AGT Adventures @~In this first 'AGT Adventures' section, James Judge looks at @~Tales of Tavisa, Grimwold at Sanity Clause, Caves of Dynaty and @~the Master game Hurry, Hurry, Hurry, and James Jillians at @~TimeSquared. * * * * * * * * * * Tales Of Tavisa - Altered Perceptions (Text adventure for ST (348), PC (347) and Amiga (545)) Reviewed by James Judge on a 1040 STe Your name is Tavisa and you are standing in front of the Grand Dragon Council which is debating whether you are the one to mate with the Daughter of The Great Worm as foretold in the legends and lead the entire land to a new age of knowledge and enlightenment. Alone and naked you must obtain clothing and weapons, avoid traps and defeat numerous creatures and then defeat Phem in his secret sanctuary and bring back proof of doing so. Tales of Tavisa is Altered Perceptions' first attempt at creating a typing adventure in the mould of the classic Dungeons and Dragons board game, using the same logic as employed when playing (or so it says in the instructions) and really it doesn't hold up to my expectations. -- You awaken in a glade surrounded by thick underbrush which is impenetrable except for a small pathway to the south. You look down at yourself and go crimson due to the fact that you are totally naked with nothing to cover your embarrassment! Quickly you dash south in the vain hope of finding some item of clothing, but no, all you find is more underbrush. But wait, there are two exits, one to the south and one to the east. "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo, I'll go east" says you in your infinite wisdom and off you toddle. Soon you enter a large glade with a small silver dagger protruding from the ground. Picking it up you examine it to see all these strange markings that mean absolutely nothing to you. You make your way back to the splitting of the paths and head south only to be confronted by a lumbering Zombie guarding the way south. Calmly you lob the dagger at the offending beastie which promptly disappears in a cloud of green smoke. How impolite! -- That is a small description of the first few screens (with a slight embellishment on the actions) you will come across in the game and basically that is all you have to do in the adventure; moving around, picking up items, killing monsters and using magical objects. There are no puzzles to speak of as such except where to use certain 'magical' items and what weapons kill each monster. Anybody that has had experience with AGT games will know that to kill a monster you will need a certain weapon. Well, in Tales Of Tavisa there is a monster in nearly every other room (give or take a couple) and with a whole host of weapons to choose from where does one begin? There are no clues as to what weapon kills which monster so every time you came across a monster you must work your way through a rather expansive list of weapons ranging from that simplistic silver dagger to a ram's horn. The magical items in the game are varied, ranging from everyday objects, carpets and stools, to gaping holes and magical ropes. Each item can only be used in specific rooms so it is a matter of going through every room typing in such and such and such and such. This can be highly annoying and these items also do not have clues as to where they should be touched or invoked. Mapping is not essential, it could help due to the massive number of rooms (one hundred and sixty six in all). The layout of the game has been well thought out with no mistakes concerning travelling from one location to the next. The programmers have not used the scoring system so you never know if you've done something right or not. (You still get a 0 at the bottom of the screen which can't be erased when compiling AGT games). There are a couple of annoying aspects in the actual way the text is written....one is the way they spell through (thru)....and the other, well, if you haven't spotted it in this paragraph you're not extremely observant....are you? That's right whenever there should be a comma or full stop they add four full stops ignoring the following capital letter.