![]() ![]() There are very few typos in the game offhand I can think of "hewed" instead of "hewn" or is that an Americanism too? And "eminating" instead of "emanating" but in a game of this size it is one of the better games in that regard. I found the American spellings somewhat jarring after a while (traveling, parlor etc.) Do you remember when we spoke of goose pimples not goose bumps in Blighty? Where is the guy to give a penny to at the beginning of November? And when something lasted 24 hours a day not 24/7? We want our language back! Sorry, I've taken a Valium and I'm back to the review. The best (and most intricate) involves a Mainframe computer (gosh really?) a disk drive and a printer plus an amusing pun on the American Byte Magazine. This would be a good introduction to a novice IF player as the majority of solutions are logical. The standard of puzzle I would put as intermediate. Response times via my C64 Vice emulator v 3.5 were good although the game locked up on me once. Two of the puzzle solutions revolve around the use of rather obscure verbs and as far as I can tell there are no suitable alternatives to implement the actions I tried. The latter omission of course means the location descriptions cannot be truncated or lengthened. It understands TAKE ALL and EXAMINE although the latter seems redundant as it nearly always replies "It is nothing special" and only differs from this reply when READ produces the same result. The only exception I found to this was turning off the lamp when three words were needed as none of DOUSE, EXTINGUISH or LAMP OFF seemed to work. The first six letters of any noun are recognised and it is a standard two word affair. The two word parser is pretty good for its age, that is not as good as Infocom, Level 9 or Magnetic Scrolls but better than contemporaneous games like Warp, Castlequest and Excalibur. One of the more colourful descriptions in the game seems to have been lifted almost exactly from the Volcano View in Dave Platt's Colossal Cave extension. There are the usual tropes associated with games of this era a maximum inventory of seven objects (the same number as the Cambridge Phoenix games) a lamp timer which can be ameliorated by finding an object that recharges it (thanks 8bitAg for the nudge there) a rather nasty maze for which there is some help although I didn't find it until after I'd spent many an hour solving it the old fashioned way of dropping objects) and a number of twisting exits that make map drawing excruciating. In fact an atmosphere of decay and decrepitude hangs over the whole scenario - there are rotten tree stumps, rusted hinges, broken shutters and skeletons sprinkled liberally throughout the game geography. Unlike Rising Damp there is no view of the gas works but there are various views through the mansion windows of a rotting shed and various other decaying landmarks in the game. The rather diaphanous premise is that you need to collect sixteen treasures and ferret them away somewhere to become Crystal Caverns Estate Landlord (a rather upmarket Rigsby I suppose) by exploring the areas deep below an old Victorian Mansion. It is a nice throwback to the days of Mainframe games, with more than a nod to Zork, Colossal Cave and Acheton although I wouldn't consider it as tough as any of those. ![]() This is the reason why we are carrying the Axe for the entire game and sacrificing a valuable inventory slot.This rather large and well crafted text adventure was originally written for the Apple II in 1982 and then re-programmed for the Commodore 64 two years later. If you took a detour to steal his treasure and recover yours, and are otherwise caught up with the route, your score will be 14 points higher than reported here until the “Cave closing, Repository, End” section.Īny time you run into a dwarf, click on it with the Axe, and do not forget to recollect the Axe afterwards. Seeing the Chest (his treasure) awards 2 points, and depositing it in WellHouse awards 12 points. He shows up randomly, and depending on when you decide to reclaim your treasure and steal his treasure, the score values will be different. A quick note that the score values might not line up with what you see, depending on the timing of the Pirate appearance. ![]()
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