The Four Symbols - The Grue RRP œ5.00 (Amiga text adventure available from: Borphee Computers, 64 County Road, Ormskirk, West Lancs, L39 1QH.) Reviewed by Richard Hewison It has been quite a long time since I last played a text only adventure, so I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to react to a trip down memory lane without the sophisticated graphics and sound of the modern commercial adventures. Upon loading, The Four Symbols immediately looks and feels very much like the old classic Infocom adventures. To illustrate the point, here is the opening text which greets you when the game has finished loading: "Soon he will awaken and he will return to his quest and your foul life will once again be in danger of ending suddenly, bloodily, and with you on your knees begging for mercy. Your future is much darker than you think." I'm not sure how the author expected me to react to this, but it certainly makes you think twice doesn't it? At this very early stage of the game, I didn't even know what the quest was and already I was being told that I was doomed! The brave hearted will no doubt takes this as the challenge that it is meant to be, whilst the yellow bellied cowards will dive for the nearest sand pit to bury their head in. Us experienced adventurers aren't put off by such things, so I pressed a key and entered the game proper. The plot slowly unwinds in the immediate locations as you find yourself in a village by the remains of your own house. In fact, a quick look around and you will come across a few other buildings in a similar state. There doesn't seem to be anyone around at first, but you will eventually come across a large crowd of very anxious and angry villagers. Valuable information will be gleaned from these people, who are very upset about a number of events that seems to suggest that bad luck has hit the area in a big way. Unfortunately for you, they think that you are behind it all, and all because some black cat decided to follow you around! Of course, it was inevitable that you would end up in the village pond, tied to the ducking stool. Having passed it earlier, and tried to climb onto it, I was told not to tempt fate. Did I listen? Would it have mattered anyway? Somehow, I don't think so. This was one of those unavoidable scenes that always used to happen in the Infocom games after a certain number of moves. You just have to make sure that you've done all the exploring you need to before you get half drowned in the pond water. Fortunately, the game didn't end there. After all, I certainly didn't want to go out having been drowned on a ducking stool. I have my adventuring reputation to think of, you know. It is at this point in the proceedings that the real quest is revealed. The mysterious four symbols of the title are introduced and your objective is made clear. For years the symbols have been kept in the village and have protected it from the advancing Shadowland. Now they have been stolen! (Shades of Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom?) The only way out of the wet predicament is to volunteer to get them back, especially as no one else in the village is brave enough to speak up. Thankfully, they agree to trust you - mainly because they don't have much choice! I haven't got that far in the real quest itself, but I have played enough to be able to assess the quality of the game. As I have already mentioned, the first thing that struck me was the very 'Infocom' feel and look to the game. Okay, so you can't go that wrong on presentation with a text only adventure but I have seen some home grown games in the past that try and do a good job of messing it up. There are a few small faults which I feel obliged to mention. There are a number of (albeit small) mistakes scattered throughout the text that I have seen so far, both in location descriptions and other responses. Many sentences are too long by missing full stops and not introducing new sentences instead. For example, when I tried to examine my clothes I was told: "Like your home they've seen better days, there is nothing in your pockets". This might possibly be a design flaw with the system that was used but it still looks a little careless. It was annoying though that once pockets had been mentioned, I assumed that I would be able to put things in them. However, I tried to put a peg in the pockets without success. I tried 'put peg in pocket', 'insert peg in pocket', 'open pocket', etc. to no avail. That is one aspect of text entry adventuring that I haven't missed in recent years. A large number of synonyms for verbs and nouns are a must if the player isn't going to get quickly frustrated at trying to find the exact wording necessary to perform a simple task. The very first location description is found to be missing a full stop and the start of a new sentence. This type of mistake should be spotted long before anyone gets to play the game as it doesn't exactly leave a good first impression. The other slightly disappointing aspect of the game has been the rather abrupt responses that doing some actions produced. For example, I wanted to examine some bricks in case there was a secret hole there. The response I got was 'Nothing special'. Hmmm. On a 48k spectrum I could understand why the responses would be kept to a minimum, but on an Amiga? Here's another one. I tried examining the peg and was told 'Hand whittled!'. A little more descriptive power would definitely fan the fires of imagination. On another occasion I wanted to look at the stove in my house. Examining it gave the usual 'Nothing special' response. On trying to 'look in stove' I was told that I would have to "...move in first". It didn't make much sense, but I always do as I'm told so I tried 'move in' and 'move in stove' which both resulted with "You cannot move in". Aargghhh! Examining the village store door results in "You don't see the door" even though the location text has already told me that it is there. On going W to the side of the shop and opening a window, I tried to go in but the window slammed shut. Unfortunately, the location description still told me that I could try going in even though the window was now closed again! The text is also inconsistent when it comes to characters talking to you in the game. Sometimes their words are displayed between the normal double quotes (as they should be) but other times it is just part of the usual text. Again, this is sloppy and should have been spotted and corrected long ago. In asking for a score, I was told that I had made so many moves and that I had been playing for 17 hours, 57 minutes and 18 seconds. I think not, unless this was game time and not real time. The strange thing was that the next time I asked, I was told I had been playing for 17 hours, 49 minutes..! I don't know if this is supposed to happen or not, but it felt like a bug. I haven't noticed any points scoring in the game or % completed, so it's going to be difficult to assess my progress. It's a personal preference, but I like to be told when I've done something good by having points or % points awarded. I certainly don't want to leave the impression that I didn't like the game though. There are some nice touches too. For example, upon wearing the peg on my nose I then tried to examine it and was told "You'll strain your eyes doing that!". It's just a shame that the game doesn't appear to have been proof read or thoroughly bug tested. The Four Symbols looks like it will be an enjoyable enough adventure in the long run. The plot feels quite fresh and challenging, and the puzzles give you something to think about. I wasn't going to review it until I had finished it, but being slightly rusty that would have probably taken until Christmas! I hope that the Grue will go back and correct the errors in the text which have spoilt what otherwise looked like a good game. I haven't seen many home grown text only adventures for the Amiga, but I would imagine that this is one of the better ones around despite the punctuation slips. Not bad value at a fiver if the errors are fixed.