(...) So far there has not been much to recommend this game but here are a few good points. Help is included in a few locations but for the majority of the rooms it says "Sorry, you're on your own here". The mass of monsters are well described if you examine them adding a bit of reality to the game. The game comes on a disk which can be formatted (ha ha ha). That's all I can say really. I haven't yet completed the game and I've not seen anything so far that makes me want to. Being one hundred and thirty odd rooms into the game and having only about thirty more to go I'm utterly disappointed. Tales Of Tavisa 2 may be better if the programmers think to include puzzles. Even if they gave clues as to what weapon kills what monster it would be better, say a cross engraved on a sword would tell you that anything supernatural could be killed with this weapon. Buy this game if you love big adventures with plenty of monsters, no puzzles and nothing to get your brain ticking over. If you're not one of those people spend your money on something else. * * * * * * * * * * Sanity Clause - author Mike McCauley (AGT text adventure for PC on SynTax PD 326) Reviewed by Grimwold The object of this adventure is to visit several key locations around the globe doing your duty as Santa Claus, delivering presents to all the good little boys and girls. You must stay within the hour of midnight which is changed every time you cross a time zone on your flying reindeer, or all the children will be disappointed. Well, in theory anyway. A great and original scenario with a game that has had a lot of thought put into its design and execution. BUT! Sanity Clause just doesn't `work' as an adventure, by the nature of the scenario, it is a complicated method of getting around. I have never liked time limits and to `die' just because I haven't figured out the fastest way to do something is, to my mind, overly zealous. I've put the 'die' in inverted commas because, as the introduction points out, there is no way to die, as such, in the game. This is immaterial as there are, apparently, around 80+ ways to foul up the game, which does the same thing as a sudden death which is to quit the game. This game has obviously been written to provide a challenge to the experienced adventurer and would be very unsuitable for a beginner. Unfortunately, unlike many other challenging adventures, it doesn't have the 'grab' factor that is essential for someone to want to carry on and solve the puzzles. To start with, there is a pig of a maze which, once figured out, is easily passed, but taking a wrong direction at many places in the first set of locations will dump you back there to find your way out again. This is easier done that you would imagine as many exits from locations aren't listed in the text, so you will have to type out "LIST EXITS" to get an idea. But this doesn't work properly either, as this will give extra, or fewer exits than the location description does. The mapping is a bit confused also as in one location, you can go north into the kitchen to grab a snack and going south from that location will also take you briefly into the kitchen. Having said that, the locations are numbered, so this should make mapping a bit easier. There are a lot of minor and annoying features (I would call them bugs, but I think they were intentional). Removing an object, like the ice skates, will cause them to be dropped. Written with AGTBIG, Sanity is somewhat unique in that it is worse than many adventures written with this utility in its execution. The parser and vocabulary doesn't have the support that is needed for a game which is so complicated. A great deal of 'synonym-hunting' has to be endured before the correct match can be found. The HELP support is very good, but really doesn't compensate for the down sides of the game. Too many times the adventurer is left thinking "What shall I do now?" or "What am I supposed to be doing?". There are a lot of better shareware adventures available than this and, unless you really want a challenge, I suggest you try another title. The author asks for a registration fee of $10, which is cheap, but I really don't think this game would be worth even that. Score: 3/10 * * * * * * * * * * Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! - author Dave Malmberg (AGT Master Game on SynTax PD 594) Dwarfed on a PC by Grimwold Hurry! is an adventure that seems to have been written to demonstrate the new Master's edition of AGT - the ever-popular adventure writing utility. I've heard that MAGT supports graphics, sound and animation which can be integrated into any game when it is written. I can't say what the animation is like (if this is indeed supported), but the other two are demonstrated quite ably within this adventure. The graphics are introduced by a small digitised picture of a clown, which is nice, though I've seen this particular picture several times before. Throughout the game, there are pictures for almost every location. The way Hurry! deals with graphics is unusual, instead of the location being drawn when you first enter a location, there is an extra line below the text description telling you which pictures are available. Since you are accompanied by your dog, Rex, you can see his picture at almost any time. There are also graphics for every (that I've found) location, plus extra ones for objects of special interest, such as a giraffe, the owner of the circus and so on. To see the associated picture, you have to type "VIEW GIRAFFE" or whatever. Personally, I like