must go east again to reenter the hallway (and vice versa). The few items generally have bizarre adjectives. Along the way you may acquire the "food hamburger", and the "wooden wood", though you don't need any of them to win. Like Electrabot, Detective has several rooms that kill you without warning when you enter, but Detective's are more interesting. There is one that I call "The Room of Mysterious Death". The description says that you have reached a dead end and can go back west. But you can't because the game then proceeds to kill you without giving any explanation. In another instance, you are standing in a hallway and see a door to the east marked "Pool". If you enter you are told that you were in the pool when the killer shot you. WHY the heck did I get INTO the pool? I just wanted to check out the room!! The game has a terrible (and amusing) problem with blending room, object, and character descriptions with each other. When you meet the game's only character, the room description tells you all about what he's doing. Which of course means that it keeps telling you even after he's dead. The description of the hamburger tells you that you should just eat it and go north. This is, of course only valid if you are still in the room where you got it. In another case, you see a knife on the floor, but if you try to take it you are told "What knife? There is no knife here." It would have been easy enough to make the knife takeable, or at least give a message saying that you don't need it, or mustn't touch it because it hasn't been fingerprinted yet, or something. But this is much more amusing. The game can't seem to decide what time period it takes place in. In one room a passerby tells you to boycott FDR. In the next, a convict tells you he was busted for possession of crack. At another point, you enter an area and are told that the killer's rumoured hotel is in one direction, his favourite hangout in another, and his workplace in a third. You never learned any of this previously. Real police work should be so easy. All of this is but a prelude to the big ending. When you enter the room where the killer is, you are told that after a fierce battle you overcame him. In other words, "Yes, there was a big fight, but we couldn't afford to show you any of it". I'm not going into all this detail just to pile on the criticism. Mr. Barringer obviously enjoys playing and writing text games, and I'd be the last to tell him not to do it. I'm only writing this because unlike Stefan Jokisch (in his review), I think that you SHOULD get this game and you SHOULD play it. It's very quick (as little as 26 moves), loaded with such unintentional laughs, and unlike Space Aliens, you can play it to a conclusion, with no headaches or technical glitches. The parser is terrible, but when you only need "north", "south", "east", and "west", what the heck? Mr. Barringer's goal in writing the game was to entertain his audience, and as far as I'm concerned he suceeded in ways that the rating system can't show. If you like Mystery Science Theater 3000, you will enjoy playing this game. I'm going to e-mail a copy to Dr. Clayton Forrester myself, for use in a future experiment. Heads up, Mike, Tom, and Crow! ALSO ON DETECTIVE: From: "Stefan Jokisch" <jokisc00@marvin.informatik.uni-dortmund.de> In this game you play a heroic detective who has to find and arrest the murderer of the mayor. Surprisingly, the only commands needed to solve 'Detective' are north, east, south, and west. It is possible to pick up a few items along the way in order to increase the score, but none of these items has any effect on the story. To cut a long story short, the author made every mistake one can think of; it is not necessary to go into detail. After all, we should not forget that Matt wrote this game with good intentions and he offered it for free, so who are we to mock at his efforts? Every computer store sells a lot of expensive CD-ROMs which are no better than "Detective" . This game was rated 1.1 by 4 people.
From: "Lars Jodal" <joedal@inet.uni-c.dk> NAME: Ditch Day Drifter PARSER: TADS standard AUTHOR: Michael J. Roberts EMAIL: mroberts@hinrg.starconn.com PLOT: A bit loose, some non-linearity ATMOSPHERE: (Very) good AVAILABILITY: GMD (TADS source) WRITING: Medium PUZZLES: Good SUPPORTS: TADS ports CHARACTERS: Few but charming DIFFICULTY: Easy You are a student at the CalTech University. Today is "Ditch Day" where the senior students set up "stacks" (problems) for the under- graduates to break. Your stack will send you all over the university, from the book store over the Explosive Lab to the excavations under the campus. Be prepared to meet vigilant guards and failed biological experiments! The game takes you into a realistic university atmosphere with just a small bit of overstatement to make you smile. Most of the NPCs are cardboard characters, but the insurance robot Lloyd is well-developed. I also like the book store clerk. None of the NPCs are very conversational though. The puzzles are fairly easy, but all logical and well-thought- out. This makes the game an excellent introduction to IF. The veteran gamer will complete the game very quickly, but should still play the game for its story. The puzzles are rather independent, which on the other hand makes the plot a bit loose (solving one of the independent puzzles doesn't make the overall story advance much). The source code to "Ditch Day Drifter" is distributed together with introductory documentation to TADS. Since this is meant to be read by people who have not (yet) registrered TADS I guess it can be called free. This game was rated 7.1 by 1 person.
