News

King's Quest V - Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder is out on the
PC and I was lucky enough recently to see a demo of it on video.
As a change from the previous games, there is no typing involved,
it's all played through a point-and-click interface. In it, you
play King Graham who arrives at his castle in Daventry to find
that it and his family have been swept away by the evil magician
Mordack. With the help of a clever owl, Cedric, you set off in
search of Mordack and on your travels you'll meet an eccentric
wizard, an ice queen, an enchanted princess, visit Harpy Island
and meet many other fabulous characters before you finally
confront Mordack. The graphics are superlative, in some cases
involving a process called rotorscoping in which live actors are
used to give realistic movement to the final characters.
Altogether 5 man-years of work have gone into producing the
adventure. Space Quest IV - Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers
should also be out early in the year.


Elvira - Mistress of the Dark, Horrorsoft's follow-up to Personal
Nightmare has also finally appeared on the PC, only about 14
months later than originally planned. There's still no sign of the
ST version though and I was told recently that there is no
definite release date at the moment.

If you've enjoyed the Freescape games and fancied designing your
own, Domark are bringing out a 3D Construction Kit in April. The
package will include a specially designed arcade adventure created
with the kit.

Following Delphine's successful games Future Wars and Operation
Stealth, US Gold will be releasing Cruise For a Corpse soon. As
Inspector Raoul Dussentier you are enjoying a relaxing holiday on
board the yacht of the wealthy shipping magnate Niklos Karaboudjan
when your host is found murdered and it is up to you to unmask the
killer before he or she can strike again.  Evidently the animated
characters in this latest game will be larger in size than the
previous games.

Those of you with emulators who have enjoyed Graham Cluley's
excellent PC shareware adventure, Jacaranda Jim (now on SynTax
disk 153) will be please to know he has a new text game out
called Humbug. This is also shareware and is on SynTax disk 157.
To quote from the flyer Graham sent me:
"Humbug is here! You are sent to your Grandad's for the Christmas
holidays... but something strange is afoot.
Why is there a time machine in Grandad's cellar?
Why is Jasper Slake, Grandad's evil neighbour, so interested in
the manor?
What are all these Vikings doing about the place?
What would you do if an over-friendly octopus offered to play a
round of Wubble-A-Gloop with you?
What is the significance of the dweezil?
What would you do with a trombone, a terrapin and half a pound of
lard?"
To find out some of the answers, read the review in the next issue
of SynTax!

Finally, the first of the two Damocles Mission Disks is in the
shops now and will reveal many of the hidden features in the
original game as you undertake five new missions.