Forest at World's End

Personal Computer Games

Atmosphere 6/10

Complexity 4/10

Interaction 6/10

Overall 5/10

Steve Cooke 5/10

MACHINE: Spectrum, Amstrad PRICE: £5.50 With all these cheap programs coming out, the White Wizard is beginning to have grave doubts about some of the games that software companies ask us to pay for. The trouble is that these programs don't always come from tiny software houses who may not know any better - some of them come from companies who definitely SHOULD know better... Like Interceptor Software, for example. Last month, I gave a reasonably favourable notice of Jewels of Babylon, on the grounds that I'd found one or two of the puzzles pretty difficult to crack. At least the game had me stumped - but shortly after playing Jewels I loaded up their earlier game Forest at the World's End (just released for the Amstrad) and oh dear. Despite having a reasonable number of locations, Forest at the World's End kept me busy for no longer than three hours - at the outside (I wasn't watching the hourglass, so I can't be too exact about the time - three hours is generous). Despite occasionally being killed at random by flying lizards, there was nothing challenging about the game, and some very beautiful graphics did nothing to conceal the fact that most of the locations were described in one brief sentence and contained little of interest. The game has you setting off on a not-very-long trek eastwards to rescue a Princess from a Wicked Wizard. After solving a few simple puzzles, you confront the wizard, type 'Kill Wizard' and find - to your dismay - that you have cracked the game. Not, I think, £6.00 worth of entertainment (or even £5.50 worth if you've got a Spectrum). Naughty, naughty Iterceptor. Was it really you who gave us Heroes of Karn? Let's hope your next offering has a bit more substance.

Big K

Overall 2/3

John Conquest 2/3

MAKER: Interceptor FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £5.50 Like it says on the box, this text-plus-key-points graphics game is for "seasoned Spectrum adventurers". you start off empty-handed, as usual, at the edge of the forest and have to rescue the Princess from the evil wizard. Along the way you encounter the inevitable baddies (Elves? What would Tolkien say?) and some friends, particularly an old man who turns up once in a while with advice. Just as well, because the Help command is as useless as it always is in adventure games. Nasty sense of humour some people have. There are five main obstacles, starting with a chasm, and various more or less useful objects scattered about. I'd say this was pretty standard stuff if I wasn't stopped cold about half way through. Interceptor aren't gamesmiths of Level 9's standard but, unlike most, they hit the difficult balance between playing fair and not giving anything away.

