MERLIN'S GOLDEN TROVE, MERLIN'S MAGIC FOREST AND SON OF ALI BABA
          aka Tales of Magic - Author John Olsen
        (PC text adventures, minimum requirements)

               Dwarfed on a PC by Grimwold

I've chosen to review all three of these adventures together, as
although they are separate games in their own right, they can only
be registered as a package.

Merlin's Magic Forest:
"There's a loud clap of thunder, a cloud of yellow smoke, and you
find yourself transported back to ancient England." Not the most
verbose scenario, is it? Still, the aim of the game (I hesitate to
use the word `plot' - that would suggest some depth of play) is
revealed to you when you find Merlin's body in his hut. Nearby is
a parchment telling you to find a dead bat, poison mushroom, grave
mold (sic), spider web and rat's blood, mix them up in a
convenient cauldron and say the magician's name. The locations are
short with little in the way of descriptive text, and the puzzles
are fairly easy, with most of the objects lying around, and hints
being given sometimes more than once. There are little in the way
of spelling mistakes, and the Americanisms have thankfully been
muted to fit in with the time period (when America itself still
belonged to the Indians). The game follows the basic "get objects,
solve the odd puzzle and win" formula, which works quite well, but
has too many sudden deaths, which I abhor.

Merlin's Golden Trove:
The aim in this game is to find Merlin's lost treasure (he seems
to like the old magician, this author) and place it at the start,
where typing score will give you an indication of your progress.
Most of the objects are lying about the castle nearby and can
simply be picked up and returned.  There are more puzzles in this
game, though none of them are illogical or even downright hard.
There are also, in proportion, more mistakes. Not so much in the
spelling or grammar (though "catecombs" is one example), but in
the programming. There is a large area of darkness in the cellars
which can be accessed by either of the two entrances. There is a
torch nearby which can be lit using some flint and some iron, but
if you go into the cellars through one entrance, everything is
light, and you don't need a torch. It seems that the author only
checked for the torch at one of the entrances, which is a bit
silly as all the location descriptions down there mention the
`flickering light of your torch'. There are also a few sudden
deaths in this game.

Son of Ali Baba:
Aha! No Merlin! As you can guess, you are the son of that most
revered Sultan, Ali Baba. This is the hardest of the three games,
and has its share of sudden deaths, one example of which is the
two pools, one of which contains poison and the other an elixir.
The only way to find out which is which is to drink the water of
each. I wasn't as impressed with this game as much as the others,
though it isn't nearly as bad as some other adventures I've
played.

All three games are written by John Olsen who is, as you will
probably have guessed, another American. I'm not known for liking
our colonial friends, I've never forgiven them for ruining a
perfectly decent language, but occasionally one or two of them
actually writes something that's half decent. Is this to say that
I like these games? Well, I'm not totally sure. I like them as far
as they go, their style is nice, and the system used brings back
memories of 8-bit adventures written with Quill. I assume this
system is the author's own, and is quite satisfactory, almost
identical to Quill, but with one or two extras. It can handle more
than two words, though it still only scans for the first four
letters of each.

If you've just upgraded to a PC and miss the feel of the old 8-bit
games, then these might be worth checking out. They have a certain
appealing simplicity that is like a breath of fresh air after all
these monster-sized AGT games where the author has gone overboard
with the text.

The actual size of each game is only 30K - 40K, which is amazing
considering the game area compared to a TADS or AGT game. But
then, the 8-bit games managed very well with only 40K memory for
years...

The registration fee (for these are shareware) is $20 for all
three, which considering the size and lastability of these games,
is too much. Add to this the trouble of registering abroad and I
have my doubts that all but the most admiring will `forget' to
register.

Grimwold's ratings:
                           Graphics        -  N/A
                           Sound           -  N/A
                           Puzzles         -  5/10
                           Atmosphere      -  7/10
                           'Grabability'   -  8/10
                           VFM             -  3/10
                           Overall         -  6/10

@~Available from the Round Corner Shareware Library - see advert
@~in the appropriate section.

                              - o -