INHERITANCE - Written by Eric Toth
                   (Part of Disk 1307)
                  Reviewed by Karen Tyers

My attention was drawn to this little gem by a posting on the
newsgroup I subscribe to, and it was precisely because it was
deliberately being under-promoted that made me go online and
get it.  I can't remember the exact wording now but the
responses to the posting ranged from 'if it's that *** bad why
should I play it' to 'I played it and loved it'.  Anyway I duly
downloaded the TADS gamefile and this was the intro that greeted
me:

"You haven't spoken to your rich, eccentric uncle in several
years, but when he asks you to visit his mansion to discuss your
inheritance, you gladly agree.  His private helicopter picks you
up at his office building and flies you to his secluded mansion.
The pilot sets down on a roof-top helicopter pad, and informs you
that your uncle is waiting for you in the south tower, before
flying off into the night.
INHERITANCE by Eric Toth (ericndana@juno.com)
Developed with TADS, the Text Adventure Development System."

So I found myself on the roof of the mansion looking at two
towers, one of which I could enter and one I couldn't.  Having got
down into the mansion, I duly began to explore.  It's not a very
large game - about 27 locations, excluding the arbitrary maze,
which is not large and very easily mapped.  Actually I am probably
wrong to call it a maze, since the exits are clearly marked and
there's no real way to get lost.

I soon came across my uncle's laboratory (minus one uncle....),
which contained a peculiar device which looked like one of those
children's puzzles with slots of varying shapes.  At last, I could
use the various pieces of plastic I had found.  There was also
something that looked like a printer attached to it.

This is a simple little game, and should be easily finishable in a
couple of hours, or as the author says, over a lunchtime, unless
you are like me of course.  I got totally stuck because I couldn't
get a blasted cat to move out of the way.  However, a quick email
to the author solved that problem, and one other concerning a
photo (which was a bit oblique but when you knew the answer, quite
logical).

This could easily be developed into a much larger game, although I
don't think Eric has any intention of doing anything else with it.
It's a real shame, because it is a lovely traditional game, and if
like me, you are not keen on the way a lot of i-f is going, you
will have a lot of fun zooming around this one.

There were one or two grammar errors ('a' instead of 'an' and
wrongly used apostrophes for example), but I only found one
'proper' bug and that does nothing to stop you playing the game -
just try typing 'sleep' when you're sitting in the armchair and
you'll see what I mean.  It would also have been improved by the
addition of more synonyms.

Overall this is ideal for beginners - they should only come
unstuck in one place, where a more detailed description of a very
mundane item could point you in the right direction, but this is
really my only gripe.  Go download it - you'll have a couple of
hours fun.
















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