CERCLA - Author Jeffrey Robinson
   (AGT text adventure for PC (Disk 672) and ST (Disk 702))

         Reviewed by Jean Childs, played on the PC

Cercla. Well the name didn't mean anything to me, so it was a case
of load up the disc and read:- "You are an employee of a world
renowned and extremely profitable consulting engineering firm.
Recently, you completed the remedial investigation of the McArdle
hazardous waste site. Following a wonderful vacation in the
Caribbean, you have returned to work to find that disaster has
struck. All the copies of the documents critical to the
remediation of the site have vanished. Even the computer files
containing the documents have been wiped clean.  What is worse is
that your boss has a meeting with (GASP) the U.S.  EPA in a matter
of days.  You must recover the documents before that meeting, or
regulatory hell will break loose."

Well not a bad story line, except that if it had been my boss, I
wouldn't have been able to finish my vacation. I would have been
called back pretty sharpish.  But sorry, I have interrupted the
story line:-

"Unfortunately for you, some, well, shall we say, supernatural
beings have made off with the documents for their own mystical,
nefarious purposes. It is your quest to outwit these creatures and
recover the documents. Be careful, but be quick. Time's
a-wastin'!"

As you explore the immediate vicinity of your office, you find
evidence to the fact that these 'supernatural beings' are in fact
dwarves, elves, trolls and many other such creatures. Well, hang
on a minute, I thought to myself. Surely you can't use a modern
day environment, such as the one described, with dwarves and the
like? WRONG! The beauty of this game is just that. The two
components have been mixed with ease and much charm. Well done Mr.
Robinson.

Where possible, I like to end my reviews of shareware games with
information about the authors, but in this case I'd like to
introduce you to Jeffrey Robinson before I continue.  Jeffrey
lives in Syracuse, New York, and is an environmental chemist and
part-owner of a floundering environmental consulting firm. He has
a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Maryland, and over the
past twelve years has taught chemistry at the United States Naval
Academy, worked for the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency and
for various environmental consulting firms.  'Cercla' is his one
and only game so far. His motivation in writing was initially to
produce a humorous game that would be predominantly educational.
The intent was to sell it to consulting firms, but he soon
realised that the informative content that he wanted to convey was
too complex for the adventure game format.  Consequently, the game
rapidly became less educational and more strictly fun.

There is a little bit of all the fantasy stories he has read in
the game, and the room descriptions are a delight to read:-

"This is a little used part of the park. There is a large sewage
pipe across a small stream. You are startled to see four small
turtles with masks over their eyes come walking swiftly out of the
pipe. They are singing the praises of pizza in shrill,
high-pitched voices. Following them, walking upright and carrying
a staff, is a large rat wearing a kimono."

This is just one of many beautifully described locations. For
those of you who have stayed with me so far, here is another:

"It is dark. The first thing you hear is the sound of gulls, then
comes the unmistakable sound of waves splashing. Unnaturally
quickly, the sun rises above the horizon and zooms into the sky.
You see that you are on the sea-shore.  Before you on the water,
you see a dilapidated raft in the distance. With the same
unnatural quickness shown by the sun, the raft approaches you.
Chained to what remains of its mast is a figure of heroic
proportions. He is dressed in brilliant plate mail, and his visor
is down. He is holding a naked sword in his hand. Its killing
point pricks the breast of a voluptuous woman, who crouches before
him.  Her diaphanous, fiery green gown billows and flows with the
wind. She is blonde, and very, very lovely. The two stare at each
other wordlessly as the raft rapidly floats away towards the
horizon. The sun sets, leaving you alone in the darkness." Poetic,
isn't it?

As I stated earlier, this is Jeffrey's first attempt at writing an
adventure.  It took him about three months, working on it
part-time. He found AGT a lot of fun to use, and nicely flexible
in producing the effects that he wanted. There are one or two
things that could have been improved upon. For a start, it suffers
from a problem that I have seen in many AGT games. An object, such
as 'there is an official-looking badge lying on the table' remains
the same when picked up by the player, i.e. 'there is an
official-looking badge lying on the table (in the knapsack)'.
Apparently, the way around this problem is for the program to
'swap' the item when the player picks it up. (Thanks Sue).

While wandering around the locations, the player finds a booklet
which when read gives an informative insight into various
'supernatural' creatures. (I wonder if our little friend in Devon
likes being called supernatural.) Unfortunately, the screen
scrolls past the beginning of this data and I don't know how much
was lost, but what was there was interesting to read. I had never
previously heard of 'redcaps'.

My other grievance was that there wasn't really enough puzzles,
and most of the ones that were there were fairly easy. But, having
said that, the real playability of this game is the atmosphere
that it contains. I'm not over-stating when I say that the text
really draws you into the game. It's text at its very best and
could not be equalled with the use of graphics.

As a maze lover (there are still some of us around) I wasn't to be
disappointed. Mapping the maze of corridors in the U.S. EPA was
great fun. I used the 'drop item' method that Laurence Creighton
referred to in his article in an issue of 'RH'.  However, I still
ran into a problem.  "LAURENCE" I shouted "WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU
RUN OUT OF ITEMS TO DROP?" But he didn't hear me, and I'm not
going to tell you how I did it.

If during the game you do get stuck, pressing Fl0 sometimes
produces a hint. At the end of the game, when you achieve your
goal, there is also a nice little finishing sequence. Oops! I
nearly forgot. Right at the beginning of the game, you will find a
knapsack which you need to carry your goodies in. Don't try to
take it and then wear it, as you can't. You have to type 'wear it'
without taking it. Just a little bug, and I only mention it to
save you from trying to work it out yourself.

The game is shareware, and Jeffrey says, "If you are so inclined,
please distribute it far and wide, over hill and dale, through
marsh and meadow,and so on. If inspired to do so (or to alleviate
any guilt you may have over getting something free), you are
perfectly welcome to send me some money, say about $5.00. Just to
cover the cost of pizzas, er, ah, software development, that is.
In any event, I hope you get some fun out of this, it sure was fun
to write it!" I find that so much nicer and more encouraging than
"May a thousand curses fall on you if you don't".

There are 169 locations but I only found 167, and I attained a
score of 400 out of 410 points. I played the game again, not in
order to search for those ten elusive points (which I didn't find
anyway), but for the enjoyment of re-reading what was for me an
entertaining journey into fantasy-land.

















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