this, it gives you the chance to play what is essentially a text adventure without the graphics, or to look at them when you want. The quality of the graphics varies enormously, from poor to excellent, CGA standard through to VGA. Music is played almost constantly throughout the game, but when listened to through the internal speaker, it is very annoying after only a few minutes - thankfully there is a command to turn the sound off. I would imagine that the music when played through a sound card would be quite atmospheric when used with care. One thing that definitely bugged me about MAGT is that the shortest synonym for "EXAMINE" is still "EX". Why they saw fit to exclude "X" is a mystery to me - I had hoped I had seen the last of that from AGT. Well, what about the game? Basically, it's another detective-style scenario - not my favourite genre, but this doesn't spoil the adventure which is based around a travelling circus in which certain valuable paintings have been stolen and you, as the detective, must find them and arrest the suspect who is presumably part of the circus entourage. The people of the circus don't seem overly anxious to help you, however, and apart from the owner, who rang you about his paintings, they either ignore you, or pick your pocket. Anyway, this is a nice adventure to show what MAGT can do and is worth getting just for that. The actual game itself doesn't seem to have that certain 'something' that makes you want to play and play. Maybe it's just my dislike of detective-style games, but I didn't really want to play the game very much. Grimwold's score: 6/10 * * * * * * * * * * Caves of Dyanty - Nathan Fritz/AGT (Text adventure for PC on SynTax PD 556) Dwarved on a PC by Grimwold. You play an archaeologist currently investigating the ruins of the immense cities of Dyanty, a planet that seems to have once belonged to a technically superior race of beings. Whilst examining the ruins, you found a small switch hidden behind a hulking statue made of some indeterminable material. Upon further examination, you discovered that near the switch, in the wall, the faint outline of a doorway could be seen. Impulsively, you pressed the switch and in response, the panel covering the door opened and you stepped inside... As you may have guessed, this is a Science-Fiction adventure in which the main objective seems to simply escape. But, as all adventurers know, nothing is that easy! The adventure is written with AGT and suffers from all the usual glitches that are associated with that utility. I'm not particularly learned of AGT and games produced with it, so some of my gripes may be due to that rather than the adventure. Dyanty appears to be very well written, and is clearly aimed towards the 'L-Plated Adventurer' - there are several encouraging messages near the start along the lines of "You're doing fine, keep it up." In fact, the game is very easy to play, with the exception of some annoying synonym omissions, and progresses at a pleasurable pace. Nothing that I have found so far would hold most people up for very long (I've reached 350 points out of 440). There are only 47 locations, but the location text is very well written and mentions all the available exits and is, for the most part, atmospheric - something that is often lost in sci-fi games. Of gripes, I found a few that were moan-worthy, though none so serious to affect the enjoyment of the game. The worse one is an apparent bug which 'hangs' the computer, forcing you to reset and try again. This was brought about by the innocent attempt to 'INSERT RED KEYCARD INTO SLOT IN DOOR' when the correct keycard was the blue one. This happened several times before I gave up and moved onto another puzzle before coming back with the correct keycard. As I said before, the synonyms could have been use better; for example, you must "PUSH" a button or switch, you can't "PRESS" it. Similarly, "FIX" must be used instead of "REPAIR" or "MEND". This may be AGT's fault. Also, something that never fails to annoy me, the shortest synonym for Examine is EX, not 'X' which is the usual synonym. Something that is so easy to implement, but is still forgotten by many authors! Also, probably due to AGT, was a sometimes confused parser. Eg. "You have discovered a small storage room. Empty shelves line the walls, and a small cabinet is mounted on the eastern wall. The only exit is to the west. What Now? EXAMINE SHELVES What shelves? There is no shelves here." This happens several times, but like I said, it's not a great problem. Like all AGT games, it is best run from a hard drive, as the game accesses the disc during play and having it running from a floppy can cause vexing pauses. All in all though, a very enjoyable game. It is shareware, so the 'honest' thing would be to register it if you like it. It is especially