Nosferatu: Quest for the Vampire

Micro Adventurer

Tony Bridge

RIFLING RHE FEATHERS IN THE QUILL'S CAP Tony Bridge dips into adventure ink and Gilsoft Gold Gilsoft Gold Collection Spectrum 48K £5.95 each Gilsoft [redacted] I have been extolling the virtues of Gilsoft's Adventure Generator since the Quill was first released. Using this program, anyone with a Spectrum or a CBM64 can compose a machine-coded Adventure. There are a lot of people with the imagination to write absorbing scenarios, but coding these into a fully-fledged program usually proves too great a barrier. The Quill frees the user from the hard work of writing, debugging and so on, allowing full attention to be devoted to crafting the plot. There is, however, a drawback to all this: the structure of all these Quill'd programs will necessarily be the same. The general layout of the screen and many of the responses (for example, DO YOU WANT ANOTHER GAME?) are recognisably Quill and nobody seems to have found a way round the final "OK HAVE A NICE DAY. BYE" So, while The Quill allows the author's imagination full rein, the scenario really has to be special to stand out from the rest. This month, I am going to look at a new collection of adventures from Gilsoft, the publishers of The Quill, and see how different writers handle the generator. Other software houses have released Quill'd Adventures in the past couple of months - in fact a flood of them! Some of them have gone to great lengths to make their programs look less like the result of an adventure factory. How do Gilsoft's own attempts differ? Under the inclusive banner of The Gold Collection, the release consists of seven adventures, two of which, Magic Castle and Diamond Trail, have been with us for some while. CLIVE'S PROBLEM Diamond Trail is probably the very first Quill'd adventure, written by Tim Gilbert, one of the founders of Gilsoft. Released in 1983, it starts off with a nice title page, featuring a 3D Diamond (and Mr Gilbert's dog?), and then goes into the scenario. This consists of the usual groan-inducing play on poor old Sir Clive's name: "The Sinclive Diamond has been stolen from the Jewel Room of Spectraisia's Capital, Microdrivia. You must restore it in as short a time as possible, before the public begin to doubt its existence." Hello, a very subtle in-joke about the QL (and a year before its launch!). The instructions that follow this opening are repeated in a fairly similar form in many of the Gold Collection Adventures: the player is reminded of the Verb/Noun convention, and that the program will accept the first four letters of an object's name, thus saving the player's poor little digits! The screen layout in this Adventure is rather restrained - the default colours of white-on-blue are replaced by white text on black paper. The responses, as is usual with any Quill'd adventure, are immediate. Almost straight away, the player is told that he feels hungry. In just about every adventure, this means that you have only a very limited number of moves before you die, and this concentrates the mind wonderfully! If you find a way of staving off the hunger, a man appears at every move to shoot you (this will eventually prove fatal), or you may get run over by a car, while standing, meditating your next move, in the middle of a road. Try stealing the church collection (but you wouldn't think of that, would you?), and you will be unceremoniously dumped into jail, where the local police have a unique way of dealing with petty criminals! Diamond Trail is one of those adventures in which almost every move depends on what the player did in the previous move - be prepared to keep going back to the beginning time and again while finding the best route through the puzzles. CASTLING Magic Castle is written by Graeme Yeandle, and was the second Quill Adventure to be released. Oddly, there is no title screen, as with all the others in this collection. This adventure has a pretty succinct scenario - "You have to rescue the Princess who is imprisoned in the Magic. Castle". Not exactly atmospheric, is it? Then follow the same instructions as in Diamond Trail, highlighting the fact that many of the Quill'd adventures can appear the same - but this one doesn't hold the attention like its predecessor. The same sort of hazards abound (beware the booby traps and vampires, says the blurb): minefields can easily be stepped into, with fatal results, and this time, the player gets thirsty, rather than hungry. That takes care of the booby traps - I'm afraid that I can imagine the Vampires! It's a rather pedestrian adventure; that is, nothing really adventuresome happens (at least in the first stages - Gilsoft didn't supply any maps or playsequences with this collection), and the player will die of sheer boredom. Besides, who wants to rescue another Princess? Let them stew, says I! One of the newer programs in the Gold