A Dudley Dilemma - Lane Barrow/AGT
            On SynTax PD 41 (ST) or PD 309 (PC)

                      Reviewed by Sue

It must be very disconcerting to find yourself in an unfamiliar
room with no idea of where you are or how you got there. It must
be even more worrying to not really be sure who you are either,
except for having a vague recollection that you're a student at
Dudley House, Harvard College. The room is comfortable enough with
a carpet on the floor and bookshelves on the walls. A radio plays
in the next room and an elegant crystal decanter stands next to
it.  Hearing traffic outside, you strain at the window, trying to
open it, but it's impossible. Frustration gives way to
determination and you vow to find out what is going on and where
you are. Your only starting point is the feeling that some great
task is expected of you - if only you knew what it was!

This is the start of A Dudley Dilemma, the winner of the 1988 AGT
Adventure Writing Contest. Lane Barrow was working on his Ph.D. in
English Literature at Harvard when he wrote Dudley, his first
adventure, and the game is set in and around the College,
involving interaction with other students, members of staff, some
members of the public and other more strange characters (such as a
scarecrow) as you try to solve the game.

However, the start. Quite difficult this as there are few rooms to
explore and several are in darkness. Obviously finding a light is
one of your first priorities and you'll discover a flashlight
after solving a simple puzzle that has appeared in many other
games. Getting the flashlight is more difficult as it is being
clutched by a headless ghost writer who sets you a riddle.
Answering this is, one would imagine, easy-peasy if you're a
graduate in English Literature. For those of us who aren't that
well up on some of the more obscure quotations, I'd advise getting
help as I did which I've passed on in the hints in this issue.

Once you have the light, the adventure starts to open up as you
explore the building you're in. It's completely deserted apart
from a group of tutors sunbathing naked on the roof and some
wildlife, friendly (a pigeon) or not (a doberman-size silverfish
that lies in wait for visitors to the basement).  Once past the
silverfish you find yourself - yes - in a maze of steam tunnels,
the first of several mazes you'll encounter in the game.

Mapping the tunnels is no great problem so long as you save and
restore frequently. Another later hedge maze will seem very
familiar to anyone who has played Infocom's Leather Goddesses of
Phobos and clapped, hopped and kweepa'd their way around it. In
fact Lane seems to have been influenced by several Infocom games,
as other items or situations will catch your attention and remind
you of them, such as a sundial, a fight with a tangle of
bureaucratic red tape and even a meeting with a queer old Dean.

The game itself is large without being rambling, 124 locations
including the mazes. The puzzles are mostly logical and though
occasionally you might feel it could be an advantage to be more
familiar with American phraseology you are unlikely to have any
major difficulties. The ending of the game is excellent and makes
the adventure, in my opinion, a worthy winner of the contest. It's
a shame that Lane's planned second game, based on the works of
Charles Dickens, the subject of his thesis, never appeared.

















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