good if you are new to the adventuring scene due to the nuclear lay-out of the game, no limit to the number of objects that you can carry that I have found, a nice easy area to map and the generally easy puzzles. Grimwold's rating: 7/10 * * * * * * * * * * TimeSquared - author Bert Lee (Text adventure for ST (PD 568), PC (PD 556) and Amiga (PD 592)) Reviewed/slagged off by James Jillians Oh dear! I'm afraid it's time for me to have a groan because, and let's establish the fact straight away to avoid confusion, this game is AWFUL! I'll tell you the plot (although I don't see much point because none of you are going to buy the game after you've read this!). It's June 22nd 2098 at 6.45 in the morning. You wake up feeling groggy and not knowing where you are, but after your head clears you realise that you are in your apartment. Then you remember that you are going to graduate from the "Cronos Academy" today and must be at the award ceremony by 8 o'clock. To sum up your main objectives: you need to get showered, dressed, eat breakfast and then catch a bus to get to the academy in time. The game is a standard AGT text-only adventure. One of the problems is the user unfriendliness. The computer doesn't understand many of the words you want to type in. Take as an example a typical situation. You need to get some food from the fooderizer machine in your apartment. There is a large button so, of course, you press it - no sorry, you PUSH it because the game doesn't understand the word PRESS. A tray is ejected with a small portable dispensor on it which contains your food tablets. You try examining it and discover a tiny button on the side. You try pres... pushing the tiny button but the computer doesn't recognise the word TINY. "PUSH BUTTON" results in you pressing the large button on the fooderizer again. You take the dispensor out of the room containing the fooderizer and try again. The computer replies. "What button? - You can't see any fooderizer here!" You try all sorts of other commands, "PUSH SMALL BUTTON", "PUSH DISPENSOR BUTTON", "GET THE TABLETS OUT OF THE DISPENSOR", "REMOVE TABLETS", "GET TABLETS", "OPERATE DISPENSOR", "OPEN DISPENSOR", just being some, and none works. (Incidentally, by this time you've probably died of starvation!) Half an hour later you hit upon the ridiculous, but accepted, command "EAT DISPENSOR". Now you've worked out how to operate the darned thing you discover you have to eat tablets every 8 or so turns in order to stay alive! Then, when the dispensor is empty (after about 6 uses) it needs to be refilled using the Synthesizer. In fact, most of the game is taken up with eating! Later a "Flenzer" is delivered. With this device you can store objects in an infinite space by FLENZing them. They can then be recovered by UNFLENZing. Unfortunately, some of the necessary objects, for instance, a suit, which is needed later on, can't be recovered because the computer "can't see that object here". The suit is lost forever! So, it's back to the beginning of the game, remembering not to FLENZ that particular object next time .... If you manage (finally!) to make the computer understand your request to leave the apartment you can go out, through the lobby, into the street. Unfortunately you are accosted by some security officers who demand to see some I.D. After SHOWing them your whole inventory (and FLENZed inventory (or what's left of it!)), and pausing 2 or 3 times to eat, you discover that the computer doesn't understand the word SHOW at all! When you've finally gone through the pointless rigmarole of "giving" them your "Credcard", they tell you that you aren't wearing suitable clothes and that you must go back into your apartment to change. On the way back, in the lobby, you discover that you can't get through a previously open door because it has mysteriously locked itself. You try unlocking it with the key which you possess but are told that "There are no locked doors in this room". You try going through it again but are asked, "Do you have the key for this door?". Believe me, by this time you feel like telling the *œ$^@* computer where he can shove his door key! (And it's not in the lock!). Faced with the threat of losing my sanity, I gave up. (Do you blame me?). I took great pleasure in burning my copy of the game. J.J. ROUND-UP A prime example of what NOT to do with the Adventure Game Toolkit. TimeSquared could have been quite good, there are some nice ideas, but unfortunately it is too frustrating, too difficult and has too many bugs! I do hate it when a programmer doesn't bother to playtest his game, don't you? J.J. RATINGS GRAPHICS: : N/A SOUND : N/A EASE OF USE : 1 out of 10 VALUE : 1 out of 10 DIFFICULTY : 10 out of 10 FUN FACTOR : -43 out of 10 @~In case you wondered 'dispensor' is the way the programmer @~spells 'dispenser' ... Sue