Flight from the Dark

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 8/10

Richard Price 8/10

CODE OF THE WARRIOR Memory: 48K Price: £8.95 Before your very eyes the bestial forces of the Darklords have destroyed your monastery and friends. Revenge is in your heart but you must first reach the capital and warn the king of the impending onslaught. War and danger will bedevil your every step. Flight from the Dark is the computer version of the Arrow single role-play book and the program is packaged with it for double enjoyment and references. The program contains new situations but follows the original plot and the screen display will show if you are dealing with a section of the book by indicating the relevant paragraph. Options are scrolled up below the graphic display and the choice is made by a key-press. Other actions are also controlled by single keys and an overlay is provided for the purpose - this could have been made more solidly. The graphics are animated and you are shown walking or riding through the locations. If you encounter an enemy there is a very clever combat sequence which allows you to thrust, swipe, chop and parry with whatever weapons you currently hold. This is in real time and can be a nail biting experience as your survival will depend on the fighting skill you have built up in the course of your travels. Addicts of the book version will find the program every bit as demanding and exciting. The general quality of the graphics enhances that pleasure.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Your Computer

Hugo North

48K Spectrum £8.95 Five Ways Software Based on the popular Lone Wolf role-playing books comes a new series of adventure programs. The first two are Flight From The Dark and Fire On The Water. They are superb. The games are a mixture of beautifully presented text and graphics, the latter being cleverly animated. Each adventure starts in the same way: you train as a Kai Lord to develop fighting prowess and endurance before setting out on your quest. As you progress through the adventure, you are able to call upon, learn about and develop many other Kai Disciplines. These special abilities include sixth sense, healing, tracking, weapon skill, animal kinship, telekinesis, mindshield and mindblast. In Flight From The Dark, your mission is to wreak vengeance on the Darklords for the massacre of the Kai Warriors. You are the last of the Kai - you are now the Lone Wolf. During your journey, you will be able to use any weapon you find or may choose to fight with your bare hands. Once in combat, a number of movements are at your disposal. You can step forwards or backwards, chop, swipe, thrust, parry and use your mindshield and mindblast powers. If all else fails, you can always run away! The screen display, magnificently framed and looking like a parchment, is divided into two, the top half showing an imaginative and colourful scene, the bottom half being used as a scrolling text area. Commands are given by selecting an option from one of several given at each stage. Lone Wolf, whom you guide through the adventure, is an impressively animated cloaked figure. When he leaves one scene and enters another, you may select from the options as soon as he stops walking. Once in combat, you are fully in control. To help you learn the single-key commands, a keyboard overlay is provided. The game comes complete with the paperback, although the latter is not essential for playing the game. However, the book does contain greater detail. To assist you, the program provides the scene reference number so you can look it up in the book if you wish. A great idea and extremely well implemented, the scene number appearing in the head of a bull to one side of the screen. A great deal of thought and professionalism has gone into the making of these games. For example, as well as being able to save the game at anyone of many stages - a cassette symbol always appears as a reminder - you can also save and transfer your Lone Wolf character from one game to another in the series. While the books are very entertaining in their own right, the programs are even better. Everything about these games reeks of quality, from the presentation of the text to the excellent graphics, from the clarity of the instructions and cassette inlay right down to the provision of an overlay. Super stuff - can't wait for the next ones!

