Demon 2 - PD
               (Text adventure for PC)

                 Dwarfed by Grimwold

Anyone out there who remembers the ZX81? No? Well, it was a long
time ago. This game brings back memories of those heady 16K days,
where programmers were proper programmers and knew how to cram as
much into the machine as they could.

Demon 2 (what happened to Demon 1?) is a small(ish) EXE game that
takes up around 64K, though I maintain that this could have been
written for that good ol' ZX81 (still got one around somewhere,
holding open a door probably). It is difficult to classify,
falling somewhere between strategy/RPG and something else. The aim
of the game, apparently, is to find the evil Demon and kill 'im.

The game is purely text, and is faultlessly programmed, as far as
it goes, with no bugs or glitches that I could find. The main
gameplay comes from moving from room to room, fighting any
monsters that may be there (we aren't told what kind, just that
they are monsters - probably too horrendous to describe),
collecting gold and generally staying alive.

There are several one-letter inputs which make up the entire user
interface:

   M - Move from one room to another.
   S - Use a DemonSlide to go to another deeper level.
   R - Retrieve treasure. (Get the gold, man)
   F - Fight (keep dabbing it until one of you is dead.)
   P - See map (a list of room no.s with their connecting room
       no.s)
   W - Use wand (will kill all baddies, eliminate hazards and
       destroy the gold)
   T - Trade experience for Speed and Strength (the only way to
       recover)
   Q - Quit (seems like a good idea...)
   H - Help (Brings up a help screen)


Unfortunately, this game is about 12 years out of date. It would
have sold very well on the 16k machines of those days, but there's
little to be gained from playing it now, apart from a wash of
nostalgia. However, as far as I can tell, it is public domain, so
none of those nasty shareware registrations to get involved with.

I'm sure that some people will like this game, but I don't very
much. This is further heightened by the sometimes insulting
comments that appear when you press the wrong key.

Try it if you like, you've nothing to lose. As long as your
expectations aren't too high, you won't be disappointed.

   Grimwold's ratings:
                           Graphics        -  N/A
                           Sound           -  N/A
                           Puzzles         -  N/A
                           Atmosphere      -  3/10
                           'Grabability'   -  3/10
                           VFM             -  N/A (Depends on
                                              your disk vendor)
                           Overall         -  3/10

@~Demon 2 is available through Round Corner Library - see ad for
@~details.













                              - o -