Crusade - author David Malmberg
   (On SynTax PD 265 (PC), PD 266 (ST) and PD 354 (Amiga)

                    Reviewed by Sue

Crusade is a fairly simple text-only game created with AGT, the
Adventure Game Toolkit, by David Malmberg from an adventure which
was originally written in Basic for the Commodore and Apple and
published in Micro magazine, back in 1982.  In it you play an
honourable but impoverished knight, Sir Godfrey de Goodheart, sent
by the King to rescue his daughter, Princess Ann, from the wicked
Baron von Evil. Seven knights have tried to rescue her before and
failed but when you're offered the Princess's hand in marriage if
you succeed, you'd be a fool not to have a try! While you're
searching for her, you must also collect the Baron's treasure
which he has amassed by exploiting his serfs.  All the treasure
must be dumped at a certain spot in the game and you must take the
Princess there to win so, essentially, the game is a treasure
hunt.

You start the adventure in a forest with a cave system in one
direction and the Baron's castle in another. Naturally the castle
has a drawbridge and (wouldn't you credit it!) the drawbridge is
up. Try to swim the moat and you'll make a tasty meal for the
inhabitants, a school of piranha. Perhaps you can get in through
the caves? But, no, a nasty guard lies in wait for you and, a
short struggle and a broken leg (yours) later, you're beginning to
think perhaps a quick death at the hands (teeth?) of the piranha
would have been preferable. A bit of thought at this point is
needed before the penny finally drops and you're into the castle
which abounds with secret passages, vigilant guards (save often
until you work out what to do about them because they always turn
up at the most inconvenient moment) and t-r-e-a-s-u-r-e galore.

No Princess though, and it will be a little time before you find
her AND manage to rescue her. Finding her isn't that difficult,
it's getting back out with her that's the problem even though the
game isn't especially large - just 45 locations, not all of which
need to be visited. There are quite a few red herrings in the
objects too and several sequences of actions that can be carried
out with suitable responses from the program but do you no good
whatsoever! In fact, scoring is officially out of 1000 points but,
try as I might, I could get nowhere near this score so finally, in
desperation, I dug through the database and, as far as I could
see, several sections of the game had never been implemented and I
had scored the maximum possible.  Despite a few bugs, the game is
quite neatly put together with a few nice touches in it and the
chances are that the author will have you wandering in circles
several times while you try to work out the correct order to solve
the various problems.









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