Personal Computer Games

Atmosphere 7/10

Complexity 4/10

Interaction N/A

Overall 5/10

Steve Cooke 5/10

SPOILT FOR CHOICE The White Wizard investiagtes the latest releases. GAME: Return To Eden PRICE: £9.95 MACHINE: Amstrad, Atari, BBC, CBM64, Nascom, Memotech, Spectrum GAME: Sorceror of Claymorgue Castle PRICE: N/A MACHINE: Apple, Atari, BBC, CBM64, Dragon, Electron, Tandy, Spectrum GAME: Fire on the Water PRICE: £6.95 MACHINE: Spectrum GAME: The Prince PRICE: N/A MACHINE: Spectrum GAME: Macbeth PRICE: £14.95 MACHINE: CBM 64 Anyone know of a secluded retreat, with ample supplies of tinned owls livers and lettuce opium? So much software has flooded into the White Wizard's cave this month that he is at his wits' end and badly in need of a very long holiday. However, the good news is that there are some hot new releases out this month. Level 9's Return to Eden hits the streets and, of course, there's the Sorceror of Claymorgue Castle from Scott Adams. Not only that, but there are also one or two new games that offer the adventurer something quite different from any programs that have come before. First, however, let's Return to Eden with Level 9. This is the eagerly-awaited sequel to Snowball and will be available on the usual extensive Level 9 range of machines, from the Memotech right through to the Amstrad. You don't, by the way, need to have played Snowball to enjoy Return To Eden. This game marks a radical departure from Level 9 tradition by including gasp - GRAPHICS. Have the die-hard, text-only gents from L9 taken leave of their senses?? No, mein wizardlings, zay haf zimply produced a better game, ja! (Yes, the White Wizard is proficient in all languages including Numenorean Provincial). Frankly, the White Wizard found Snowball a very trying game and wore out at least a dozen wands exploring its secrets. Return to Eden is rather easier in my opinion and certainly as enjoyable as its predecessor. The only thing about the graphics, is that some of them are rather poor... Sacrilege, I know, to speak ill of a Level 9 game but really they aren't that hot with the pastels. Even the old Mysterious Adventure range comes out on top here. However, this game oozes with atmosphere as you explore a distant planet populated by some very strange creatures, including the invaluable See Bee, the very necessary Ouija bird, and the undesirable leviathan. You can jump off cliffs, fight squirrels (well, be attacked by squirrels), and die of radiation. This is the sort of thing Wizards enjoy and that's only the beginning. From the exotic forest you move on to the daunting task of penetrating the different zones surrounding a robot constructed city. Very hazardous this, and I guarantee you'll need to spend at least a week driving yourself round the bend before you reach the city - by which time you'll be only about halfway through the game! 200 locations, the usual extensive vocabulary, and a great scenario make this every bit as good as previous Level 9 games. Don't expect the locations to be quite so fully described as other Level 9 games - after all you do get the graphics which take up a lot of memory. There's a strong 'conservationist' slant to the story, centring on the moral questions surrounding the destruction of alien life forms. No, I'm not kidding, and the White Wizard very much approves of this sort of thing. The more adventures we have that reflect real-life problems like this the better in my view. The only slight reservation I have about Return to Eden (and all other Level 9 games) is that it doesn't tell you which words it fails to understand. It simply replies with the famous 'Arfle Barfle Gloop?' which isn't much help when you are trying to unravel vocabulary problems. It has to be said, however, that one doesn't often have vocabulary problems in a Level 9 game. Another important recent release is Scott Adams' Sorceror of Claymorgue Castle. This is available for the Commodore, Spectrum, Apple, Atari, BBC, Dragon, Electron, and Tandy... phew! Quite a list. The White Wizard has dabbled enjoyably in the Spectrum version, which features some very pretty graphics indeed. It's worth noting that the Spectrum conversion was done by Brian Howarth who writes the Mysterious Adventures, to which this program bears some superficial resemblance. Well, what can one say about Scott Adams' adventures? They've been around for a very long time now in one form or another, but the fact is that whenever a new one comes out it is always a good buy. Sorceror of Claymorgue Castle is no exception. As in most Scott Adams' games, the object of the game is simple - you must collect a certain number of readily identifiable treasures and store them in a particular location. The challenge of the games is in overcoming the different puzzles, most of which are encountered when you try to move from location to location. None of Scott's games have that many places to visit, but that doesn't mean they're a doddle by any means. Sorceror is definitely a case in point here. You start off behind a castle and I guarantee that you won't enter it inside ten minutes of cursing, howling, and (as it happens) holding your breath. Once you get inside, you'll still have to try every trick in the book to explore more than about six locations. Just to tantalise you, one of the treasures is plonked almost right in front of your nose at the beginning - but try picking it up and you'll see that all is not as easy as