Grue-Knapped! - Atlas Software œ2.50
          (Text adventure for Amiga. Original by Bob Adams.
                  Amiga conversion by The Grue)

                    Reviewed by Dave Barker

Almost every text adventurer knows what a Grue is, the small
minority who don't must be new to adventuring or have been playing
cassette adventures only. The Grue, hater of the light and lover
of human flesh, was introduced to adventurers in Infocom's Zork
series. It was a device to prevent fastidious adventurers from
wandering around mapped areas in the dark, thus saving precious
lamp oil or torch batteries. With the demise of the much-revered
Infocom writing team the Grue appears to have left the Great
Underground Empire in disgust and has emigrated to a cave on the
outskirts of Ormskirk. And why not? we hear you all say!

The story opens as you and a chubby friend are walking the hills
around Ormskirk and find a dark cave entrance. You foolishly
decide to explore the cave, even though you don't have a torch,
and are captured by the Grue. Your chubby friend is immediately
eaten and the Grue locks you up as a future delicacy whilst he
sleeps off his latest bout of gluttony. The aim of the adventure
is to escape from the Grue's cave before he wakes up. Wakes up
hungry!

The original Amstrad version of this text adventure was written by
Bob Adams, with the Amiga conversion being the work of the Grue
himself. Any Adventure Probe readers will immediately recognize
these two colourful characters as long-time contributors to that
magazine. Grue-Knapped is written in a very funny style and
reflects the weird and zany humour of both the authors. Mercifully
this humour consists of short "off the cuff" remarks and "one
liners" unlike many previous spoofs in which the adventurer
frequently had to repeatedly scroll though many screens of
increasingly less-amusing text.

The Amiga coding for this conversion was done by the Grue using
the Hatrack II adventure writing system, and if there are any
faults with the adventure they are the result of the limitations
of this system rather than that of the authors themselves. Hatrack
II uses a large amount of memory and therefore limits the size of
any potential adventure written with it. There are only some forty
locations in this adventure and as you get deeper into the game
both the location descriptions and the messages become shorter and
more to the point as the available memory with which to complete
the game became smaller.

The text is a joy to read and is full of jokes and irreverent
humour. All the location and object descriptions must be carefully
read as there are some "Red Herrings" and many objects are either
hidden or not what they initially appear to be. Also some objects
have been given novel uses which might seem odd at first but with
the application of a little parallel logic and given the
afore-mentioned authors' warped senses of humour they don't look
so strange. Despite being a rather small adventure Grue-Knapped
should appeal to both novice and expert alike. For the novice it
is an example of a good idea that has been very well implemented
and features many puzzles, the solving of which will provide

valuable experience. For the expert, especially those who are
familiar with the authors, it provides a light-hearted diversion
from the more graphic-orientated adventures that have become the
norm over the last few years.

I'm currently unaware of an ST conversion although I understand
there is to be a Quilled version for the Spectrum and maybe the
C64 also.

In conclusion, Grue-Knapped is possibly the best humorous text
adventure that I have played since Infocom's Hitch-hiker's Guide
to the Galaxy and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Given the asking
price of œ2.50, it is a bargain not to be missed.

@~Atlas Software can be contacted at 67 Lloyd Street, Llandudno,
@~Gwynedd, LL30 2YP.