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       Limbo of the Lost - The Dream Team/Zenobi
          (Text/graphic adventure for ST)

I expect you've heard of the Marie Celeste?  Her story has passed
into maritime folklore, with everyone wondering - what DID happen
aboard the ship, that she could be found abandoned like that?

The story is given briefly in the introduction to Limbo of the
Lost, how on Dec 5th 1872, the ship was found drifting, 950
kilometres west of Gibralter. There was no sign of her Captain,
Benjamin Briggs, his wife and son or the ship's crew. No evidence
could be found on board to explain what dreadful fate had befallen
them.  All that could be seen were two strange grooves in the
ship's bow just above the waterline but no logical explanation
could be given for them.

The adventure itself begins some one hundred years later when you
find that you have unexpectedly come into an inheritance when an
unknown relative, Murtle Briggs, dies and leaves you her estate in
New England. Travelling to the States, you find the house is in a
terrible state of collapse and you make your way inside very
carefully, only to discover that the interior isn't in a better
condition.  But you gradually work your way through the house
until you come to the final room, the attic.

In there, you come across a strange collection of junk, including
an old chest, a coin and a stuffed parrot (with a wooden leg and a
patch over one eye!). Having a closer look at the chest, you find
that it belonged to a Captain S Briggs, but the name doesn't mean
anything to you - yet. As you descend from the attic to the
bedroom, a cold feeling washes over you and the trap door into the
loft and the door leading out onto the landing both slam shut. Try
as you will, you can't open them and the window also seems to be
jammed. You're trapped....

If you keep your wits about you, you'll manage to find Captain
Briggs' diary and the key to unlock it. Reading the diary, and the
page that falls out of it, you manage to piece together part of
the story of the Mary Celeste. It appears that the ship had run
aground on an uncharted island on Nov 22nd, 1872. The Captain sent
some of his men onto the island to explore and one of them
returned carrying a leather-bound book which he had found in a
temple. The sailor, Johnson, had been wounded in the temple which
he said was full of traps and he died from his wounds soon
afterwards. Fearing mutiny, Briggs immediately ordered his crew to
set sail from the island.

He returned to his cabin and studied the book. After reading it
for a while, he found that it was, in fact, the Book of Creation,
and in a state of panic, he ordered the ship to sail back to the
island so they could return it. But when they got back to the
place where the mysterious island had appeared, there was no sign
of it! The next entry in the diary told how the ship was in the
grip of a vortex of raging winds and that the compass wasn't
working and, in mid-sentence, the dairy was abandoned.

It won't be very long after reading this that you manage to summon
up the spirit of your long-dead ancestor, Captain Briggs, who asks
for your help in recovering the Book from Limbo where the Four
Horsemen (War, Famine, Death and Pestilence) have taken it and
are, at this very moment, trying to use it to their own ends.
Unless the Book is returned to the island before midnight on 22nd
Nov 1972, the world will be doomed. So, you set off on your task,
entering the realm of Limbo in an effort to save mankind.

The game is written using STAC and features excellent initial
animated graphics of a bird and its flight across the face of a
full moon. Some of the later graphics are drawn and others
digitized. A few of the drawn ones are well-done, others aren't so
good but the digitized ones are very effective and somewhat
gruesome. Remember Captain Briggs has been dead for rather a long
time .... and one hardly needs graphics to be able to imagine the
effect of a spear flying into your forehead at high speed.

As this was a preview copy, I wasn't surprised to find a few bugs
and experience some crashes as I played. I was rather surprised,
though, to find that there seemed to be no way to redescribe your
location (LOOK is read as EXAM) and that RAMSAVE didn't work (or
maybe it does, but RAMLOAD doesn't) but no doubt these points will
be sorted out by the final version. What especially impressed me
by the game was the excellent examine command and the fact that in
some cases it was layered eg examine the bed (you see the frame
and mattress), examine the mattress (there are stains on it),
examine the stains (they look as though they were caused by
tobacco smoke and there's a cigarette burn in the centre of it).

Limbo of the Lost looks as though it will be well worth getting
when it is finally released and I'll be interested to see more
games from the same author who has a very good yet subtle sense
of humour. I especially liked the touch of letting your maximum
score be 666!
                                             Sue