PHILOSOPHER'S QUEST - TOPOLOGIKA/PETER KILLWORTH:RRP see review (Text adventure vailable for just about every format known to man, and now the ST) Reviewed by James Judge on an STe Before I start let me just say one thing - I am only reviewing this game on its own because Sue told me to. After sending me a package with PQuest, Countdown To Doom and Return To Doom, she told me that Topologika were going to market each game individually for œ15 each. Well, I'm sure they are selling all three together for œ30, but who is to argue with the editor? @~Oh, go on, J, force yourself (hehe) ... Sue I feel slightly nervous writing this review. Not because I'm making it up as I go or a psycho is pointing a gun at my head and threatening me. No, it's because this has been such a popular game on the 8-bits and I'm sure that lots of you out there will have seen this game before. It's like treading on hallowed ground. You know when you are walking down the street and see an old junk shop? You tend to enter just in case there is something there that may be either interesting or of some use, right? You know when you are scanning the shelves, past the clapped out clocks, chipped china ornaments and torn, bent books you spot something that catches your eye in a magnificent way? Well, this is what has happened to you at the start of this adventure. The object that has grabbed your attention is a magic wand and, while the keeper isn't watching, you grab it up and wave it, pretending to be Mystical Max (or whatever). Oops. The atmosphere (the stuff around you) is turned inside out, taking it with you and deposits you back in the shop. Oh well, adventure over. No, you spot that all the shelves are bare apart from a few rudimentary objects and a big sign, telling you not to take more than two items from the shop - or else. What has happened is that you have been sucked somewhere and, in payment for fiddling with things you're not meant to, you must collect treasures and fill the shop up with them. Great fun. So, you grab two items, proceed out of the shop to a dark passageway, go south and fall down a pit. You then start again, go east then north (fall down a pit), east (fall down a pit) and south (fall down a pit). So, you start again for the fourth time and go south from the shop and then west and fall down a pit. You then start again and get stuck as you can't go sw, se, ne or nw. Well, you do if you're me. I then thought to outwit the shop by taking two objects, dropping them in the location south, going back to the shop and picking up another two objects and so on. Unfortunately I couldn't do that ('tis cheating, but I've now learnt a way you can get one more object from the shop) so I went back south, typed in and picked up my two objects and a lantern - I could then progress. I could tell what type of game this would be - one to make you feel a right idiot when you finally do get past that small problem. The game progresses with you in a series of tunnels and having to escape from there. I haven't completed the game (mainly for reasons of sanity) yet, so haven't explored all of the locations so I don't, know how big it actually is, although on the back of the folder which acts like a box, it says that the game is 'compact' but difficult. This game is very difficult and should keep even the most ardent adventurer going and going for quite a while. Even with the on- line help system. What Topologika have done is to incorporate a help sheet in with the game which has certain questions on it (just like Magnetic Scroll games, actually) with certain key words blocked out. You then look at a table at the front of the sheet, find the words that are missing and, if the sentence makes sense (they are all coded, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem) you then type in the game and it asks for the hint number you require, which you type in, and it then gives you first in a series of clues. The more clues you have from a particular set, the closer you get to the answer and the less cryptic the clues get. There is also a help number that will ask you for the name of a particular object and will then tell you what the object does in the game - a great way of finding out what are red herrings. This is a no-frills text adventure (apart from the help system) which is great fun to play with loads of devious problems that are all logical. This was the first game by Peter Killworth who then wrote the Doom trilogy, a great intro to text adventures for kids (Giant Killer which is a math type adventure that may even have a few 'older' adventurers scratching their heads) and, if memory serves, a couple of others. Being written in 1982, this won't be a game with a complex parser that games such as HHGTTG or Corruption have, but it still works well. The two commands that are missing from this conversion is firstly an one, so it is a matter of noting down the characteristics of each object before you pick them up and Ramsave/load, which would have been a great help as the game has to load every time you die - not from the desktop, but just after the booter has kicked in. Overall, this is a great adventure that will have me plugging away for weeks and weeks until I've completed it. A definite for everyone's collection - whatever the format. If you haven't got it buy it now. œ15 may seem a bit pricey (although I still say you get three for œ30 in this collection) but you will get your money's worth out of this - and I don't lie. Neither do ST Format (for the most part) who gave this game (and the other two in the collection) 87%. - o -