@~This issue's AGT reviews are two of Apprentice (from Steve Clay @~and myself), one of The Rift by Shebo, a second look at Caves @~of Dyanty from James Judge and Lost in Space reviewed by Linda @~Turnham. Apprentice - author Bert Lee For PC (PD 320), ST (PD 319) and Amiga (PD 444) 1. Reviewed by Steve Clay on an Amiga 600 The three screens of text that form the introduction to this adventure from America boil down to the basic plotline of 'You are an Apprentice to a wizard and you have been given several objects that must be conveyed to the House of Lunar Transit ...'. If you are successful then you will become a wizard but there are other avenues open to you that could mean a short-cut to the top. The game is unusual in that there are several ways to 'win' the game. Some 'wins' are more acceptable than others. This means that the game has lastability a-plenty as you can replay it time and time again in a bid to root out all its secrets. The start to the game is awkward thanks to a tricky input or two (examine lint - untangle it ... no apologies for giving that away as more people will benefit from the information than those who won't ... then plant what you find). You have a limited time in this room before the air runs out and it's time to try again. Once out of here, you will find yourself in a desert and at the start of a long, drawn-out journey. Due to its convoluted nature and many routes I found myself stumbling around trying to find out what I was supposed to do. The main way to success in the game is to ask the various characters about themselves and anything else that they mention or is visible in the location. Among those you will meet is the informative Mendicant and the Blind Boy. The boy is curious in that, although he is blind, he is able to describe the merchant who passed by recently and the carpet that fell from his cart. How would the boy know this is he was blind? Is this a cunning trick by the author or is it a bug? Answers on a postcard! The puzzles are few and far between and tend to fall into two categories. Either you can play "guess the input" or you find yourself carrying out the instructions of other characters in the game. There is a fair smattering of spelling mistakes and typing errors. The fact that I spotted them must mean it's bad. None of these mistakes affects the game although they do grate a bit. One other niggle is the road to Dardhad on which you have to type NW 10 times to get to the city. You do get the offer of a lift from the merchant in return for fixing his cart but accepting the lift has so far eluded me. I think a simple message saying "You follow a long road into the city ..." would have sufficed. There has been a lot of work put into the game world and the locations are well described. The author seems to have enjoyed writing the game and the world is fairly believable. I think it could have been trimmed down somewhat and an inclusion of more traditional puzzles would have helped. The game would suit a player who likes character interaction as these players should be suited to the trial and error input game. Overall: Average! ----------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Apprentice, reviewed by Sue on PC For a long time you've been waiting to hear some important news, that your initiation as a wizard had been approved. Just this morning, as you were finishing your chores in the kitchen, the wizard came to you and told you that today is the day! So, at midday, you met him at the Library as instructed, and watched as he performed various magical rituals. You were a bit disheartened when, from his attitude, he made it clear that he didn't agree that you were ready to take this huge career advancement. Then he gave you several objects including a compass and a pair of shoes. You found the shoes were heavy to carry but, when you put them on, you found yourself feeling surprisingly nimble. You were going to Dardhad, he told you, and you would be granted First Apprenticeship if you transported these items quickly and safely to the House of the Lunar Transit, where he would meet you. The compass, he said, was especially important. Study the objects, he commanded. Play with them, see if you can get them to work for you. Other than that, he would tell you nothing, because he said he 'didn't have the time'! There were further things you could do on your travels to make your record look good; learn some magic, perform healing or dream something into existence. If you caused harm to anyone or anything, you must also make amends for your actions. Even better would be to liberate Habib's Book of Passageways from the vault under the Tower of the Moon - or, requiring even more courage, to destroy the Mirror of Souls and liberate the country from the Angry King. If you could do THAT, you'd be made Grand Wizard! There's nothing like a short cut to the top! With that, the Mage is gone, and you find yourself in a small chamber made of stone blocks ... and with no entrance or exit. Since the air will only last a short while (16 moves, to be precise), it's imperative that you find a way out. Checking your possessions you find you have a white stone, a silver flute, a tiny bottle with some clear water in it, a brass compass, the shoes and tunic you are wearing - and some pocket fluff (shades of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). A bit (okay, a LOT!) of experimentation with these objects will enable you to make a way out of the cell, sadly injuring a small mouse in the process. But, being disoriented, you don't know which direction is north, south, east or west. It's lucky you have a compass, if only you can work out how to use it. Once out of the cell, you find yourself in a trackless desert, with a sandstorm bearing down on you. Seeking an escape from this arid place, you inadvertently upset a mother roc and, picking you up in her talons, she flies you north, across the ocean. Well, not quite across it as she drops you part way. Is there no end to the tribulations you're going to face? The answer is no, as on your travels you will be catapulted