KQUEST II - by Kelly Small
       A Text Adventure for the PC on SynTax disk 601

                   Review by Bev Truter

KQuest II is not the sequel to KQuest (also by Kelly Small), nor
is it anything like the King's Quest series of adventure games.
This is a much larger game than the original KQuest, and more
challenging - no Hint file, for starters! There are over 100
locations and some very intriguing problems to solve, which should
keep you occupied for at least a few days - longer, if you make
the same silly blunder I did near the beginning. HINT: Definitely
make an accurate map while playing this game. The author asks for
US$10 to register the game, but as in KQuest, the address given is
no longer valid.

There is a short "Instructions" section, and the main thing to
note is that KQuest II, like KQuest, uses the command LOAD instead
of RESTORE for restoring previously-saved games. There is also the
same nifty screen display as KQuest, with all the text on the left
side of the screen, and a small menu\status lines on the right
side, displaying Score, number of moves and items in your
inventory. The Introduction is very brief, only giving the barest
details of the plot; see next paragraph.

You are an imprisoned thief, trying to escape from Castle KQuest,
(Aw, C'mon!! Surely there's a better name for a castle than
that!), and take with you all of its treasures. (Obviously your
brief imprisonment and impending execution for stealing has had no
effect on your personal code of ethics); and that's all you find
out before leaping into the game.

It should take you a while to escape the first location, where you
are about to be drowned in boiling oil. You are chattily informed
by the guard who intends doing the dirty deed that the King will
miss seeing your death, as the entire Royal Court is touring a
neighbouring kingdom....what a shame, the poor king deprived of
his entertainment. So when/if you do manage to escape, you are
able to roam around the almost-deserted castle and look for
goodies to steal. Deserted apart from the guard, some guard-dogs
and an extremely annoying jester - any relation to Malcolm (of
Kyrandia), I wonder? The jester is a novel twist on the "thief"
sometimes encountered in text adventures; but since in this one
you are actually the thief, there's a jester instead. He doesn't
take things from you - just persistently annoys you.

There's lots of places to explore inside and outside the castle,
objects to find, and some lovely problems to solve. How will you
get the battery charged? And where on earth is that tower where
the King likes to fly his kite? And what is that strange machine
up on the battlements?? I must confess to getting terminally stuck
in this game for about a month, due to the stupidest oversight on
my part; but even after getting kick-started into action again
with a hint, it took me several weeks to complete the game.

The action starts off gradually, with only a few obvious things to
do and find, but as you progress more locations and puzzles are
revealed, and you encounter increasingly tricky situations to deal
with and problems to solve. In fact, assuming this is just another
little 40-location doddle is a dire mistake - as the game expands
in many directions you begin to realize it's a lot larger than you
thought. To sum up then, this is a well-written, interesting and
entertaining game, and I only wish K.Small was still at that
address - he/she deserves $10.

   ENJOYMENT         6/10
   ATMOSPHERE        5/10
   DIFFICULTY        5/10
   FINAL COMMENT     You'll definitely enjoy playing this one.










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