Castle of the Alchemists - AGT on PD 314, 315 & 443 (Text adventure for ST, PC and Amiga) Reviewed By James Judge Firstly I'd like to apologise to Sue for the lateness of this review. It should have been finished in time for the May issue of Syntax but, with one thing and another, it just kept on being 'put off'. Anyway, here it is, so read my words of wisdom. Castle Of The Alchemists is another AGT game using the program's Meta commands. If you've played an AGT game before you'll be familiar with the general features ie: straight forward text adventure, status at the bottom and common actions assigned to the function and cursor keys. The introduction tells you that, during your ramblings over the countryside, you came across the old castle that many adventurers entered but none ever came out. You were standing on the old drawbridge when, suddenly, you felt as if you were being pulled in every single direction at once but not actually moving. Gradually the scene changes with everything looking younger than before and, to your amazement, you are now garbed in a wizard's robe with all the medallions, charms, amulets and wards stuck on it. You turn around to leave but the huge doors close behind you. So your adventure begins...... After a few brief forays north, west and east you will have found the idea of your quest (HINT - put the three signs together), plenty of help, a staircase accessing the other three levels of the castle and a dark passageway. To begin with I thought this game would be quite good and difficult to play what with maps of the castle and loads of help so early on in the game. That was until I read the message at the bottom of the stairs: "There are well over sixty monsters in this game...". Aaaaargh! After experiencing Tales Of Tavisa with its many monsters (just over forty) spread over 160+ rooms I dreaded meeting well over sixty monsters in just 117 rooms. (There are actually 63 monsters which works out to be (whirr ... click) one monster every 1.8 rooms). BIG gulp! Putting this aside (for the moment anyway) I ventured boldly on collecting many weapons (surprise) and valuable objects, fighting a monster in every other room and adding to the map the game printed out for me (what kindness). Soon I got killed and I had forgotten to save my position so, instead of being re-incarnated, I started from scratch and, to my complete horror, my scribbled upon map was all wrong!! All the items had changed locations and, except for a few set monsters, the monsters had been changed. The sphinx, who gave me the hardest puzzle in the game, was now a flying snake etc. This happens every time you reload so make sure you save your position at the beginning. This annoyed me, ever so slightly, as my carefully annotated map was now useless except to get me from point A to B. Ho hum. On I trudged, wading through Ogres, Ghouls, Pumpkins, Leviathans and Dragons finding that the re-ordering of items at the start of the game was not the only random event of the game. The others were: a thief that stole valuable items from your person unless you had stored them in your hat and took them to her lair somewhere in the castle (not noted on the map). Other random aspects were flying carpets and trapdoors which, unless you had the right magical item, whisked you to another part of the dungeon leaving you to get back to where you were. This was sometimes impossible because you might come across a monster you've not got the right weapon to kill. Soon I turned the computer off with only achieving just over 250 out of the possible 1000 points (thus wiping the game off my RAMdisk (REVENGE!)) and put the disk to the back of my disk box along with other terrible games. Normally I wouldn't write a review without completing quite a bit of the game but COTA soon got right on my nerves and became a chore, not a game. The actual puzzles in the game don't warrant the amount of help that is given (although you don't have to read them) and the puzzles I've come across are not all that difficult. A good point of the game is the ability to print out a map of the game but it doesn't tell you where all the fixed items are and some of the connections are incorrect. Like Infocom's Leather Goddesses game you can play in Lewd or Tame mode. I've played in both (to get into Lewd you must enter your age. I entered 9999 and it told me I was too young so now I'm only 99). The Lewd mode doesn't offer anything offensive except just a bit more face and back caressing when you're robbed and offer stuff at the Hydra altars. A couple of bugs that should have been eradicated with minor playtesting are: In the Art Room there is a Mural. If you type in EXAMINE MURAL you will pick it up instead and, later on in the game, you come across a king's robe which you must wear. The only way to don this robe is to drop your wizard's robe in one room, go into another and then wear the king's robe. Overall not a very good game. If more effort had been put into puzzles and not the monsters it would have been quite good but as it is.....terrible. Oh well, back to Oklib's Revenge I s'pose. A quality game. For your convenience (if you own or intend to buy this game) I have included the Monster Information that can be found in the library. Each group of monsters can be killed by one particular weapon. (The weapons in BLOCK CAPITALS are the weapons that kill that group. I've only discovered some of them so the rest you'll have to figure out). @~The weapons list is in the Hints section ... Sue