From: "Inigo Surguy" <phunc@csv.warwick.ac.uk> NAME: Dungeon Adventure PARSER: Below Infocom Standard AUTHOR: Level 9 PLOT: Collect the treasure EMAIL: ??? ATMOSPHERE: Good AVAILABILITY: See review WRITING: Good PUZZLES: Good SUPPORTS: PC (+Spectrum,BBC,etc) CHARACTERS: Good, but limited DIFFICULTY: Medium Inspired by the history of Level 9 in SPAG 3, I got out my old BBC B (8 bit British computer, ancestor of the Archimedes and RISC PC), and loaded Dungeon Adventure. This is a fantasy adventure, set in a similar universe to the original Adventure, where you play the typical greedy adventurer in search of treasure. This time, you are looting a demon lord's tower (after the demon's destruction in Adventure Quest). At the beginning there are a few unfair puzzles, such as the example quoted in the Inform manual of carved lions above a doorway, in front of a pit ("pride comes before a fall"), but the quality of the puzzles throughout the rest of the game is excellent. The game is large enough to occupy anyone for some time. Although the characters are not as advanced as those in the better Infocom games (Witness, Suspect, etc), they are interesting and numerous, including an argumentative sword, a helpful dwarf, two giants, an unhappy will-o'-the-wisp and an army of orcs. I would recommend this game to anyone with a Spectrum emulator (or even a Spectrum :), and plenty of time. This game was originally available for the 8-bit British computers of the eighties, such as the BBC and the Spectrum. According to SPAG 3, it is now available for ftp from ftp.ijs.si in the directory /pub/zx/snapshots/a/ with filename dunadv128k.zip for the graphical version and dunadv48k.zip for the plain text. A PC emulator for the Spectrum is in the directory /pub/zx/snapshots/z/ and called z80-201.zip. (Please don't email me about these; I've only used the BBC version and I haven't tried the emulator). This game was rated 6.8 by 1 person.
From: "Molley the Mage" <mollems@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU> NAME: The Dungeon of Dunjin PARSER: Infocom-Like AUTHOR: Magnus Olsson PLOT: Non-Linear (Treasures) EMAIL: mol@df.lth.se ATMOSPHERE: Fantasy AVAILABILITY: GMD WRITING: Quite Good PUZZLES: Mostly Good SUPPORTS: IBM, MAC CHARACTERS: Few, Simple DIFFICULTY: Above-Average The Dungeon of Dunjin is a shareware game which has been available for several years. It was written by a Swedish national, Magnus Olsson, but the game is in English (although you'd never know it wasn't written by an American, to tell you the truth). The original game was written using Turbo Pascal; it has also been ported to the Macintosh, where it sports a rather spiffy user interface. The parser is about as good as the older Infocom games, not allowing for any complicated structures but sufficient to get the job done with a minimum of "guess the word" problems. The "hook" of the game is simple enough. You're a tourist of sorts, here to visit the famous Dungeon of Dunjin, a series of caverns and adventurous areas known far and wide. Unfortunately for you, the Dungeon is closed for renovation (and due to a few nagging problems with visitor safety). Of course, like any good adventurer, you won't let this daunt you -- especially with all the treasures to be had once you get inside. Collection of these treasures is the primary way you will score "points" in the game; however, I would venture to say that the plot of the game is only incidentally related to the collection of these items. In fact, you will do much more than run around gathering up trinkets; if you are brave and careful, you'll save a princess from an evil wizard's spell and slay a terrible dragon, among other things. In truth, the final scene of the game, where you present your treasures for counting (in a very Adventure-like fashion), is really an anticlimax; but don't worry, because the other plot points have enough text to satisfy and the writing is very solid throughout. The first few puzzles are very easy, a deliberate decision on the author's part so that players can experience quick success which hopefully will give them enough of a sense of accomplishment not to quit