The Enchanted Cottage and Lifeboat - River Software RRP œ4.50
                           (Text only)

                     Reviewed by Neil Shipman

As well as writing new adventures for us die-hard text adventure 
fans to get our hands on, Jack Lockerby has been busy converting a 
number of his earlier titles to run on the ST. The latest two are 
The Enchanted Cottage and Lifeboat which come on one single-sided 
disk. Both games are three to four years old, were originally co-
authored by Jack and his son-in-law, Roger Betts, and have been 
converted from the Spectrum versions using STAC.

THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE

You play the part of Niki, an apprentice sorcerer, who has been on 
a government-sponsored training course for the past five years. In 
order to gain your diploma and thus become an Official Sorcerer 
with a secure job in the Magicians' Civil Service and an index-
linked pension you have to demonstrate that what you're supposed 
to have learned hasn't gone in one ear and out the other. You are 
therefore incarcerated in the Enchanted Cottage of the title with 
the simple enough objective - to get out of the cottage's green 
door! To do so you will require three keys to unlock it, but where 
are they?

The only object in the single room is a cube which, with a bit of 
manipulation, will provide you with a magical transport system in 
the form of three coloured discs. Using these discs enables you to 
enter three separate sections of the adventure which contain 
inter-connected puzzles but which are themselves linked only via 
the cottage.

You are able to wander around quite a few locations in each 
section but, to make progress, you must find a spell book which 
the Official Sorcerer has left for you. Once you have this you 
learn that it is possible to cast certain spells, seven in all, 
like Reflection, Freeze, Open, etc. Each spell does, however, 
require a unique focus in the form of an object which you must be 
holding in order for it to work. The descriptions of the objects 
and characters you come across leave you in little doubt as to 
which spell and its necessary focus are needed in a particular 
situation.

Most of the action takes place in what might be thought of as 
typical adventuring country (if there is such a thing!) with 
woods, mountains, trails, rivers, tunnels and caverns. There are a 
few indoor places too - well you wouldn't expect to find a safe or 
a stove out in the open would you? There are about 70 locations 
including a small, easily-mappable maze, and the layout of the 
puzzles will have you to-ing and fro-ing quite a bit between the 
three sections of the adventure.

Characters (some helpful, some distinctly nasty) include Ben Gunn 
who wants to see Captain Flint's parchment, a giant, a sleepy 
mountain guide and that denizen of scores of adventures, the 
infamous troll. Animals abound too in the form of a dog, a 
mountain goat and an enormous snake, all presenting problems for 
you to overcome.

Jack has used grey text on a black background throughout most of 
the game although some characters' speech and the responses to 
certain actions are shown in blue. The title of your current 
location is shown in orange capitals at the top of the screen. The 
vocabulary is fairly limited but you should have little trouble in 
finding the correct input. Remember though that, as in many of his 
adventures, Examine is not synonymous with Search!

The Enchanted Cottage makes no pretensions to be anything other 
than a simple, "traditional", magical, fantasy adventure. It 
sustained my interest and had me tapping away at the keyboard for 
a few hours as I enjoyed working my way through the puzzles, 
eventually gaining my Sorcerer's diploma.

LIFEBOAT

On August 10th 1927 the clipper 'Alana' hit a submerged reef off 
the NE coast of Australia. The ship was lost and, of the 82 souls 
on board, only 5 survived. This adventure follows the fate of one 
of those survivors.

You begin, as you might expect, tossed around in a lifeboat with 
your four companions and little else save a couple of heavy oars. 
Not everyone seems to be as enthusiastic as you in trying to do 
something to get out of this dilemma but, with a little help, 
you soon make it to land. Climbing up a rusty ladder onto a wooden 
jetty, you turn in horror as the ladder falls into the sea, the 
lifeboat drifts off into the distance and the cries of your 
erstwhile fellows in adversity get fainter and fainter.

So what are you in for in this adventure? Stranded alone on some 
deserted coastline with all sorts of rigours to endure before 
being rescued? Perhaps the presence of a jetty means the natives 
are friendly and will help you find your way back to civilisation 
in return for some favour? Well, partly, but it's much stranger 
than that!

The first sign that something odd is happening is when you need to 
free a jammed weather vane to make the fog clear so you can see 
where to go. Then, in a fisherman's hut, you find an old woman 
asleep in bed. A glance at the book in her hand, 'The Sleeping 
Beauty', gives you the clue as to what you should do next and, 
when she awakens, she croaks, "Find my Prince and you will be 
rewarded. Fail and you will perish." Pointing to a chair in the 
corner she then falls asleep again.

Well, there's nothing for it but to sit in the chair is there? 
When you do though you are suddenly transported into another 
world. The seaside village in which you now find yourself is 
peopled with characters from children's nursery rhymes! Remember 
'Hickory dickory dock', 'Polly put the kettle on' and 'Three blind 
mice'? Of course you do - and it's working out the solutions to 
the puzzles associated with these and other rhymes that makes up 
the bulk of this adventure.

Some folk, like the grocer and the auctioneer, won't part with 
anything until you pay them and, when you start, you don't have 
any money (or rather 'yenom'). What little you find lying around 
isn't even enough to buy you a go at the 'Guess the lucky number 

and win a yenom finder' stall, so a different strategy is called 
for. Perhaps a trip to the local Job Centre?

Will your efforts enable you to find the old woman's prince? What 
will happen if they do? And how does this all tie up with your 
original predicament in the lifeboat? Well, you'll just have to 
play the adventure and see for yourself, won't you?

Presentation this time is predominantly yellow text on a black 
background with speech and some responses in light blue. There are 
only about half as many locations as in The Enchanted Cottage and 
their titles are shown in light blue capitals. Once again the 
vocabulary is rather limited and I struggled on a couple of 
occasions to find exactly the right input. My first copy of the 
game also contained a fatal bug which prevented me from completing 
it, but Jack very quickly sorted this out and you can rest assured 
that your copy will be OK.

Lifeboat is a gentle stroll through nursery rhyme land and, in 
some ways, is very reminiscent of The Case Of The Mixed Up Shymer 
by Sandra Sharkey. An easy but none-the-less enjoyable adventure 
with which to while away a couple of hours.

Conclusion

In both The Enchanted Cottage and Lifeboat you can abbreviate 
Examine to X and Again to A and, as in most STAC-written 
adventures, Ramsave (RS) and OOPS are supported. You only have to 
take one look at these titles to recognise Jack's unmistakable 
style. Spectrum owners may well have played them some time ago and 
thus may not feel that it's worth taking a look at the ST 
versions, though Lifeboat has been enhanced. For those of you who 
haven't seen them, show your support for the independent adventure 
writer and send off your money now. At only œ4.50 for the pair you 
can't go wrong!