it seems. So that's two new games for your shelves - and both available on a wide range of machines. Now let's take a look at something quite different - three releases each of which offers something rather unusual. LONE WOLF The first is the Lone Wolf series for the Spectrum, though I imagine that there will soon be similar offerings for other machines. There are two games in the series so far - Escape from the Dark and Fire on the Water. Both titles offer excellent animated graphics and a very unusual format. The cassettes come either on then own or with an accompanying book that gives some idea of what to expect from the games themselves. The books are split up into numbered sections each of which contains a stage in the development of the plots. I say plots rather than plot, because the story changes as you read. This is because whenever you come to a crucial point in the story, you have to make a decision. Depending on the decision you make you are then directed to another numbered section where you continue reading. This, of course, is very much like playing an adventure game on a computer, so it's only natural that Arrow, the publishers, have decided to offer a game as well. The format is as follows - there's a graphics screen surrounded by an attractive border and a scrolling text window below. You place a keyboard overlay on top of your Spectrum. The storyline scrolls on the screen, and whenever you have to make a decision you press the appropriate key and the program jumps to the next stage in the story. There are also extensive fight routines, requiring diligent pressing of Parry, Thrust, Chop, and Swipe keys. Your fighting skill and energy are monitored on the screen, and when you run out of energy Lone Wolf (that's you) bites the dust. The fight sequences are well-animated, and after a couple of hours playing I decided that there really was a tactical element which made them much more satisfying than the usual 'You-stab-the-Dire-Wolf' routines that other games tend to offer. Escape from the Dark and Fire on the Water are consecutive games, and a character developed in the first can be loaded into the second ready for action. So what's different about these games? The first thing to notice is that the program itself dictates your movements. For instance, you can't type in 'Go West' unless that is presented to you as an option to be selected. In this respect the game is more limited than a traditional adventure. However, all the space saved by the absence of complex 'parsing' routines (the bits of the program in a normal adventure that scan your inputs and generate appropriate responses) means more room for graphics and animation. There is still a good deal of scope for the player to shape the game - you can sometimes run away rather than fight. You can choose your own routes to your destination, and investigate a number of dead-ends, some of which are more rewarding than others. The White Wizard gives these games the thumbs-up and looks forward to more along the same lines. They are very different in feel to the traditional text/graphics games, but I think they have at value all of their own. It is, incidentally, worth getting the books as well as the games - you can then use them as crib-sheets if you find the going too tough! THE PRINCE If you think Lone Wolf sounds different, wait 'till you get a LOAD of the next game an interactive program for four players from CCS called The Prince. This game apparently won the Cambridge Award 1984, though I'm a hit hazy as to what exactly that means. However, it is a very interesting piece of software that should be carefully examined by adventurers and particularly those with a D&D background. The scenario is as follows: in Castle Ravencrag the Lore-Master has disappeared and is believed dead. By law, succession to this desirable post is by 'presentation of the tokens' - a ritual ceremony in which the applicant begs an audience with the Prince of Ravencrag and hands over the tokens. Your task, and that of your three human opponents, is to find out what the 'tokens' are, get hold of them, and present them to the Prince. You then become Lore Master and win the game. Each player takes on one of four characters - Grasper, a landlord; Ambrose, a cleric; Porcus, the merchant; and Fernandon, the tipstaff (magistrate to you and me). Each player has certain advantages related to his profession - money, for example, in the case of Porcus. Having chosen characters the players then take it in turns to recruit help from the Castle retinue and purchase items from Gump, the Castle trader. During this phase only one player at a time looks at the screen, so other players will not know who is working for you or what you possess. Occasionally, for example, a servant may serve two masters and knowledge of his double-dealings could benefit either player. Each player has a passcode which he must enter during the game in order to play. This stops other players from cheating when you pop out for a slice of toast and honey - or whatever you fancy. During your turn you find yourself inside the castle as in a traditional text adventure. You have only 10 inputs in each turn and must find out as much as possible. You can call your spies and ask them to report, or get your less desirable -helpers ('henches') to attack your opponents servants. During this phase you will find that the vocabulary of the game is rather limited but, of course, it's