in frustration when they hit the harder puzzles later on, and I think it is a very good idea, one which other games should emulate. The game boasts an impressive on-line hint facility, which is context-sensitive; it tries to give you the hint you need, based on your current situation, and is largely successful. The hints are only provided up to a certain point in the story, however, after which you're on your own. One problem with the game is that it features not one, but several mazes (although only one of them is strictly required to finish the game). Luckily, they are small mazes, and easily mapped; but many players will still cringe in horror at the repetition. At the time of this writing, the author is working on a new version which will feature a way to bypass the mazes without tedium or severe penalty, as well as increasing the strength of the parser to include more conversation with NPCs. The game as a whole is very enjoyable. You'll quickly discover that the "Dungeon" is not merely a series of dank chambers beneath the surface, but rather a very large and vast world containing everything from dragons to dwarves and even computer hackers (I hope you can handle it). One very interesting idea in the game is that magic works within the "fantastic" regions, inside the dungeon, but not in the "mundane" regions, and objects behave accordingly depending on where you are. The writing is good, and there is a fair amount of humor in the game -- some of it, especially the part involving ABBA, is not to be missed. Upon finishing the game, I was very satisfied, because it is challenging. Although I say the plot is "non-linear" because you are able to solve many of the puzzles in no particular order, the truth is that once you discover the true plot of the game, certain actions will be imposed on you and it is possible to get into a bind where you are trapped with no recourse but to restore a saved game. This is unlikely, however, and should not happen unless you are playing through the game a second time and really get ahead of yourself. A possible point of contention for some people might be the registration fee -- $20, which is generally considered "a lot" for a shareware text adventure game. I would say that it's worth the money, as long as you don't run screaming in terror from mazes. Give it a look and see for yourself; I think you'll find The Dungeon of Dunjin an enjoyable experience. This game was rated 7.0 by 1 person.
From: "Graeme Cree" <72630.304@compuserve.com> NAME: Electrabot GAMEPLAY: Poor AUTHOR: Woody Hunt PLOT: Meaningless EMAIL: ??? ATMOSPHERE: None AVAILABILITY: CIS - Gamer's WRITING: Adequate PUZZLES: Arbitrary SUPPORTS: AGT Ports CHARACTERS: Generic DIFFICULTY: Trivial In Electrabot you play the part of a prototype android seeking to rescue your creator from the clutches of the evil Barbarith. I don't want to be too hard on the game, as it's no mean feat to download a program like the Adventure Game Toolkit, read the instructions, understand them, and put together a reasonably grammatical game that will run to completion without crashing or causing the player numerous unintended headaches. Author Woody Hunt has done all of these things. The problem is that there's not much there. In Electrabot, you follow a more or less predetermined course (there are a couple of side routes), picking up objects and meeting creatures along the way. Each object kills exactly one creature. That's it. That's literally all there is to the game. Well, not quite. There are two other puzzles. One involves a direction you can use that isn't mentioned in the room description. The other involves a set of 3 or 4 rooms that will kill you without any warning if you enter them. For the most part, the weapons are generic. Common sense will tell you which weapon kills the giant slug and the giant rat, but all of the others are totally arbitrary. It's also worth mentioning that although you're supposed to be a high-powered android, everybody you meet (from the insane artist to the butler) is capable of completely cleaning your clock if you don't have the right item handy. This game was rated 0.7 by 1 person.
