THE 39 STEPS A Spectrum Text Adventure from Zenobi Software Author: Jack Lockerby Review by Bev Truter on PC (Spectrum emulation) This is another reworking by Jack Lockerby of a well-known classic to produce an intriguing text adventure with a tense theme of mystery and suspense. I had watched the film "The 39 Steps" a few years ago (starring the skeletal but nevertheless yummy Robert Powell); but since I'd forgotten most of the convolutions of the plot and the final outcome it was no help at all in solving this game. Jack Lockerby's 39 Steps seems to be a faithful copy of the style and plot of the classic old thriller, which was first published in 1915, and although Lockerby has retained the same flavour and sense of urgency in his game, the text isn't as dated (or as politically incorrect) as the original. Written as a tribute to John Buchan's original book `The 39 Steps', Jack Lockerby has altered names and places in his version, probably for copyright reasons. However, the original Richard Hannay is still instantly recognizable in Richard Hanway, and Scudder has changed only slightly into Scadder. The general gist of the plot remains intact although several events have been changed to create some new puzzles and problems not encountered in the book. Also the story has been shortened and altered in places for ease of gameplay and to fit into the game - the memory limitations of the Spectrum must be a handicap when trying to reproduce a large and complex adventure. In The 39 Steps you play the part of Hanway, a retired mining engineer from South Africa, currently bored with a life of inactivity in London. All this changes one night when an American called Scadder, living in the flat above yours, suddenly bursts into your living-room with an unbelievable tale of killers, spies and murder. He is in such a state that you allow him to take refuge in your flat for a few days, and he tells you about a secret organization called "The Black Stone", and about a little black book which pinpoints the location of their headquarters - all written in code, naturally. Returning late one evening from your Club you find Scadder dying of stab wounds on the floor of your flat, which makes you the obvious suspect. After some thought you decide to leave the following morning for Scotland, to try and find the hideout mentioned in the black book, and to avenge Scadder's untimely death. But first you'll have to get past the two suspicious characters you can see through your window, lurking outside in the street below your flat. Can you unravel the truth behind the thirty-nine steps and foil the conspiracy before it's too late? (Can you manage to get out of your own flat before time runs out?) As is usual in Spectrum games the parser in this adventure is rather limited, and the game proceeds at the usual slow pace due to speed limitations in typing. Although not overloaded with silly sound effects, you can play 39 Steps with no sound at all by using the "-g" switch when loading the Z80 emulator. This gets rid of the annoying "plock" sound which accompanies each tap of the keys, and is apparently put into all emulated Spectrum games - well, all the ones I've played so far. The top half of the screen is filled with the room description, the bottom half is for your commands and responses to them. Rather disconcertingly, everything you find is not shown on the bottom half of the screen, but pops up in the top half, as part of the room description. The text is a muted shade of yellow on a black background, in the usual oversized blurred characters, and additional bits of information such as pieces of text you might read appear on a cleared single screen in turquoise. Perhaps because I was immediately gripped by the plot and tension of this adventure, all the usual annoyances apparent in any Spectrum-emulated game were irrelevant - the unfolding story and the puzzles far outweighed the minor inconveniences and technical shortcomings of The 39 Steps. Your score is given as a percentage whenever you type "score", and you can communicate with other characters you encounter in the game by typing "say hello", which works even in the most unlikely circumstances! It is essential to communicate with other characters, and where possible, to act on their replies. Your input is in the usual two-word verb/noun form, and the helpful Ramsave and Ramload features are available, as well as the usual Save and Load via pressing the F10 key for the menu. Saving your position frequently is a good idea too, as time passes all too quickly in this game and some events occur at specific times. If you dawdle around too much, or waste time, you might miss an opportunity to discover something or get somewhere. Keeping track of the passage of time is therefore crucial, and you will need to find a watch as soon as possible. Because of this time factor you will probably find it necessary to restore a saved position quite often. The 39 Steps soon becomes a gripping whydunnit as well as a whodunnit, and turned out to be a fascinating game to play - the kind that you come back to time after time for 'just one more quick go' to see if you can solve each particular problem in the gradually unfolding mystery. Although completing this game is still a far-off dream for me, I can foresee The 39 Steps will keep me occupied for many weeks to come.......and for Heaven's sake, what WERE the thirty-nine steps???? ATMOSPHERE 6/10 ENJOYMENT 6.5/10 DIFFICULTY 7/10 FINAL COMMENT Mystery! Suspense! Tension! Buy! Play! Enjoy! - o -