THE ADVENTURERS' MUSEUM A Text Adventure for the PC on SynTax disk PD 520 Author: Lee Chapel (c) 1989 Review by Bev Truter This is it! The best text adventure I've played in a long, long while. I'm tempted to end the review right here, and tell you to play it for yourself and discover why I'm giving it the "rave review" treatment; but assuming someone out there wants a bit more info than that, here goes. Museum is the first game in a trilogy titled The Legacy of the Necromancer, and the author requests $15 as registration if you enjoyed playing it. If you register Adventurers' Museum you can purchase all 3 games for $45; otherwise registered users can buy parts 2 and 3 for $19.95 each. This might sound a bit much, but given the quality of the game, it's a reasonable price. I assume the author has programmed it himself/herself (tricky name, that - Lee), as it's not written with any of the usual adventure-writing utilities. The colour is standard - white text on blue background (is anyone actually interested in all these little techy bits of info??), and the status line at the top of the screen gives location, score and number of moves. The game has about 75 locations, although there seemed to be more than that, due to the clever way the author has designed and laid out this fantasy realm. The Introduction sets the scene for your subsequent quest, and is fairly short, just whetting your appetite for what lies ahead. It runs as follows: "The Great War against the Necromancer has been over for more than a hundred years and little is remembered of those times, save legends and tales of those dark years. Dragons and monsters have hidden themselves away in secret valleys and deep caves and wandering packs of orcs seem to be the only evil left in the world. The only memories of that time of great heroes and fabulous quests now reside in the fabled Adventurers' Museum. Having recently helped rid a small town of a pack of orc raiders, you are now travelling toward the lands of the Hawkshearts, hoping one of the villages there may require your services. You find yourself passing the Adventurers' Museum and stop a moment, debating whether to enter or continue on your way."... . "The curator greets you, and shows you the empty trophy case which once held twenty of the land's greatest treasures - they've been stolen and hidden in a nearby cave, and the curator asks for your help to restore the treasures to their proper place. He offers you a brass lantern and a loaf of bread to aid in your quest, then wanders off." Now how could you possibly refuse a quest like that, in the classic old tradition, complete with brass lantern and waybread? So begins your search for the 20 lost treasures, and this is definitely old-fashioned adventuring at its best. Call it sheer nostalgia if you like, but this game was a delight to play - even when I was stuck near the end for a while (Thanks, Tom!), I didn't mind at all - it just meant I had to spend more time adventuring around this magical land. Treasures to find, lovely puzzles to solve, a Witch, a Troll, a Dragon, a Dwarf King.... what more could you possibly want from a text adventure? (no, don't tell me; that was a rhetorical question.) This game has it all; faultless spelling and grammar, fascinating locations, marvellous atmosphere, great plot (some would say "corny", but I'm sticking with "great"), and the ability to grab you right into a fantasy world and hold you there. I was apparently observed (by my family) giving little groans of dismay, grunts of shock/fright, flinching, and occasionally chortling and mumbling to myself; and even berating the Troll in a most unladylike fashion. Ah yes, and then there was the Quasimodo factor too - when I'm only mildly intrigued by a game then I sit up fairly straight and relaxed at the keyboard; but when I'm truly riveted to a game I pore over my maps and sit tense and hunched over the keyboard like the poor old Hunchback of Notre Dame. Adventurers' Museum definitely had me in Quasimodo mode. I particularly liked the many different ways of dealing with threatening or unco-operative characters; none of the usual "kill xxx with yyy" stuff, getting rid of troublesome creatures required a lot more subtlety than that. A few of the problems reminded me of classical old favourites like Zork 2, but that only added to the atmosphere, and gave me more nostalgia to wallow in. The problems and puzzles in this game are well thought out and logical, and pitched at exactly the right level of difficulty - fairly hard, but you don't have to be a threat to Einstein to work out the answers. There's plenty of clever humour too, and none of the juvenile stuff that I've stumbled across in some games lately. To sum up, this is an intelligent and well-written game, created by someone who knows exactly what adventuring is all about and who has the programming skills to translate his/her ideas into a game which was a joy to play and a pleasure to review. ENJOYMENT 9/10 ATMOSPHERE 8.5/10 LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY 6.5/10 FINAL COMMENT Ring Sue and reserve a copy now. - o -