From: "Molley the Mage" <mollems@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU> NAME: The Enchanter Trilogy PARSER: Early Infocom AUTHOR: Infocom PLOT: Save the World! EMAIL: ??? ATMOSPHERE: Very Rich AVAILABILITY: LTOI 1 WRITING: Tremendous PUZZLES: Wide Range SUPPORTS: Infocom ports CHARACTERS: Typical IF DIFFICULTY: Enchanter - Average; Sorceror - Easy; Spellbreaker - Hard (Enchanter - 5/10; Sorceror - 3/10; Spellbreaker - 8/10) The "Enchanter Trilogy" was Infocom's second big line of more or less "connected" games. All three featured a better parser and more levels of interaction than the Zork games did, and a *much* greater emphasis on plot and storyline. No longer collections of disparate puzzles surrounding the gathering of treasures, these games in my opinion really brought Infocom into their own as far as writing goes. Enchanter, the first of the series, features you as a novice magician who is sent to do battle with an incredibly powerful evil sorceror who is destroying the world. The reason you, a near novice, are sent instead of the more powerful mages in charge of you is because Krill (the evil warlock) could easily detect a mage of great power, while you won't even register as a blip on his mental radar screen. This will supposedly allow you to slip in and defeat him while he's not looking. The game is set in and around Krill's castle, where there are various traps, tricks, and treasures, not to mention a group of nasty henchmen who carry you off to your death whenever they find you. The game basically centers around the collection of more and more magical spells to add to your arsenal. These spells are what enable you to defeat the aforementioned tricks and traps, along with some well-timed help from a few NPC's (including the Adventurer from Zork I, a classic moment if ever there was one!). Eventually you arrive at the requisite showdown with Krill, who goes down rather easily (somewhat anticlimactic for a world-conquering sorcerer, eh?) Nevertheless, Enchanter is a fun game that will provide you with some hours of enjoyment. This game was rated 7.0 by 4 people.
From: "Roger N. Dominick" <dominirn@ucunix.san.uc.EDU> NAME: Enhanced AUTHOR: SophistiChaos AVAILABILITY: Shareware $10 GMD PUZZLES: Logical, interesting CHARACTERS: 1-D, but fun. PARSER: small vocabulary PLOT: Well-planned, linear. ATMOSPHERE: Dark and corny WRITING: Good, little "purple" prose. SUPPORTS: Any TADS run-time. DIFFICULTY: Medium, a few parser problems EMAIL: Hans Persson: unicorn@lysator.liu.se Dominik Zemmler: dz@lysator.liu.se I recently played the (unregistered, ftp'd) shareware version of _Enhanced_, the first (only?) chapter in the "Cyberventure Trilogy". Possibly the first truly cyberpunk adventure game I've played (unless A Mind Forever Voyaging counts), and certainly entertaining as an example of that genre. However, some of the actions that must be taken in the game depend upon the player's familiarity with certain cyberpunk terminology ("ice", etc.), and a lot of the in-jokes are *really* in. There is also one spot where you have to do a very repititous task again and again, and more than one place where plurals either cause problems by being too much ("connector"s being a good case in point) or not enough (I dearly wished to be able to refer to "plastics", in the plural). I had a few word-hunt fights with the parser, especially in one puzzle -- took me 30+ turns to figure out the expected wording to do something required to finish the game alive! The screens-long opening serves as a fast-if-not-especially-believable way to get the character into the main thick of the action. Once there, the plot moves briskly through a storyline filled with in-jokes and almost-caricature NPCs... but it somehow remains fun and engaging. I got stuck twice, and ended up using a step-through from the if-archive for one bit. Enhanced and the solution file are ftp'able from the if-archive, ftp.gmd.de. I enjoyed the game, for a while; when I began to have parsing problems, my enjoyment was diminished. I'm looking forwards to seeing what else comes out of this trilogy, and with a little polish, SGD's games should be excellent. I am going to mail a check off to the authors this weekend; for $10, including source code, it's a very good value. Not Yet Rated.
