All Quiet on the Library Front Time Killer #1:Claustrophobia Inhumane Busted aka AMIGA INFORM ADVENTURES DISK #3 - Amiga Disk Ref 954 ------------------------------- PC versions on Disk Ref 992 except Busted which is on 792 ST version of All Quiet on the library Front is on 1092, Time Killer is on 1093, Inhumane is on 1091 and Busted is on 1087 Authors: Various Reviewed by: Phil Richmond on an Amiga This Amiga compilation disk comprises 4 text adventures written using the Inform adventure writing system. (a TADS-like development utility) The files are ZIP archived and can be quite easily run from the Shell/CLI following the instructions on the disk label. 1. ALL QUIET ON THE LIBRARY FRONT This is a short demo adventure, described as an interactive vignette. There are some help files and info about both the game and the "Inform" writing system. You play an American college student, at the end of your semester, and must complete a final paper for your Computer Science class on "The History of Interactive Fiction". Realising you desperately need a source book written by Graham Nelson, the author of "Inform", you set out for the Library to obtain it. The game starts in the lobby of the Library in front of the circulation desk manned by an attendant, and the quest is to locate the said book and take it out of the Library. The book you require resides in the locked rare books room, so you need to figure out how to secure a key, then find which door it opens... Not too difficult. There are books, games and shelves to examine and search, a reference room and a computer department to visit, and finally, an alarm system to bypass to enable you to complete the quest. It probably takes about 10 minutes to solve the game, but until you've worked out how, expect a challenge that will take roughly 45 minutes to 1 hour. A fairly easy game. 2. TIME KILLER #1: CLAUSTROPHOBIA A few locations and puzzles are all this mini-game consists of. Written by Sam Hulick in 1995 as a short challenge for gamers who have a spare 20 minutes on their hands. You start in a round, stone-walled room without any idea of how you arrived there. A keyboard panel is set in the wall. Before long the ceiling starts ominously descending... Going through the narrow corridor to the north, you find a glass tube containing a piece of paper. Aha! It's obvious the paper holds the solution to escape - but you can't read it and the glass resists your attempts to break it. Using ingenuity and sideways logic you can eventually free yourself and emerge into an armoury with exits to the east and west. A heavy ball and chain lies on the stone floor. There is a man-eating plant in the east room, which, until dealt with, prevents you from getting any of the assorted items strewn about the floor there. In the west room is a hole in the ceiling from which a torrent of water gushes into a hole in the stone floor. To complete the short game you must effect an exit through the hole above. An interesting little affair written as a puzzle-implementing exercise. 3. INHUMANE Here's something a bit different. Another game which is quite short. (Although you don't know it at the time) You awake in your tent in an encampment somewhere in the desert to resume your search for a fabled lost pyramid which contains treasure and a gold coffin. Oh dear! Reading a note left by your colleague reveals that he has vamoosed after finding and looting the pyramid for himself! He has thoughtfully left the coffin for you to discover, however, and provided directions to locate the pyramid. So you set about finding it and effecting an entrance. (It's buried under the sand). Once inside, you find yourself in a conical room at the apex of the structure with four possible exits. An obelisk is here and is worth a look at. Discovering the coffin room is easy - but it's locked of course... To get the key you must solve a variety of puzzles which await you in the several chambers and corridors of the edifice. But that's not all! The author has cunningly constructed the game with 9 death traps. Unlike a normal adventure, the rules are reversed here. To increase your score and make progress you are required to experience each of the 9 ways of being killed. In other words, this is a game where you actively seek to die, rather than avoid your demise. It's good fun finding the traps and when you've undergone the 9 "deaths", you are given the key to the coffin room, and the rest is easy. I quite liked it. 4. BUSTED This is a bigger adventure with 154 points to find. You play an American college student and start the game in your dorm. A fax from your friend tells you that the police are on to him about his drug activities, and that you'd better dispose of your drug-related accessories and find his address book pronto, as it contains YOUR name and address, and will thus implicate you in his illicit dealings... Basically, this means exploring the college campus and its many rooms and buildings, trying to remember where you hid your drug paraphernalia and hiding it somewhere safe so it's not discovered by the feds. Having not eaten a good square meal for days, your first task should be to get something into your stomach pretty fast, as you will rapidly die of starvation in a few moves. I died in this manner oodles of times before I twigged what must be done. It involves searching the "ashtray" on your table. The "ashtray" is listed as an "ash tray" in the description (with a space) and seems unimportant in the game until you type "ashtray". A slip-up in the programming there! To access the kitchen in the Dining Hall will require help from your pal Morton, but seems he wants a "smoke" before he will cooperate. You should find a hotel room to sleep in fairly soon, as it's not really safe to return to your dorm. This will involve securing an accommodation form from the Administration Building and travelling in the elevator to the Hotel. There's a useful object in the sewers, near the pond, if you can open the rusty grate. A visit to the computerised library (beware of falling masonry) to obtain an occult book should be accomplished. I was quite enjoying the game until I reached an impasse, not knowing what to do next, and sadly, couldn't get any further into the game. I'd visited the doctor, who pronounced me fit and well and was all set, so I thought, to move on to the second of the 5 colleges on campus. The only room I couldn't visit was the disco with its flashing lights and thumping electronic music. Even though I was wearing the sunglasses and blocking the sounds out with a Sony Walkman (playing a Kate Bush tape), the game wouldn't let me enter in my present drug-induced state of mind. If anyone can tell me how to proceed, or provide a solution I would be very grateful as I would like to have finished it. Summary: An entertaining selection of games. The "Inform" system works well, and I had no trouble in getting the games to understand what I meant. There are BRIEF and VERBOSE commands and saving/loading positions is very fast, which probably explains why RAMSAVE/LOAD is not supported, or indeed necessary. - o -