Jewel of Knowledge

                  Reviewed by Karen Tyers

This game can be downloaded from the ftp.gmd.de/if-archive, under
the gamefile name Jewel.z5.  It is the first offering by a
promising new author, Francesco Bova, and hopefully it won't be
the last.  It is a traditional dungeon crawl, so for you purists
out there, it's ideal.  In my opinion (not worth much, but there
you are), there are far too few traditional text adventures being
written nowadays, and I have to confess I am not too sure that I
like the way that interactive fiction is heading.  I like to have
puzzles to scratch my head over, and the trend towards puzzleless
games doesn't appeal to me at all.  You might just as well write a
book and be done with it.

There, now I'll get off my soapbox, and on with the game.  When
you start, you find yourself deep underground, obviously in the
middle of some quest or other, but with very little information on
what you are supposed to be doing.  This had me stumped at first,
but you do have a travelling companion (Jacob), and if you start
talking to him about various things, you will find the game soon
opens up, and since poor Jacob doesn't live very long, as usual in
this type of game, you find yourself alone and very much up the
creek without a paddle!  I am not giving away anything here by
telling you this, since in order for the game to start properly,
unfortunately poor Jacob has to go and meet his Maker.

OK, so you're now even deeper underground, and you must start to
wander round the various tunnels and passageways in order to
achieve your object of finding this wondrous jewel which is
reputed to give it's owner unlimited knowledge and power.  I
really don't want to say much about the puzzles since it would
give too much away, but there are lots of things to do in a very
small playing area.  What about that porous wall that you can look
through - can you get to the other side of it?  What about that
shaft above the geyser - are you able to get up there?  What about
the crack in the roof of one of the tunnels?  What about that
skeleton that seems to be hiding something?  The list goes on, and
you haven't even met the three dragons yet!  Is there any way of
getting in contact with the people who sent you on this foolhardy
mission in the first place?

These are just a few of the questions you will have to find the
answers to while playing this game.  There are many more of
course, and I have to say that although I got stuck in several
places, none of the problems is insoluble with a little thought,
and a lot of lateral thinking.  Just a word of warning, don't be
too quick to be destructive and violent - think about things.

When I finally got to the endgame and found the jewel, I was quite
relieved.  I know from messages on the newsgroups that I subscribe
to, that several people didn't like the ending, but I have to say
that I found it to be a very refreshing change.  I won't say more
than that, as I don't want to spoil things, but I would be very
interested to know what other people think.

There are still one or two minor bugs in the game, but nothing
that will stop you completing it.  The author is aware of them,
and they should be cleaned up shortly.

I may be a little biased here, since I was involved in the beta-
testing, but I would thoroughly recommend this as a smashing
little game to while away a few hours.  I do hope the author
continues to write games like this, for those of us who still
prefer a good old 'zorky' type of game.













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