Shadow Keep - on PD 663
                     (RPG for PC)

             Reviewed by Julian Gregory

This is a standard RPG and the shareware version I played is a
demo version of a longer game.

The game requires just over 2 meg of hard disk space and MCGA
graphics. The demo comes as a compressed file which is
self-extracting. It will automatically detect whether or not you
have a SoundBlaster installed. A mouse is also recommended. One
strange omission is that the documentation does not say how much
the full game costs. However, what is the game actually like?

In the game you play a peasant, living in a small town close to
Camelot. One night Merlin comes to you in a dream and reveals that
you are in fact the great-grandchild of King Arthur. Merlin has
been seized by the Shadow King, a cruel and evil magician who has
placed Sir Galahad, Sir Guy and Sir Lancelot under a spell that
keeps their remains from their final rest. The full version
requires you to free the three spirits and retrieve Excalibur from
the Shadow King.

The demo version is more limited in that you must travel through
the Misty Woods, find the entrance to the tomb of Sir Guy, defeat
his shadow and get the Emerald which holds him in his tomb.

The screen is divided up into various parts; the left shows your
location and is similar to that in Wolfenstein. The rest shows
your condition and magic strength.

You start out with a knife and I did not find any other weapons.
The opposition includes werecats, spiders and pirates, all of whom
can be disposed of with the knife. The pirate is the hardest so
make sure your vitality is 100% before fighting him.

A strange difference in this game is that you have to guess the
combinations of reagents to be combined to make spells other than
the Magic Missile you start out with. It took me many unsuccessful
attempts to find a successful combination, but perhaps I was
unlucky. Casting spells costs 10%-20% of your magic strength and
does not appear to be necessary, apart from the Magic Missile. The
spell to open doors is unnecessary as there are keys to be found
which will do the same job.

The on-screen mapping was useful. It is also possible to annotate
the map with anything you may need to remember. But the writing is
too large to be of much use.  There did not seem to be any way to
reduce the size of the text.

In conclusion I found Shadow Keep to be completely put together,
but there was nothing which stood out and shouted that here was a
game to buy. Unfortunately there are a vast amount of RPG types
on the market nowadays and whilst this is reasonable, it is
nothing out of the ordinary.



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