The Jade Stone - Marlin Games/Page 6 œ9.95

Linda Wright has written several adventures now for a variety  of 
machines.  But The Jade Stone is her first ST adventure,  written 
using STAC.
 
In it, you play a young girl who is engaged to a wimp. He isn't a 
bad bloke but,  as you'd imagine, not exactly your father's first 
choice  for  his future son-in-law!  So when  an  evil  sorcerer, 
Mallumo,   attacks the land,  it's the ideal opportunity for your 
fiance to prove he isn't as wet as everyone thinks he is,  so off 
he goes to deal with the sorcerer.

It  was  bound  to  happen - a  Putron  (one  of  the  sorcerer's 
minions) delivers a ransom note to your father.  He must give  up 
his kingdom or his daughter,  or he'll never see the wimp  again. 
It  must  be tempting,  but dear father calls out  the  army  and 
prepares to take action.


The  adventure starts with you in the hall of your home  as  your 
father and the army gather in the courtyard outside.  Sajo,  your 
father's  advisor,   is  nearby  and  will  provide  some  useful 
information about the Jade Stone if you prompt him with the right 
questions. 

The Stone sounds like the answer to all your problems.  There  is 
only one thing for it,  a woman will have to take charge and sort 
out the mess made by all these men by finding and using the Stone 
to bring peace to the land. 

There  is quite a bit of exploring to be done at home and in  the 
town  before you are ready to go on your quest.  In the town  you 
will  find several shops and other buildings including a  temple. 
Outside the town,  things get a bit rougher when you are set upon 
by  bandits.  Whether  or  not  you manage  to  retain  all  your 
possessions depends on your earlier actions. 

Near  the town are a woodland area and a village where  you  will 
meet some interesting and helpful characters,  most of whom  will 

want  you  to do them some sort of favour before they  will  help 
you.  Also  nearby are the plains of Vibran where you  will  once 
more meet up with your father and the army and if you can  manage 
to find your way around the hostile forces,  you will be able  to 
enter Mallumo's stronghold.

The  game  is  fairly open in that a lot  of  the  locations  are 
accessible right from the start. I like adventures like this as I 
feel there is not a lot worse than feeling that you're being  led 
down  a certain path in a game without having any choice  in  the 
matter. In Jade Stone, you can explore a large area and collect a 
considerable  number  of items without  solving  any  complicated 
problems.

The  game is very well presented with a good loading  screen  and 
effective graphics at various points.  Thankfully,  features such 
as RAMSAVE,  RAMLOAD and OOPS have been included. 


The  Jade Stone was originally written for the spectrum where  it 
was sold as a two-part game.  Out of interest,  I played  through 
the early stages of the spectrum version while doing this  review 
to see how the two games differed. Though the basic storyline and 
some  of the puzzles are the same,  it was refreshing to see  how 
much had been added to the ST version.  What was also good to see 
was that the additions are well-designed puzzles and not just any 
old padding to fill up the memory.

The  ST  version  was sold mail-order  from  Marlin  Games  until 
recently, but is now available from Page 6 Adventures. It is good 
to   see  small  "home-grown"  adventures  being   marketed   and 
advertised  in  this  way  as  all  too  often  their  market  is 
restricted to fanzines and an occasional advert in the  glossies. 
I had  been  looking forward  to more  STAC adventures from Linda 
till I heard recently that she is moving  into other areas eg PBM.
I hope that one day she will return to STAC to write another game. 

                                         Sue