The Pyramid - Roland Goulsbra/AGT on PDs 223/224
      (Text adventure for PC and ST, Amiga version soon)

It's been a long journey by train and boat but you're finally here
... Egypt! For a keen Egyptologist, it's the trip of a lifetime
and you're really looking forward to seeing the pyramids and
mummies. Your hotel isn't great (it only rates 1/2 a star in the
guides) but you don't plan to spend much time in it. The main
thing is that it's close to the pyramids, hence its name, the
Pyramid Hotel, and not far from town.

In fact, you're in town now - and a bit worried. You can't
remember which way it is back to your hotel, and you can't
remember your room number either. There was a bit of an argument
about the room key when you left and the upset has driven the
number out of your mind.

It's quite crowded in town but you push your way through the
throng to get your bearings. South is the bus stop which will take
you to the airport if you can get a bus ticket. You don't want to
do that yet, though, because you still haven't seen the pyramids.
There's a taxi stand to the east, but no taxi. If you can work out
how to hail one, maybe the cab driver would take you to the
pyramids or your hotel? West is a bazaar but only one stall really
catches your eye and it's full of 'tourist' junk apart from an
interesting looking box. But to the north is the National Museum -
that's more like it! It's a shame it's full of Japanese tourists;
if the tourist guide was awake, maybe he'd show you round. But
he's dozing in the main hall and you have to find your own way
around the exhibits.

This is fascinating - here's a reredos showing the death of a
pharaoh. And over here, look, it's the sarcophagus belonging to
the very same pharaoh, Aarkh Anach Rhag, dead for 4221 years
according to the sign. There's a craft room down the corridor too;
I'm sure there's some interesting stuff in there.

Having whetted your appetite for things Egyptian, it's time to
make your way out of town (having worked out how to hail a cab)
and look round the pyramid that was the burial chamber of, and

monument to, Aarkh Anach Rhag. Of course, it's empty now, apart
from the remains of the Pharaoh's barque. It must have been quite
different four thousand years ago....

The Pyramid was apparently written as a birthday gift from Roland
Goulsbra to his girl friend and its entry into the 1990 AGT
Adventure Writing Contest (where it was one of the "Best of ...")
was more of an after thought, but don't let that put you off.
Though only a small game of 57 locations, not all of which you'll
see if you don't die during the game, it has some nice touches
including sound effects and some unusual inputs. It also has a few
sneaky inputs but it's a rare game that doesn't catch most of us
out at least once. The aim of the game is to do the 'right thing'
and ultimately discover the Meaning of Life (or 'Liff' as it is
called here, after Douglas Adams' book) rather than collect
treasure so it's quite possible (if not so much fun) to finish the
adventure without scoring any points at all out of the official
top score of 105 points. However the scoring is pretty erratic and
I finished with 129/105 - and at one stage I had 196/105!
The initial atmosphere of the busy Egyptian town is good - the
hurly-burly of the bazaar, the desolation of the trackless desert
that you must cross in order to reach the pyramid, the interior of
the pyramid and, once you've worked out what to do, the ability to
travel back in time to the days just after the death of the
Pharaoh, being able to compare the present day pyramid with how it
was then.

One thing did confuse, and ultimately annoy, me. Every move, right
from the start of the game, I got messages about being lost and
wandering in the desert. They happened wherever I was and
sometimes several messages were displayed at once, causing the
screen to fill up with text to such an extent that it was
necessary to press RETURN to read the important text. Once I
reached the desert itself, the significance of the messages became
clear, and I realised they were being displayed at the wrong time.
It was time to dig into the datafile....

Got it! In the command file were a couple of commands to control
movement in the desert and, thankfully, they were well documented.
The author had intended warning messages to be displayed when a
particular variable reached a specific value, using the
VariableEquals command, thus warning the player than he/she was in
danger of dying of thirst in the desert. Unfortunately he'd
written VariableGT (greater than) by mistake - and he'd done this
in two different commands. Since the variable didn't start
counting down until you reached the desert, the messages appeared
every move. I changed the commands, recompiled the game and -
voila! - everything now works as it was intended to. The new
versions are now in the SynTax PD Library.

This isn't one of the best AGT games I've seen but it certainly
isn't the worst. The spelling is suspect in several places
including spelling Pharaoh as Pharao unless that's an Americanism.
However the plot is fairly original, the programming (mostly) good
and the puzzles link together neatly.
                                                 Sue