THE SEA OF NIGHT by G.K. Wilson
             A text adventure on disk PCPD 1199

                    Review by Bev Truter

Sea of Night is a rather short, but quite enjoyable mini space
saga programmed with TADS. It covers all of 14 locations, and
although space scenarios are not usually my favourite type of
adventuring, SON is such a small game that it easily held my
interest to the end. From the author's notes (type NOTE) it
sounded as though SON might be just the forerunner to a longer
game - I certainly hope so.  The following introduction to SON is
also very brief, giving you just enough details to tell you where
you are, and to stir your interest. "There is a certain
tranquility among the stars, your father used to say before he
died, leaving the `Shooting Star' to you. He used to tell you
grand stories of the pioneer days, when pirates sailed these stars
and luxury cruisers were their prey.  Like your father, you have
never amounted to much, just another cargo transporter content to
sail on in the `Shooting Star'."

You begin the game sitting in the Captain's chair aboard your
ship, and you'd better examine your surroundings quickly, as
something is bound to go wrong very soon. Examine the fluffy dice
dangling in front of you for starters, and don't believe in good
luck!  After some initial irritation with getting panels open and
pushing buttons, my mood improved after the inevitable crash with
the strange stellar object. However, joy was short-lived as I
suffered some horrific injuries, and it took me quite a few death
scenes and restarts to figure out how to heal myself. After you've
regained full health this game is much more fun, and you could
spend an enjoyable 2 hours or thereabouts dealing with the 5 short
but well-constructed puzzles SON contains. After wrestling for
*months* on end with an enormous time-travel saga (Time: All
Things Come to an End), Sea of Night provided some welcome relief.
And yes, Virginia, you do manage to return to Earth (in a very
novel way) at the end of SON.


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