From: "Julian Arnold" <jools@arnod.demon.co.uk> NAME: A Fable PARSER: Poor AUTHOR: Stan Heller PLOT: I couldn't find one EMAIL: Unknown ATMOSPHERE: Kafka-esque AVAILABILITY: Freeware, GMD WRITING: Reasonable PUZZLES: Virtually nonexistant SUPPORTS: AGT CHARACTERS: Non-interactive DIFFICULTY: Couldn't say Well, what can I say? In _A Fable_, a game originally written in 1985 by one Stan Heller, and apparently rewritten three years ago by David Malmberg and Mark Welch with AGT 1.35, you guide the actions of Max, a somewhat confused man. Unlike most IF _A Fable_ uses the third person (ie, `Max feels suddenly like a huge cloud has lifted him up and taken him away'). This adds to the detached, dreamlike atmosphere which the author has attempted to create. The introduction tells how Max has gone for an evening stroll through his neighbourhood in order to `find himself'. Wrapped in self-obsession he is unaware as his world rapidly disappears, and Max soon finds himself in a strange place, enveloped in fog. Apart from a few foggy areas each location (there are apparently only fifteen so the game is mercifully short) is a one or two paragraph scene reminiscent in style, but without the content, of some of Kafka's shortest works. They are apparently unrelated to each other, except that each seems as pointless and pretentious as the other. In most of these locations there is one item which you can manipulate, but to what end I could not say. The only puzzle which I could find (and I quit with a score of 70/75) involved unlocking a lock with a key... Wow! Admittedly the key was hidden, but very obviously. The score seems to go up for no reason (maybe for moving to a new location) and also goes down for no reason. I guess Max is wandering around his own mind and each location is meant to reveal something to him about himself, but if this is the case it hasn't worked. Oh, this is silly. Even four paragraphs is too long a review for this. Unless I have missed something crucial this game is utter drivel. Don't bother. This game was rated 2.0 by 1 person.
From: "Molley the Mage" <mollems@WKUVX1.WKU.EDU> NAME: The Great Archeological Race PARSER: TADS (Good) AUTHOR: John LaBonney PLOT: Linear, "Sectional" EMAIL: ??? ATMOSPHERE: Indiana Jones-ish AVAILABILITY: GMD WRITING: Not Bad PUZZLES: Wide Variety SUPPORTS: TADS ports CHARACTERS: Interesting, 1-D DIFFICULTY: Below Average Well, I must confess that while I had heard of this game from a few other people, I resisted playing it primarily because the word "archaeology" is so prominently misspelled. A trivial and petty reason not to play a text adventure, I know, but typos ruin games for me faster than anything else. I am pleased to report that not only is it easy to ignore this mistake in The Great Archeological Race, but the rest of the game makes up for it and is quite enjoyable. TGAR, as I'll refer to it, is a shareware game from Absolute Zero. You play an assistant curator at the Evelyn Museum in Boston, whose job is in peril because of a lack of new acquisitions. The game, therefore, becomes a series of adventures wherein you are sent to various sites by your boss to bring back whatever trinkets (or treasures) you can find. The atmosphere of the game reminded me somewhat of the "Indiana Jones" movies; quests for ancient artifacts liberally sprinkled with humor. I think the game is probably easier than most text adventures, but this is not a criticism. I was able to play almost straight through the first few sections in a couple of hours, which enabled me to concentrate on the game itself instead of on the usual stop-ponder-start-stop-ponder-start method I usually use. The individual archaeological "digs" are filled with interesting items, locations, and characters, although the quality of the room descriptions is rather inconsistent. In many places, the writing is plentiful and good; in others, it's extremely terse. Some of the best writing is in the various newspaper articles and reports you'll get on your various excursions around the world, as well as religious propaganda you get from a guy at the airport (and you can just imagine what *that's* like). As you return from the various digs, you check in with your boss, and the items you have recovered are placed on display in the museum itself. This is a nice touch, and provides an obvious measure of progress, as well as allowing the player to feel as though his actions have made an impact. It's obvious that the game does not take itself seriously; the first site you'll visit was abandoned by the original dig team because the University funding the dig used the money for a new swimming pool. It says to me, "Hey, I know the plot is contrived, and you know the plot is contrived, and I know you know, so just play the game and shut up, okay?". I *like* that. The game doesn't try to be anything more than an enjoyable puzzle-solving romp, and of course the tricks and traps commonly associated with ancient sites provide the ideal excuse for having lots of puzzles. The registration fee is $20; this gets you the standard maps, hints, and eternal love and devotion of the author. The game is written using TADS, and so the parser as good as any; no worries on that score. There is mention in the docs about possible availability of the TADS source code to registered users, so aspiring TADS programmers might want to check that offer out. Truthfully, I can't feel too good about saying that the game is worth $20; $10 or $15 would have been more appropriate, but considering some of the tripe people are paying $60 and up for, TGAR is a bargain. I highly recommend that you download this game and give it a try for yourself. This game was rated 6.5 by 1 person.