Personal Computer News

Bob Chappell

LAST BLAST Bob Chappell gets to grips with a little delight called 'The Final Mission' If you're one of those Spectrum owners still recovering in the intensive care unit, having been mauled and maddened by Mountains ofKet and tortured and, tantalised in Temple of Vran, prepare for instant relapse. Just when you thought it safe to go back to your micro, Incentive Software has released The Final Mission, the third part of its Ket Trilogy. Incentive doesn't call itself that for nothing. To lure you out of your sickbed, it is offering a video recorder to the first person to score 100 per cent in all three parts. Just think - should you be the lucky winner, you can retire to your bed and watch reruns of The Magic Roundabout. The Final Mission of the title has you seeking out and defeating the evil Vran Verusbel, and with a monicker like that he deserves everything coming to him. But first you must pass the five enigmatic Gate Guardians - you knew there'd be a catch, didn't you? The adventure starts as you wake up - stunned - in a cell (unpadded). Although you can't see anyone, you are not alone. Edgar is here to keep you company. If you don't know or had deliberately erased him from your mind, Edgar is your friendly neighbourhood assassin bug (Edgar the earwig?) - he's been planted on your neck to deter you from scarpering when the going gets rough. HARD CELL In the cell is a wooden chair which has clearly been donated by the Ket Prisoner's Aid Society - a swift examination reveals a useful item strapped to one of the legs. An easterly glow is coming from a window above a door. No havanas for guessing that the door is locked. It is also 8ft high and made of oak so save your strength - you can't break it down. The window's not so tough though as you start chanting 'Easy, easy', you're out of your cell and into another one. The sarcastic chant withered on my lips when I discovered that this cell had no obvious exits. Worse still, I was unable to return to my original cell. The instructions warn of one-way doors so that must have been one of them - thanks a bunch, instructions. When I did eventually find the way out into a corridor and to the Hall of Pillars. I came face to face with the 'en' monster. No. I don't know what an 'en' monster is either except that it is capable of giving you a most severe duffing. As with the first two parts of the trilogy, Final Mission goes into a combat sequence when, ever you pick a light. Should your energy fall to a fat zero during the struggle, your adventuring days are over - until you start again, of course. The text is immaculately presented and the vocabulary reasonable, though response to input is a wee bit on the slow side. A splendid adventure with a splendid prize for some lucky person. ARBOREAL ADVENTURE Another Spectrum offering. Interceptor Micro's Forest At Worlds End is a tasty text and graphics adventure. Wouldn't you just know it - the local Princess has been captured by the evil wizard and you must rescue her. When are we going to have an adventure where the local princess incarcerates the evil wizard? Although this is mainly a text adventure, some of the locations are shown graphically - attractive, and fast with it. On the subject of speed, the program's response to each command (which can include adjectives, adverbs and we positions) is instantaneous. This helps to keep the pace flowing nicely. The adventure is not played in real time so your adrenalin will not need to work overtime. The textual descriptions are fairly short; puzzles and mapping are the real meat in this game. NO PICNIC The adventure was written by one David Banner. Although you won't meet the incredible Hulk in the woods, you will almost certainly encounter a pesky elf who attacks you at every opportunity. Once you have a weapon, you can dispose of the elf quite easily - but, because this adventure has a number of random elements, five'll get you ten that other members of the elf clan continue to pop up. You could easily find yourself in breach of the countryside code by littering the place up with a pile of dead elves. One of my favourite sorts of puzzles is included - how to cross a chasm that is too wide to jump? Locating an object to help with this difficulty is no problem - finding the right words to manipulate it usefully is not so simple (hint - you need four words, one of which is a preposition). An enjoyable adventure but I could have done without the random attackers. TO THE RESCUE To round off this week's column, the Dungeon Master has at last condescended to take down his Bumper Fun Book of Hints and Tips, has brushed away the bats nesting therein and has turned to the chapter market Unzipping Zork. This unprecedented action is a result of a heartfelt plea from Mancunian K James, a frustrated Zork 1 devotee. He's found the jewelled egg but can't open it without damaging the clockwork canary inside. And even if he could, what should he do with the canary anyway? The following (written backwards) should help: 1 GGE EHTN EPOT 'NOD 2 U OYMO RFTI LAET SFEI HTEH TTEL 3 F EIHT EHTM ORFT IREV OCER 4 TSE ROFE HTNI PUTI DNIW. Happy Zorking is the only thing left to say!

The Forst At Worlds End: descriptions are brief as the the puzzles and mapping are the main attractions.

