Reaping The Dungeon - author Ron Heuse
                     (RPG on Disk 908)

             Reviewed on a 486sx by James Judge

This is yet another top-down RPG (I call 'em ASCII RPGs as they
started in ASCII form to be played over a network) in the same
vein as Larn, Moria, Nethack et al. What this means, basically, is
that you view all the 'action' from a bird's eye view of the
dungeon, seeing yourself and monsters portrayed as little icons
moving around the map on little squares. the 'action' consists of
finding food to keep yourself, getting better kit with which to
kill monsters and then killing the said monsters, progressing down
n levels (where n is a ridiculously high number) to defeat monster
to the power of n (again, where n is a high number).

Luckily RTD doesn't follow this formula to the word, but it may as
well have - it brings very little to the genre and proves more of
an arduous journey down Constipated Road instead of a rip-roaring
journey down Diarrhoea Drive (<ahem> sorry for the metaphors, it's
just this game reminds me of a few anal words...).

Anyway, what's the storyline? Well, on Jupiter a lab is being
forced underground by a machine housed inside it. The machine has
gone wrong (surprisingly). All of the scientists have fled for
their lives and left the sinking lab to the machine and the
monsters it is creating. The monsters are annoyed because they
can't escape from the machine.

It seems that the egg-heads had a weapon that could have destroyed
the machine easily. But no, showing a distinct lack of
intelligence they left the weapon in the base near the machine and
fled. Now one boffin has realised their glaring error and has
asked his son to go in and retrieve the weapon...

So, you are the son and you (not having an iota of common sense in
your mushy brain) have agreed whole-heartedly to journey into the
depths of Jupiter's crust to retrieve this weapon.  You must enter
the lab, go down to the fifteenth floor (killing all the monsters
you find en-route) and get the weapon. To go down a level you must
locate and tag the dropshaft which has an annoying habit of
relocating itself every few minutes and eradicate every monster on
each level. You must also ensure that you have enough oxygen
(collected from plants that are growing all around the place,
vents in the floor, stray cells left on the floor or buy them from
the shop), power (used to fire your weapon(s) and charge your
device(s)) and health (no health means death and you expend health
cells by collecting oxygen from the vents) with which to complete
your quest as a lack of any means death ...

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all there is to the game.
Enter a randomly generated level, locate the monsters and kill
them, maybe collect some cash on the way to get some power-ups
(like a better weapon or reducing your oxygen intake), eat some
magic mushrooms (seriously!), harvest some plants, locate the
dropshaft and go down another level to repeat all of the above. Do
this fifteen times and you've completed the game. Wow!  Not a lot
there, really. There's no magic, not a lot of kit to fiddle with
(as is normal with these kind of games), very few monster types
and few monsters per level (sometimes in Moria the sheer number of
monsters gave the game a little twist, especially with the
replicating worms....), small piddly graphics (the monsters are
about half the size of Lemmings) and rubbish sound (a few peeps
from the internal speaker is your lot). Oh, and let's not forget
the appalling spelling and grammar that is present in the short
introduction and instructions - few capital letters used, commas -
what are they?, what's the difference between their and there? I
don't know, I could excuse some errors if it was a large text
file, but a few screens (especially the INTRODUCTION!) is
unforgivable.

Anyway, if you like your games shallow, graphically and sonically
poor and repetitive then you'll love this and willingly fork out
the $16 to get part two which has exciting new graphics (different
coloured monsters) and more levels.

Oh gosh, can't wait. Give me more, I beg you...

                              - o -