The Lost Kingdom of ZKUL

              Demo from www.rwapadventures.com

                      Reviewed by Sue

This classic text adventure was first released for the Sinclair QL
in 1984. Twenty years ago! Sometimes it amazes me how long I've
been messing about with computers!

I didn't have a QL, I started with a Spectrum, and I was
disappointed that ZKUL wasn't ever released for my machine.  Later
it was twinned with another game, West, on the Atari ST but I 
didn't see them for sale anywhere. So I was very pleased to hear 
from RWAP Adventures some months ago and be directed to their site 
where I found not only a Windows version of ZKUL but conversions
of two of their other games, The Prawn and West too.  They all 
run using a QL emulator.

I started by downloading the demo of ZKUL. You can have three
playing sessions of 20 mins each from the demo and the full game
costs œ10.

Many years ago, the men of Caras laid siege to the mountain
dwarves who lived behind the skull like entrance that gave ZKUL
its name. The dwarves were driven back into the Domed City where
their wizard, Taradon, used his magic to help the dwarves make a
final assault on their attackers.

It worked and the men of Caras were defeated. But only a few
dwarves survived too. They and the wizard retreated into the
mountain - the dwarves to mourn their dead, the wizard to guard
the last precious secret of the old civilisation. It's rumoured
that great treasure is hidden in the mountain and you are the
latest in a long line of adventurers seeking their fortune. Your
friend Eldomir has brought you as far as he can and leaves you by
the river close to the mountain, telling you to bring any treasure
you find to the house in the forest. You head off, alone ...

This is the storyline of Zkul. Nothing too astounding there, but
20 years ago, many adventure games were variations on the Colossal
Cave theme - explore an area (often underground with a forest
round it), find the treasure, try not to have it stolen from you,
and take it back for points (to a case, a small house etc).

The area to explore has over 200 locations according to the blurb.
The game itself is a real blast from the past. You don't often
have to dig out paper and pencil for mapping these days!  I
enjoyed testing out location exits and mapping mazes by dropping
objects once more, and redrawing my maps when they rambled over
too many sheets of paper.

After my allotted three playing sessions, I had only mapped 46
locations inside the mountain having got trapped inside it when
the entrance collapsed. I'd found lots of treasure and had it
taken from me! I'd found a mysterious message that the 'Cossat'
could open up other areas.

There are nods towards Colossal, the game that started it all.
Dwarves appear every so often and one says he was wandering round
the 'Colossal Cave' when a magic word brought him to ZKUL.

When playing the game you have to bear in mind that it was written
20 years ago. Descriptions that were atmospheric and fascinated us
then may seem a bit sparse now. But bearing these limitations in
mind, I am very glad to have finally had the chance to play this
game and I may well register for the full game.












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