Collection is Devil's Island, (author: Colin Smith). After the title page (a lovingly-drawn skull set against a menacing prison block), we see again those instructions that we have come to know from the other Quill adventures - Verb/ Noun, first four letters of the Noun etc. Somewhere in the two or three pages of instructions, the program tells you to refer to the cassette inlay for further instructions; but the inlay only tells you how to load the program, and that has presumably been accomplished by this time. CRUEL "Briefly, your task is to escape from the infamous prison on Devil's Island... Then, if you survive the perils of the surrounding jungle, to reach the mainland and freedom!" The first location is "a grim prison cell." You can see a filthy bed, a barred window, and a closed door. The door can easily be opened, and then it is out into the corridor, at the end of which is a clutch of cruel guards. One of these will shoot you without the slightest provocation, as I found to my cost. There are one or two things to be found in the cell before you leave - these may or may not be of help to you later in your bid for freedom. The Guards will plague you at the start, as they are rather trigger-happy (although the Tasty Pie may keep their attention diverted for a moment!). Sound is also used in Devil's Island, even though it is the pitiful BEEP. Although I didn't get very far with this one, I have the feeling that the later stages will prove to be v-e-r-y interesting! Barsak The Dwarf seems to be suffering an identity crisis, with his name spelt in two different ways throughout the packaging. This adventure, Written by P & V Napolitana, seems to be the first part of a series. The title page announces "Earlydays loading," which would seem to point to a follow up. The scenario of this PG-rated adventure goes like this: "In ancient days of the mythological underworld, the dwarves held the Nine Treasures. Now Barsak seeks the lost Treasure again. To complete the Adventure you must wear or carry all nine of the Treasures and sign the book at the end." CONAN The design of the screen is rather nice - bright white text on a blue paper for the location descriptions, and dull white for WHAT NOW and the player's commands. Responses are in various hues, which all makes for a rather colourful display. Again, the player will start to feel hungry after a few moves, but it is a fairly simple task to find food to allay this feeling. Once hunger is overcome, thirst almost immediately becomes a problem, and one that is not quite so easy to overcome (well, I haven't managed it yet). There is a lot of tramping around the castle to do, and many of the objects lying around will put you in mind of a Conan-style novel - in fact, the player starts off with a broadsword. The descriptions are fairly sparse, which makes it difficult for the player to feel involved - and when hunger or thirst set in for the umpteenth time, it's easy just to give up. As in all Quill'd adventures, of course, there is a SAVE-game feature, which may come in handy, just this week, I received a letter which relates to this very adventure: "Dear Sirs, Here is a cryptic clue for those of you still pulling your hair out trying to find the water: Light will be needed and bones be heeded, to succeed you find what you keep delving in the deep, Pray tell Charon's river is the spell to change bones to treasures. Thank the Gods for the pleasures! After this part, the Adventure is quite pleasurable to play, with some both funny and hard puzzles to solve. I can't get past the Zombie yet, But I will, given time! Count your steps carefully, the path is a narrow one! A Dungeon Delver, Barsak the Dwarf PS Try entering these commands: Elves, Dwarves and Barsak" Thank you for the inside information, Barsak. I haven't worked out the clues yet, but it is quite amusing to enter those commands - this is the sign of a caring author! CRAZY Mindbender, by Paul Styles, is a very stylish adventure, written with a great deal of panache, and belying the underlying "sameness" of Quill'd adventures. Sitting peacefully in your office one day, you hear the phone ring. This starts you off on another escapade through a prison complex. There are a lot of humorous remarks made by the computer, and the player will end up in a lot of crazy situations. Again, one of those adventures which require careful planning, and one through which you will have to plot every step on the way to the finish. Spyplane (David Brammer) is a brave attempt to apply the Quill system to a different scenario. Spyplane is not a regular adventure - in contrast to the others in this review, it is more of a strategy game than a traditional adventure. You are the captain of a Long Range Maritime Aircraft flying at 15000 feet over the Arzelean Sea. "You are on patrol, with the objective of obtaining as much intelligence as you can about