The Taxman Cometh - author Steve Clay, œ3.00

              Reviewed by David Froude on the Amiga

The Taxman Cometh is a text adventure produced by Steve Clay,
programmed using AMOS Professional.

The disk is self-booting and after a couple of title screens leads
straight into the adventure. Typing "HELP" provides the basic
input instructions like "take, examine" etc and advises there is a
RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD facility. This is very useful in some
locations! Typing "Debtors" will list those who have to pay taxes.
The response time is very fast as you flick from one location to
another so you won't be left waiting around.

As the title indicates, you are a tax collector and the tale is
set in ancient times, perhaps not ancient but at least some time
ago. You have the job of collecting taxes from a number of people.
But nothing is simple, they cannot pay and need "something" before
they will be able to pay. You are an unusual taxman, you don't
throw them in jail, but in the spirit of goodwill and adventure,
at danger to yourself, travel and explore to find those necessary
objects. The game has the necessary puzzles, some of which take
you back to your childhood days.  I initially thought one of them
required a magic (magical) response but it was much simpler.
Perhaps younger adventurers will get it first time!

The first location, although short, is descriptive enough to allow
your imagination to visualize the setting which is by a fast
flowing river, a toll booth and a path which travels along the
riverbank to a tower in the distance. There are a number of
locations which can be travelled to without needing to puzzle
anything out and the first puzzles are not difficult but as you
explore further into the game, they get more difficult.

This game is well worth playing and those who like text only games
will find it enjoyable.  The game works okay on an Amiga 4000/030
with Workbench 3.0 and on a 2000 with Workbench 1.3. There is
every reason to believe it will be alright on all Amigas.

It would be useful if there was a text file provided on disk to
replace the sheet of instructions and one problem I did note was
that the game crashed if an incorrect file name was entered. It
would be nice if a list of saved files was provided.

@~The Taxman Cometh costs œ3.00 from Steve Clay, 17 Stanlaw Road,
@~Ellesmere Port, South Wirral, L65 0EY (Cheques/POs to S.J.Clay)












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