CRYPT (V2.0) A Text Adventure for the PC on SynTax disk PD 520 Author: Steve Herring (c) 1990 Review by Bev Truter Yet another oddly compelling and likeable shareware game, which I assume the author has programmed himself, instead of using one of the popular game-writing utilities such as AGT or TADS. No frills wasted here on optional text/background colour schemes - plain white-on-black is all you get - and what's wrong with that? I've seen some awful games with a huge choice of pretty colours. The author requests US$12 as registration if you enjoyed playing Crypt. The CRYPT.DOC file gives a rough idea of the storyline, which runs as follows: "Crypt takes you to an old church in the English countryside. You will explore the church, its quaint churchyard, then plunge into the dark, dreaded chambers below. In the Crypt may be found long lost historical artifacts of great value, protected by a host of traps, tricks and creatures both natural and supernatural. The successful adventurer must possess courage, skill, intelligence and a bit of luck." Still in CRYPT.DOC, this is followed by some notes for those unfamiliar with text adventures - mazes and hints on mapping them, and some explanation of compass directions, and why going North from A to B, then South, might not necessarily take you back to location "A". Mercifully, there are not many of these "twisting" directions in the game; and where they occur, the room location refers to "winding passage" or "twisting tunnel", which gives you fair warning. There is no use of the verbs "examine" "read" or "look at", all the detail you need is in the location descriptions. For more information while playing Crypt, type "info" any time after the Introduction. The Introduction echoes the initial description of the storyline, and sets the scene for what lies ahead...."you are taking a walk in the English countryside. It is an area unfamiliar to you but you have heard of a very interesting church in the vicinity, a church steeped in local lore and mythology. Some stories say that wonderful treasures of English antiquity may be found there. Others warn of a horrible fate awaiting the careless intruder." With this chilling warning in mind, you begin the adventure outside a church gate, with the church, churchyard and crypt just waiting to be explored. But perhaps you'd better visit the North Transept first, to get a useful hint on how to extricate yourself from some nasty situations in the gloom of the crypt below..... and don't forget to find the Vicar too. You will come across many problems to solve and treasures to collect, and one nice touch is that no-one need be killed (excepting yourself, occasionally.) Another nice touch I found appealing, you are not collecting all the various treasures for your own personal gain, but to restore to their rightful place - hard luck if you wanted to keep them! Along the way you must also take note of 10 letters of the alphabet, to form a two-word password needed near the end of the game. I would rank Crypt as moderately easy, perhaps fairly difficult, and not for the total newcomer to text adventures. (Are there any total newcomers to text adventures these days, I wonder??) This game has about 100 locations, and all are well-described to create the necessary atmosphere of excitement and danger. There are a few humorous touches too - I particularly liked the Lion, and how to dispose of him. (No, there WASN'T a thorn in his paw to remove!) A personally-created and unintentional humorous touch for me was the utter botch I made of the password for a while - how silly can you get. All in all, I found this a delightful and satisfying game to play - bug-free, and with no spelling or grammatical errors, it provided me with 3 afternoons of good entertainment. In mapping games, I've discovered there's a direct ratio between enjoyment of a game and neatness of maps - beautifully-drawn maps with really tidy writing and lots of pretty colours for rivers, lakes, mountains and trees indicate that I really liked a game. Conversely, when I flip through my maps and come across disgusting little scrawls on lined paper , with illegible handwriting and everything in pencil, then I know it was a game I thoroughly disliked. So ultimately, my map for Crypt says it all - a wonderful creation on pristine white non-lined paper, locations drawn in pencil with writing in a tasteful range of red and blue ballpoint. Treasures, naturally, are highlighted (highlit?) in fluoro green, and the bad guys in fluoro orange. Need I say more? ENJOYMENT 6.5/10 ATMOSPHERE 6/10 DIFFICULTY 5.5/10 FINAL COMMENT Buy and Try!!! - o -