Here Comes the Sun

Crash

Difficulty 5/10

Atmosphere 4/10

Vocabulary 4/10

Logic 3/10

Debugging 5/10

Overall Value 5/10

Derek Brewster 5/10

DEREK BREWSTER'S ADVENTURE TRAIL This month programmer and adventurer Derek Brewster launches properly into his quest for the perfect adventure. It's going to be a long trail, but in its course there will be many gems to uncover and doubtless many less than useful objects too. Although this issue of Crash has a few adventure games which are included although not reviewed by Derek, we will be incorporating most reviewed adventures in future within the Adventure Trail. Letters which have been pouring in from frustrated, bewildered and stuck adventurers are being sorted out even now, and hopefully Derek will be able to cope with some of them in time For the next month's issue. Derek has also devised his own rating system for reviewed adventure games, which he feels is more suitable - it is explained below. Adventure hints and help requests should be addressed to: Adventure Trail, Crash Magazine, [redacted]. This month: Fantasia Diamond - a new offering from Hewson Consultants: Here Comes The Sun (Alligata); Temple Of Vran - the second in the Incentive Ket Trilogy; Incredible Adventure from CRL: a murder inquiry called Mystery Manor from Bamby; and The Lost Gnomes from Eric Bean Adventures. THE SEARCH FOR REALISM PUSH, PULL, EXAMINE HIT, GET, MOVE... STATUE - it often ends up with you entering expletives. If your input is designed simply to match the words in the computer's memory, is this what adventuring is all about? What you need, surely, is a sense of reality in the otherwise fabulous world of the adventure. When engrossed in a good adventure you are aware of the computer as an aid only. It is a good sign when the program responds to as much of the input as possible. It is infuriating when attacking and leaving a character for dead he returns fit and active enough to give you considerable problems only a few frames later. Never mind, he's carrying some food this time and it'll be worth it but on examining the dead body you discover no food. Where has it gone? The way in which a landscape is mapped out is a moot point. Many well-known adventures have vast regions where it is impossible to chart your progress (or retreat). Although this may add atmosphere in a misty swamp or the (unfortunately) ubiquitous maze. In the long run it makes you acutely aware of the data in the computer - as would a seemingly random selection ruin the storyline behind a set of holiday snaps. A realistic combat scenario is important to any adventure - assuming the adventure is sophisticated enough to support one. A small defenceless creature should be easily dealt with without much loss of face whereas a warrior may well force upon you an early exit from the game. Something that becomes clear after much adventuring is the absurdly linear and singular pre-eminence of the route you must take. An example is when you have some food, say gooseberries, that you are incapable of eating since they can only be eaten by their rightful consumant. Strange gooseberries! EXAMINE, SEARCH and LOOK are becoming popular in adventuring since they allow you to take a more active role. I can only encourage such developments since the more active the part you play the more likely you are to become enveloped within the adventure. Isn't this what the whole thing's about? Two adventures stand out above all others this month - Temple of Vran, which features a good combat scenario, and Fantasia Diamond, a superb graphic adventure with a very intelligent and friendly vocabulary. ADVENTURE TRAIL REVIEW RATINGS The kind of headings used for ratings in the rest of Crash are not entirely suitable for adventures. You may feel that the headings listed below require some additions - we would be interested to hear your views. DIFFICULTY: The likely level of difficulty experienced by an average adventurer. ATMOSPHERE: This rating reflects the quality of location descriptions and graphics, and how credibly the characters you meet behave. VOCABULARY: Here we are looking for completeness of vocabulary and the friendliness of its response. A program should contain in its vocabulary all objects which are described in its locations, and all obvious words associated with these objects. If a tree appears in a location then the vocabulary should contain the word 'tree' as well as the associated word 'climb', otherwise the rating will suffer. LOGIC: This rating reflects the logic of the problems encountered in an adventure and whether or not you are likely to be killed without warning or chance of escape. Chopping down a tree to cross the forest river is very logical throwing a rope into a boat which is described in no location description is certainly not logical. DEBUGGING: This indicates the level of crashproofing and debugging of the program. A program should not be crashed simply by making an incorrect entry or by pressing an unfortunate combination of keys (including BREAK!). This rating will also suffer from bugs within the program and spelling errors. OVERALL VALUE: A general rating based on price and the other ratings BUT NOT AN AVERAGE OF THE OTHER RATING FIGURES as is the case in all other Crash reviews. HERE COMES THE SUN Producer: Alligata Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £7.95 Author: M.D. Russell and C.M. Wright A massive space station is on collision course with the sun and it's your unenviable task to prevent a solar explosion turning the universe into a black pudding (all right, it didn't actually say that but you know how it gets after reading so many cassette covers). Playing Here Comes The Sun you get the impression of an adequate but unpolished piece of software. I'll show you what I mean. The program spends one minute loading a screen which is left there for only 12 seconds before being deleted. This is replaced by a list of the vocabulary - useful, but should it be placed on a loading screen which is lost when the game starts? On the loading screen vocabulary is mis-spelt and this is a foretaste of things to come. If you're struggling with the word LASER that's because the computer has been programmed to expect LAZER. Although the space station appears large there are no location descriptions, more location statements really. Many locations are repeated and so some loss of atmosphere is inevitable. The half dozen or so graphic descriptions add little to the adventure. You can be randomly killed for no apparent reason in locations where you have previously been safe. I'm no great fan of the random element - at best it's irritating, at worst it can dissuade you from playing again. Once you've settled into the run of things you come to the exertion area to be confronted with a primitive arcade ski slope game no better than the type found in program listings of what seems like eons ago. However, not all is gloom. The adventure is interspersed with a thousand funny ways of dying. Oh, well...