Crash

Atmosphere 6/10

Vocabulary 6/10

Logic 5/10

Debugging 10/10

Overall Value 6/10

Derek Brewster 6/10

DEREK BREWSTER'S ADVENTURE TRAIL BACK TO BASICS There has been for some time a body of opinion which puts forward the view that machine code is superior to Basic, per se. Arcade games, where speed is the deciding factor, may well lend themselves to this argument but some strategy, and all adventure games can be better served by some Basic routines. The reason for this apparent anomaly is clear to anyone who has taken the time and effort needed to master machine code. Although machine code is ideally more malleable in any given situation, coding in reality proves to be certainly slower and often less flexible, and crucially, the program is less easily altered. After playing and reviewing many adventures this contradiction has made itself plain. The complexities of machine code lead to stilted adventures unless the author allows much development time. The economic vagaries of the games market alas, would make it far more worthwhile for such a successful author to produce two or even three arcade games in such a space of time with the certainty of a far higher income. The Quill, as is often plaudited on cassette inlays results in an all machine code program but the structure of each Quilled game is necessarily the same. What is less apparent is the use of similar devices by other software houses in order to reduce the development time of adventures. Herein lies the paradox. Even though machine code should be the more flexible, due to its time-consuming coding it is rarely so in effect and it would seem the case that it is the adventure which makes some use of Basic which shows the originality both in display, theme and plot. So the next time you examine a cassette inlay don't fall into the trap of making judgements based upon the divisive argument - Basic vs. machine code. Where the documentation tells of an all machine-coded program this in itself gives no indication of the quality of the game as an adventure. Basic is devalued by its simplicity and it familiarity but adventure is a more sophisticated market than arcade since at a time when the Spectrum has been pushed to its limits, imagination, theme and plot are now the decisive factors. FOREST AT WORLD'S END Producer: Interceptor Software Retail Price: £5.50 Author: D. M. Banner & J.A. Banner Forest at World's End is released from the same stable as Message from Andromeda, and in almost every respect, resembles its predecessor. Changes have been made - the graphics are much improved but the plot is unimaginative; space adventures are relatively thin on the ground but this fantasy follow-up too often lapses into cliche. Princess Mara has been captured by the evil wizard Zam. In a sneak attack on the palace his henchmen abducted her and led her to the wizard's stronghold deep within the forest at the world's end. Mara's father, the King no less, has called upon you, the mightiest of ancient warriors, to go where none have returned alive. Your objective is to locate and rescue the princess and return her to the Great Valley. You set off in the Great Valley with a super graphic of a snow-capped mountain and a huge waterfall cascading towards you. Most of your early escapades are undemanding until you chance upon an evil elf who is not so much lethal as irritating. No matter how you twist and turn you just can't shake him. To the south is the Vale of shadows and the author waxes lyrical, 'The sun, shining through the trees, creates shifting patterns of light and darkness.' This is an eventful location where you see The Old Man, and get the bow and arrows to put an end to that elf. To kill the elf you will have to go about some word-matching the solution to which strikes me as illogical, but having played countless adventures, what's new? The strange thing is, on killing the elf you are told 'You fire an arrow' and yet FIRE ARROW AT ELF is not accepted for the program does not understand the word FIRE. Weird. Before I leave the elf: if you fool around too long he can end up getting the better of you. You'll find other assailants who are similarly prone to an almost unfailingly true arrow. Perhaps in this respect the game loses out to those which now feature a more complex and exciting combat scenario. The unfriendly vocabulary seen when dealing with the elf may not be the rule as I discovered when I attempted to cross the chasm. Many combinations of words will see the log in place. Forest at World's End has only about ten graphics or so throughout its whole length but each one is worth savouring as they are of a very high quality. They appear almost instantaneously and are colourfully depicted and highly detailed. The input routine has opted for neatness as opposed to efficiency; there is no cursor or beep. Having said this, I found input to be mostly error-free. In many areas the game becomes difficult to map. Go east and as often as not west will not take you back again. After travelling blind for a while you sometimes come out into an area where the directions become lucid again. The way the game scrolls will annoy many. For some unknown reason the top description scrolls up and off when you input at the bottom. This results in your having to continually use L for LOOK. The game does not have many problems and those you do come across are unoriginal. If you have a key it opens the chest and a log naturally enough gets you across a chasm. When you are unsure what an object might be useful for it will soon become apparent as all the other objects are tied up with problems leaving the only, one, possible use. Since of all the aspects of producing a follow-up adventure, plot is that which takes the most time, you can't help the felling that this effort has been churned out on the heels of the last. Forest at World's End is a mainly text adventure with a few exceptional graphics scattered about the adventure. The author has the noble distinction of placing many fine graphics towards the end. Competent programming gives a rapid response time but the game is quite unique with the absence of SCORE. For an experienced explorer this adventure will pose few lasting problems and offers little that's new. Nevertheless, it is a well executed program, and for some, may provide a worthy distraction. Difficulty: Easy Graphics: Few but very good Presentation: Good Input Facility: Sentences Response: Instant