from one dangerous situation to another. Luckily none of them lasts too long - for one thing the game only has 71 locations - for another, most of the perilous situations have a time limit so if you take too long finding the right solution it's time to reload. During the course of the game you'll meet such varied characters as an old sailor in a surprisingly sea-worthy stone tub, a seahorse, a blind boy and a beggar (or as the author calls him, a 'begger'). Most of the puzzles are fairly logical though sometimes the exact wording may cause you a few headaches. The location descriptions and messages are good, with few spelling mistakes and grammatical errors though Dardhad is called 'Dardhek' at one point. Humour is strong, especially in the descriptions of the mouse who will turn out to be a very useful travelling companion if you can work out how to keep the wretched creature alive. On the minus side, there are a few bits of dodgy programming where, for example, the text repeats in certain locations. I would also have preferred the abbreviation X for EXAMINE, not just EX; it's very easy to program changes like that into AGT. There are a maximum of 83 points to score and some people may be confused by the fact that they start off with 33 points! The fact is that there are two main ways to implement SCORE in AGT. In one, which requires some work on the author's part, you award points for solving puzzles. The short cut is to use the built-in scoring system where points are given when the player reaches certain locations for the first time and, the way it is done in Apprentice, the REALLY lazy way, by giving certain items a score which is added to your total if you carry or wear them, or they are in the same location as you, or they are in a designated treasure room. The first time I finished the game I had just 3 points! In fact, there are many ways to complete the game, not all of which are satisfactory in terms of what you have achieved. You need not complete all the Wizard's suggested tasks to win. But this means that a game which would normally been relegated to the disk box after being played once can be replayed numerous times in order to try all the routes and opportunities open to you - if you want to, that is! ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Rift - author Michael Buonaccorsi (On SynTax PD 674 (PC) and PD 704 (ST)) A standard AGT adventure reviewed by Shebo on the STe You play the part of a cargo transport pilot. It is the year 2020 and you are on your way home to Earth. You spot a strange anomaly in space and decide to check it out. Upon closer examination it turns out to be a giant green cloud. Suddenly you are sucked in by the gravity of a near-by planet and crash to the ground. Your on-board computer tells you that you have landed on a recently discovered world... The adventure starts in the middle of a small crater in a mountain range, your shuttle is a write-off and there is green slime all over the engines. In fact there is a lot of that throughout the game. The only thing that you can find of any use is a nuclear flashlight. I thought it was great to find a light at the beginning of the game, but after just twelve locations I found a lantern! It's amazing how secure you feel when you have a lamp of some sort. I covered 20 locations of the game picking up several items of interest along the way, but didn't have to use any of them or solve any problems during the time of playing. Most of the locations were empty rooms with nothing to explore. I found a bug that I have come across a lot in AGT games ie: -Pick up screwdriver -Examine screwdriver The text then reads: >There is a screwdriver on the floor This bug is annoying but doesn't spoil the game. The descriptions of the room were quite long, seeing that most of the locations were empty, but the descriptions weren't over done. I didn't find any spelling or grammatical mistakes in what I saw. After getting the feel of the game I started to think that the game had promise, but learning that the game only had 37 locations I thought that it would be a waste of time registering $15 to the author, who lives in California, just to play another 17 locations. This program only allows you to play 20 locations before it tells you that it is a trial version of the full game. As I said before I thought that this was a game with promise but I was disappointed to learn that there was only 17 more locations to go in the full game! I, personally, don't think that it is worth $15, but I would have a go at playing more games written by this author if they were of a larger size. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The Caves Of Dyanty (PC version on PD 556) Reviewed by James Judge When Grimwold sent me this game I thought it would be a nice break to stop playing games for other people and play a game for myself for once. Reading through the intro and getting into the first few rooms, I thought I'd come across a simple game that would be enjoyable to complete. If only... The Dyantians were an extremely advanced race living on a world, but for some strange reason the whole race just died out, leaving all of their buildings, items and other things on the deserted planet. Many years after the race had disappeared, man poked his head in and started sniffing around. You, one of the sniffer-arounders and digger-uppers, were one day examining this statue of Dyanty design and you came across a small lever, not noticed by others. Being a rather inquisitive sniffer, you decide to press the switch and a concealed panel opens. Taking the opportunity you leap in and then the panel closes leaving you in a room... And so you start your adventure, ill-prepared and green as to the ways of adventuring, stuck in a room with a switch that won't work and a panel that won't open. To your north is a lit corridor and on the wall is a panel which, if read, says you are doing well if you have read this message. Off you trudge, along the corridor, picking up your first piece of kit, an RCD (Remote Control Device) for a robot. Next location and there's a