Weird Tales - Interactive Technology RRP œ14.95
                      (Text adventure)

                  Reviewed by Andy Thompson

Weird  Tales  comprises  three  text  horror  games  based  on the
following  stories,  which  were  published  in the American Weird
Tales magazine:

          Black Hound of Death     -  Robert E. Howard
          Beyond the Wall of Sleep -  H. P. Lovecraft
          Frozen Beauty            -  Seabury Quinn

On  loading  the  game you are taken to a clearing at the start of
the 'Black Hound of Death'. At  your  feet  lies  the  body  of  a
man.....his  throat  torn  out.....his clothes soaked in a pool of
blood! You hear  horrible  laughter  and  screams  from  a  nearby
cabin, and after closer inspection, you find Richard Brent and his
niece  Gloria  have  been tied up inside. Their captor stands over

them. He was once human, but black  magic  changed  him  into  the
insane beast that has been killing the local people.  Can you stop
him before he finishes his plans and skins Gloria alive?

This  is  only  a  small  intro  game,  but the solution is not as
obvious  as  it  first  seems. You will have to  plan  your  moves
carefully  if you are going to stop the killer in time.

In  'Beyond  the  Wall  of  Sleep'  you  work  at  a  psychopathic
institution. You are woken one night by the buzzing  of  the  door
bell. If you  manage to unlock  the door in  time (not easy as the
key's gone missing!) a new patient, Joe Slater, will be  admitted.
He  lived  in  the  Mountains  and  was arrested after killing his
neighbour.  He  remembers nothing  about  the  murder,  but  talks
about  a  burning  entity  inside of him that takes control of his
body. After studying him for a few days  you  notice  that  he  is
prone to unprovoked violent rages and it would seem that he could,
as he claims, be possessed. It's up to you to find out all you can
about Joe and if possible free him from whatever possesses him.

In  'Frozen  Beauty',  the  largest  of  the three games, you play
Doctor  Samuel Trowbridge. Your partner, Jules de Grandin, as well
as being a doctor, is also a psychic detective. His skills will be
invaluable  if  you  are to solve the mystery that lies ahead. The
game starts in your surgery; in the corner stands a coffin watched
over  by a stranger. After questioning the  stranger about himself
and the coffin,  the  game  goes  into  a  flashback......You  are
travelling  in your  car  when a man jumps out in front of you. He
tells you he is the houseman to Doctor  Pavlovitch  and  that  you
must  go  to  the  house  at  once.  When   you  arrive  you  find
Pavlovitch  has been murdered, and his  study  ransacked.  In  the
course  of  the  game you will have to find out why Pavlovitch was
killed, what his murderers were looking for, how he was  connected
to  the  stranger and the coffin, and what can be done to help the
stranger now Pavlovitch is dead.

Both  'Beyond  the  Wall of Sleep' and 'Frozen Beauty' are divided
into  scenes.  There  is usually a change of location and a slight
change in time from one scene to the next, though  sometimes  days
can  go  by  between them.  You take  control of the character for
the length of each scene and anything  he  does  between  them  is
described  in  the  few  pages of text that precede each one. This
feels a bit odd to start with, as most adventures let you  control
your  character  from start to finish, but once you get used to it
it works well and allows the game to stick closely to the plot  of
the story.

Weird  Tales  was written using STAC, but the author has used STAC
to produce ZEN (see interview with the author (Martyn Westwood) in
Issue 7 of SynTax). ZEN breaks the normal limitations of STAC  and
so  gives Weird Tales a very good parser, and a form of Artificial
Intelligence. ZEN allows  the  game  to  recognise  even obscurely
worded sentences, it can also fill in the gaps between your moves.
For  instance if you are in front of a locked door with the key in
your hand, all you have to type is  OPEN  DOOR,  rather  than  the
usual UNLOCK DOOR WITH KEY then OPEN DOOR.

ZEN  also  includes an on-screen mapping system (not really needed
in Weird Tales, but could be useful in further ZEN games),  and  a
built-in  hint system. The hint system works similarly to the ones
in the latest Infocoms i.e. pick your present location,  then  the
question  you  want answered, then the game displays hints getting
less subtle the more you read.

On the whole I really enjoyed the game and would recommend it. The
descriptions are detailed (perhaps TOO detailed if you have a weak
stomach!),  and  the  game has great atmosphere. The  puzzles  are
not  too difficult, but you'll have to study the text carefully to
work out what questions should be asked. The way the game  follows
a plot so closely does have a drawback. Sometimes when the game is
about  to  move  on  to  a  new  scene  it'll  wait for a specific
action/question before it will continue. If  you  can't  think  of
the move, there's no way to continue with the game, so it's either
switch  off  or  call  up  the  hint  system. This is only a small
criticism,  and  I can certainly put up with a few linear  puzzles
if  they're  necessary to keep to the story. So if you're a fan of
text-based  detective  or  horror  adventures,  Weird   Tales   is
certainly worth playing.