The Battle of Philip against the Forces of Creation
                  by Peter Arnold and Anne Ungar
  (AGT Text adventure available for PC and ST - ST version is on
                        SynTax PD Disk 76)

                     Reviewed by Neil Shipman

In this follow-up adventure to Tark you play the part of Philip, a
fan of Dungeons and Dragons, who has constructed an elaborate
fantasy world for his and his friends' characters to inhabit. He
is the DM of the game currently being played in his house and is
at the moment considering the question put by Tark and Heyyock to
the altar in Gora's Castle concerning the nature of the multi-
verse and its relationship to Good and Evil. Throwing the dice
produces double zero and, as he reaches for his book with the
altar notes to determine the answer, something very strange begins
to happen.

The room darkens and trembles, a rip in space seems to open up and
a naked, very fat woman lands on the table! Attempting to calm her

agitated state while, at the same time, trying to figure out
what's going on, Phil's attention is suddenly drawn to an eye
peering through the dark hole. "Ah!" shouts a voice, and a stream
of black radiance rushes towards him.

There is the impression of furious writing in Phil's notebooks
with changes being made to his fantasy world. From then on, time
flows strangely. Suddenly, a white radiance streams from the fat
woman's forehead, the rip closes with a clap of thunder, then all
is clear again. This is where for you the adventure begins...

Your room is a mess and the skeletons on the floor are your
erstwhile friends. All except Cindy, that is, who had been in the
kitchen and is now nowhere to be seen. You experience a taste of
the horrors yet to come when you examine the remains and find the
light glinting on the polished bone and glowing green maggots
invading their eye sockets. You try to open your notebook but it
appears to be insubstantial and its lock defies your best efforts.

Examining the fat woman reveals that she is Tark, a female cleric
who has the ability to conjure certain spells and who will
accompany you on your travels. But she can't shed much light on
your current situation so it's a good job that you find a
reference book, appropriately entitled "Information for people who
aren't Phil" in the next room. From this you learn the names of
some of the spells Tark knows as well as her other abilities as a
cleric. (Phil is, in reality, Philip Kegelmeyer, the author of the
original Tark adventure.)

The background information given in this book is extensive and,
indeed, vital to your success, so read it carefully. The evil you
are going to have to overcome has been wrought by one Naron
Blooder, a mage who rather than kill his enemies delights in
binding their souls for all eternity. They can, however, always be
released and, amongst other things, the book gives examples of
some of his sadistic bindings and the ways of undoing them.

The first problem you're faced with is how to get out of your
house. The illusions of an ocean outside your front door, a rock

wall outside the kitchen window and a precipitous drop beyond your
backyard are all too real. But, dispose of a fire elemental which
has appeared in the garage and you can make your way out into the
strange streets and up to the castle which looms in the east.

Entry will not be achieved without Tark's help and, once inside,
you will soon get a glimpse of the sadistic nature of Naron
Blooder as well as seeing the brutal style of writing the authors
use to convey the horrors of Phil's imaginary world. Here is just
one short example from looking at the fountain in the courtyard:

"Upon closer examination, you see that it is actually quite
grotesque. The top of the fountain features a young woman crushing
the life out of her baby. The water gushes from its distorted
mouth and several wounds. Around the lower portion are mermaids,
and the water fountains from their slit wrists."

Taking care to avoid the guard who patrols the castle's rooms you
will come across Cindy, bound into a mud house. Freeing her from

this is easy, but her soul is immediately bound into something
else. Releasing her from successive bindings, destroying the evil
Blooder and, eventually, unlocking the notebook back in your house
and returning to the real world are your objectives in this
adventure.

A book in the library, "Soul-Based Bindings and their Application
to the Inanimate", includes a useful recipe and you will need to
obtain such diverse ingredients as the intestine of a red gecko,
living troll flesh, something personal of the binding's creator
and a set of thieving tools. Gathering these is not without its
difficulties and you will experience some quite grotesque scenes,
most horrible of all being the coupling with a demoness whose key
you require.

There are some 60 locations (not all of which you'll want to
visit!), the puzzles are well constructed, and the descriptions
and responses quite lengthy. But one annoying feature of the


adventure - as, seemingly, with many AGT games - was its habit of
returning you to the desktop when you were killed. This has now
been sorted out, however, and you can simply restore a saved
position when you meet your demise. What you can't do is restart
from within the adventure, so if you get killed before you've
saved then you'll have to re-boot it. The best way round this is
to make sure that SAVE is your very first command.

The authors have, throughout, managed to convey a sense of evil,
and the complexity of the world within Philip's mind is quite
enthralling. Indeed, with such a fertile imagination to draw on
for the plot, it is perhaps a pity that the adventure is not twice
the size. I should particularly have liked there to have been more
conjuring of spells on Tark's behalf. According to the book she
knows nearly thirty but in the adventure she only has to use five.

There is something about The Battle of Philip against the Forces
of Creation which continued to draw me on that little bit further.
I couldn't resist looking round the next corner to see what
horrors I would find there! If you're a fan of horror fantasy then
you should find the game an interesting and enjoyable one to play.
It's certainly one of the more gruesome text adventures I've
played and, as you'll have gathered, not one for the squeamish!

@~There will be a full solution in the next issue of SynTax.