robot, blocking your path with its size and fierceness. Simple answer: tell it one of your jokes. No, not really, you press the button on the RCD and get a few points. And so the game goes on with you exploring this underground complex, trying to find artifacts to make you rich (if only) and a way to escape. Soon you'll come to the hub of the complex in which there are six corridors leading of in six separate directions, splitting the game neatly into six with only minor interactions between the parts. The puzzles you come across are item puzzles ie: you must use one object to proceed further, get an item etc. instead of a few riddles or other such brain teasers. The puzzles are all logical, apart from one (mending a power-leak with a length of steel), and are solvable with the correct item. To the hardened adventurer with a couple of games under their belt, the answers will come quite easily, but novice adventurers may find some of them quite taxing. There are a few instant deaths but they only come about if you don't examine everything carefully (eg the beaker) and take note of the room descriptions or are carrying the correct warning item (ie, a gigameter to warn you of radiation). There are no pop-hints or other such goodies with this game, it's a straight forward shareware ($10 registration, if I remember correctly) AGT adventure with nice text descriptions and pretty good puzzles. I've got as far to the end as I believe is possible with my version as I think it is fatally bugged. The whole idea of the game is to get six cubes and place them in a pillar in the central hub. This then opens a panel to the north, allowing you to depart from the caves and find loads of artifacts (I've decompiled the game data using Pretty13). In the decompiled file it says that once the player has put all six cubes into the pillar (or depressions) a flag should be turned on (I think, it may be off) and the panel to the north open. This doesn't happen and so the game is uncompletable which is a right nuisance as it was a good game. Sue said she may get in contact with Softworks for me and try to get the official solution but I haven't heard anything from her yet. Putting this bug aside I see why the game got an HM (Honorable Mention) in the 1992 AGT competition, from what I've seen of the other HMs, it's the best yet. If it is fatally bugged though (maybe I'm being completely stupid), I just can't see why the judges didn't notice it. Overall a very good game let down by a major mistake. Watch out to see if I can get any further... @~Dave Malmberg sent me all the solutions he had, but Dyanty @~wasn't one of them. Has ANYONE managed to complete the game? @~... Sue ------------------------------------------------------------------ Lost in Space - author Graeme Cree On PD 679 (PC) and PD 698 (ST) Reviewed by Linda Turnham This game is based on the TV series Lost In Space and is dedicated to the actor Jonathan Harris who played the role of Dr. Smith, also to one Anne Collins who after marrying Owen Smith and obtaining her doctorate is now known as Dr. Smith by half the Science Fiction fans in Austin Texas. Quite how Anne may feel about this can only be appreciated by those who watched this delightful series but for those who have never seen it let's just say that the character is greedy, extremely lazy and has only one main interest, namely himself. The year is 2005 and as Dr. Zachary Smith you have spent the last eight years trapped on the spacecraft Jupiter 2 with Major West and the Robinson family and after all this time you still haven't managed to convince them to return to Earth. You nearly cracked it two years ago when you traded the ship's entire fuel supply for a star chart but all they did was use the chart to go to Alpha Centauri, their original destination and they absolutely refused to drop you off on the way. As the Robinsons were well behind schedule they had expected to find the colony on Alpha Centauri already established. Little did they know that your sabotage of the Jupiter 2 had set the United States of America's space program so far back that they were, in fact the only colonists to have arrived at all. You got well paid for that little caper by an unspecified foreign nation but as the money is in a Swiss bank account you are determined to get back to Earth to spend it somehow. Now you have the chance, the Robinsons have established themselves, built shelters and are comfortably living off the land, all without any help from you of course (your poor back is much too bad for work) and have gone off for at least a day to check on something awfully boring. Having learnt enough to pilot the ship you decide to borrow it and head for home but first you must refuel and find the course data. They have also left Judy and their dreadful Robot behind and as both of them are bound to try to thwart your efforts they will have to be dealt with as well. Can you escape before the Robinsons and Major West return? If you are successful you find that although you now have plenty of money you have been recognised as being responsible for the sabotage and are a fugitive. Tired of being on the run you have to use your money to refit the Jupiter 2 with warp drive and you return to Alpha Centauri, take up politics and eventually get elected Mayor of the Capital city. What was that about not fooling all of the people all of the time? And I just bet the Robinson family left in disgust. I found this a very good AGT adventure, you have to be quite logical and make sure that some tasks are performed in the right order to succeed and not everything you need is immediately obvious, there are also some useful abbreviations for common commands. I think that having watched and enjoyed the TV series helped to provide extra atmosphere although this would not be necessary for playing and getting pleasure out of this game for anyone who has not. The help file is as comprehensive as you could wish for, so much so that it gives the game away. I think it is a great pity that this game was intended to be so short, personally I would have liked more. - o -