Turyan military equipment. The main objective revolves around either photographing naval vessels or recording other items encountered during the flight." So runs the scenario - a map is supplied, which is a bit of a change for an adventure game! Another surprise is the inventory, which takes the form of a detailed list of electronic equipment, the uses of which you will have to discover. For one thing, injudicious use of the radio will alert the enemy to your presence, and I haven't worked out how to use it to full advantage. This does mean, though, that not only the usual N, S, E, W and so on are recognised as direction commands, but also compass bearings, to be found from the radio. The plane that you are controlling can easily, it seems, get lost in the cloud, although it is possible to descend to a lower height. Too much of this, of course, and your plane attempts to become a metal raft - not recommended! A long list of words is given in the documentation, so the novice is not completely in the dark, but there are many more to be discovered during the course of the "adventure". As pilot of the plane, you may land the aircraft, but it is rather difficult (you wouldn't want it easy, would you?), as the enemy is on the alert. The puzzles in this adventure would seem to consist of how to avoid the enemy's unwanted attentions, how to land, and how to find the submarines which are skulking about as they tend to do! Finally, to Africa Gardens, by T. Davids (or Davis - again, both spellings are included for luck!). Right from the title screens (the majority of title screen in this collection are by Terry Green, who also designed the cover artwork) the player is plunged into a very atmospheric game. Of all these adventures, only Mindbender approaches Africa Gardens in evoking a believable and tension-ridden atmosphere. This is achieved through descriptive passages filled with "soft chimes" and "whispering voices" and so on. Africa Gardens is an hotel - but, of course, no ordinary hotel! The program starts with: "A MESSAGE FROM THE MANAGEMENT. WELCOME TO Africa Gardens, I DO HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY. MR ROBINSON INSISTS ON YOUR EVERY COMFORT IN THE HOPE THAT YOU EXTEND YOUR VISIT. INDEED, MR ROBINSON HOPES THAT YOU MAY BE AMONGST HIS MANY GUESTS WHO NEVER FEEL THAT THEY CAN LEAVE!"" What a way to instill confidence! There is treasure to be found in the old Hotel, but it is well hidden - there is even a Book of Spells, which, when found and used, will give you magic powers. The screen display is very colourful, with text and responses being given multi-coloured boxes, though the over-use of BRIGHT and FLASH becomes a bit wearing on the eyes. Unusually for a Quill'd program, graphics, albeit very simple block graphics, are used in many locations (they are very quickly drawn), and these serve to heighten the atmosphere. The puzzles contained in Africa Gardens are difficult, though logical enough, to hold the attention throughout the course of the game. Which one would I recommend? Well, I have always believed that a good adventure relies more on atmosphere than on tough puzzles - though if it can combine the two, so much the better. It is difficult to convey atmosphere at the best of times, but an Adventure Generator can be an insurmountable barrier; once a couple of programs written with The Quill have been seen, others become instantly recognisable, and then the program has to deliver a little bit more. It's almost as if the player says to himself: "If the author had to sit down and write all the code, as well as the plot, I could forgive him the occasional lapse in tension and storyline. With the help of THE QUILL, however, he ought to be producing perfect stories!". Of the present batch, I would not, condemn any out of hand - Barsak, for example, will appeal to the bodybuilders amongst us, and the players who like a good Sword-and-Sorcery romp. Spyplane will be the choice of Flight Simulator fans (though, be warned, there are no on-screen instruments!). Mindbender is, as its title suggests, full of tough puzzles and humour and is probably the best "straight" adventure here - this is my joint favourite with Africa Gardens; the latter for sheer atmosphere, which makes up for slightly less troublesome puzzles. COFFIN The price of £5.95 is about the most that anyone could charge for these rather mainstream programs - 50p less would be better! None of them live up to the standard of presentation set by, for example, Nosferatu from Omni, with its superb documentation and packaging, including a page from a Diary, an old theatre ticket and so on, in the tradition of the best from Infocom. The cassette of this last adventure even comes nestling in a coffin! Now that's the way to make a Quill-written adventure a little different!

Howard Gill of Gilsoft - giving you the opportunity to design your own adventures.