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 6/10

SUN BURN CAN BE TERMINAL Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 If you do not take adventure games too seriously, you might enjoy Here Comes the Sun from Alligata Software. In this somewhat tongue-in-cheek tale, you play the part of the last great hero who must try to prevent his space station colliding with the sun, failure resulting in a solar explosion which will wipe out the universe. That is the theory, but in practice playing the game more often seems to result in the hero suffering some ignominious disaster, such as turning purple from lack of air and being pronounced "seriously dead". The game starts in the airlock of the spaceship, whence you must trace your way to the retro-rockets which will enable you to pilot the ship to safety. Unfortunately, giving perfectly sensible commands does not often elicit a sensible response. Simple graphics do not add a great deal to the game and in time the humour may pall, but the adventure provides a reasonable amount of entertainment. Here Comes the Sun is produced by Alligata Software, [redacted].

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 6/10

Sound 3/10

Ease Of Use 7/10

Originality 6/10

Lasting Interest 7/10

Overall 6/10

Steve Cooke 6/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K JOYSTICK: No CATEGORY: Adventure SUPPLIER: Alligata PRICE: £7.95 Here Comes The Sun is a text adventure with a few graphic screens and minimal sound in which your task is to take control of a space station and prevent it from colliding with the sun. It's good to see someone taking enough care over a program to create their own character set, and the text is clearly presented. There's a fairly large vocabulary, with most of the standard commands as well as some more unusual ones, The vocabulary is listed on the screen during loading. I have a number of quibbles with this game. The first is that a good deal of unnecessary effort has been put into providing witty diversions while playing. At various points during the game an aardvark eating an orchid crosses your path, and at other times the program resorts to Shakespearian English and Hobbit references. Touches like these may amuse some people, but surely the effort would have been put to better use in adding relevant detail to the locations, most of which have very little to offer. A number of drones and members of the ship's crew come and go, but none of them have much to do, and even less to say. From time to time one of the drones will cotton on to the fact that you are a stranger, at which point the game ends and you have to start again. I can't help thinking that a little less quirky humour and a little more substance would have made this a better adventure.