Uncle Zebulon's Will by Magnus Olsson
      (A TADS Text Adventure Game on SynTax Disk 933)

                Reviewed by Tom Lorimer

The news of your uncle Zebulon's death came as a shock.  You've
been out of touch lately, and since you left for college a year
ago you haven't heard a word from him.  During your childhood,
however, your eccentric uncle - once the black sheep of the
family, an unsuccessful alchemist and self proclaimed wizard, a
great traveller and collector, reputedly a very wealthy man - was
your favorite relative.  Perhaps you were his favorite nephew as
well.  You miss his stories of distant realms and the magic
gadgets he loved to demonstrate.

You leave for home immediately on receiving the message, but the
trip is long and you're delayed by the inevitable train strikes.
When you finally arrive, you find your family in a state of
frustrated confusion.  Not only is your uncle's will written in a
quite unsuitably sarcastic tone, seriously insulting most of your
relatives, but it turns out there isn't much of an inheritance to
fight over; despite a thorough search of your uncle's house, no
fabulous treasures are found. The bequests for you and your
cousins are almost pathetic: one small memento each, to be
selected after everybody else have made their choices.  Yet what
is there to lose?  At least you'd like to have one last look at
uncle Zeb's house; maybe you'll find some treasure overlooked by
the others, perhaps something magical...

As the above introduction to this TADS text adventure sounded
interesting, I got my cup of coffee and chocolate biscuit by my
side and loaded up the game. As usual when playing text
adventures, once I get past the introductory screens, I save the
game. This allows me to roam around my new surroundings and once I
get an inclination of what is required of me, I can restore my
position without having to load the game from the DOS prompt.
Unfortunately, my first sitting was interrupted by visiting
relatives to my home, and regrettably, I had to quit the game.
This is when I noticed that I had seen 8 locations out of 12.
What, thought I, a game with only 12 locations, this isn't going
to be much of a challenge.  Anyway, after my visitors had
departed, I returned to the computer and re-loaded the game.

The first puzzle you come across is the statue of a dog with 3
eyes and a pair of rotating ears. Looking at the eyes, you notice
a blue lens in the centre socket, with empty sockets on the left
and right. The statue seems to be looking at a bronze stand on the
bench opposite.  This puzzle looks simple enough, find another 2
lenses, and something to put on the stand, then twiddle the ears
and see what happens.  So, off I went to find the bits and pieces
I needed.  Unfortunately, when I got to the porch of the house,
there was a demon servant there guarding the entrance. After
noting my name, he informed me that I could only remove one item
from the house. This, I found out was puzzle number 2, how to get
more than 1 item past the demon.  A search of the 5 rooms of the
house uncovers numerous objects, and it was only a matter of time
before I discovered which object I should remove from the house.
As there weren't any other rooms to visit, I presumed the next
puzzle was to find a secret passage or portal, so I sat down in
Uncle Zebulon's favorite chair to have a rest.  After finding the
hidden portal, I gathered all the available objects together in
the tower room, and this is where the game came to a grinding
halt.  I spent the next couple of hours trying out all sorts of
different manoeuvres with all the objects I had in my possession.
After deciding on what I thought was correct, I dropped all the
bits and pieces which I still held, and returned back to the shed.
Well, my powers of deduction were correct, and after some ear
wagging, I found the next portal.  The final puzzle was in the lap
of the gods, and providing you satisfied them, you then went on to
find your fortune.

The good thing about this game is, if you have collected the wrong
objects, it is just a matter of going back for the correct ones.
There is no sealing up of any part of the game except for the
final scene, and even then, you have the option of using the UNDO
command.

In conclusion, I found the game to be one of the better ones, and
although it only had a dozen rooms, it didn't stop my enjoyment
when playing. At least you didn't have to map it out on paper. If
you have a few hours to kill, playing Uncle Zebulon's Will is one
way of passing the time.

















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