the same for all four players. What's special about The Prince, however, is that it is one of the first computer games I've come across that permits intelligent and enjoyable collaboration between the human players. As in D &D you will find yourself involved in complex negotiations with your opponents (or allies, depending on how you deal with them). Nothing is too fair or too foul to be considered - you could, for example, ally yourself with Fernando, find out who his spies are under pretence of helping him, then have your spies knock them all out! You unscrupulous devil you, of course you wouldn't do a thing like that, would you? Oh yes you would... Like the Lone Wolf games The Prince is very far from being a trad adventure. It is, however, a game that will appeal to adventurers who enjoy a get together and the chance to outwit each other. Again, the White Wizard, while granting this game a place on his now crowded shelf, would be pleased to hear from other adventurers as to what they think of this new breed. MACBETH Finally - in the 'New Trends' department - we have Macbeth from Creative Sparks for the Commodore 64. This is quite a handful, this one. Two tapes, four games, plus a copy of the Shakespeare play. Each of the four games is related to part of the play, and each is in a different style. All four games feature graphics to a greater or lesser extent and the standard of these is extremely high. In each game you must achieve certain objectives that will allow you to achieve the goals of the character you are playing. In the first and last games you play Macbeth, in the second game you are Lady Macbeth, and in the third you are one of the Three Witches' assistants. With the exception of game number 3, these are all text-games with graphics added in places. Unfortunately, they rely very heavily on your ability to phrase your inputs correctly. Although they will tell you which words are not understood (by highlighting them in red) they are not very hot on understanding the traditional vocabulary. This is particularly true in game 3, which is almost entirely graphics based and doesn't understand words like 'North' or 'South', The display plays a very important role here and you must pick out items in the picture and use them as appropriate, although you may not have been told explicitly that they are there. I'm not sure that Macbeth will appeal to many adventurers unless you have a particular interest in Shakespeare or Scottish history. Some of the sequences are very good, but of 14.95 seems a lot to pay for them. The other drawback with the game - and this applies to one or two other book-based adventures - is that you can't succeed without reading the play, and having read the play, you know what's going to happen. The whole program is rather lacking in the excitement of discovery that makes a good adventure. However, there is one very interesting innovation that is worth a mention. At the end of each game the program gives you the opportunity to load a program called 'Psycho'. This is a very novel routine in which the computer poses as a psychiatrist and questions you in your role as the character you have just been playing. 'Remember that session we had years ago when we got rid of your meat phobia?' enquires the computer of Lady Macbeth (i.e. you) and then goes on to find out just why you behaved as you did in the play - or the program. Computer buffs will no doubt realise a similarity here between Psycho and Eliza - a program that simulated a psychiatrist and gave apparently intelligent replies to the questions put to it. Psycho isn't nearly as complex, but it's still good fun. But why does the White Wizard mention this curiosity, I hear you cry. Well, I reckon it's only a matter of time before we see more variations on the traditional adventure theme. Using a routine like 'Psycho', for example, you could carry on an enjoyable - even if perfectly meaningless - conversation with Thorin in The Hobbit, for example... and just look at Sherlock, where you can 'Tell...' a character things you think they ought to know. Well, that's all for this month my friends. Next month's issue will be absolutely packed to the brim, and will include a couple of goodies that I've had to leave out in this issue because of lack of space. In the meantime, I have a special favour to ask of you all, in recent months we've had a number of new games that one can't really call adventures, but still seem to have some sort of claim to a mention on these pages. I'm thinking particularly of so-called 'arcade adventures' like Gisburne's Castle, or novelties like the Lone Wolf games I've mentioned above. Well, what do YOU think? Are these games worthy of our attention? What do you think is the definition of an 'adventure game'? Shall we stick to the straight and narrow path of the traditional adventure, my fellow explorers of the unknown lands, or shall we allow ourselves to sally forth into new realms? The White Wizard humbly awaits your reply, and will how to your judgement.

D&D-style interaction for four players in The Prince from CCS.

Superbly animated fight sequences make Fire on the Water a cut (and thrust!) above the ordinary.

Micro Adventurer

Noel Williams

FIRE ON THE KEYBOARD Noel Williams tackles Hutchinson's new computer games, Flight From the Dark and Fire on the Water, based on the Lone Wolf game book series. It's getting harder to make the distinction between computer gamer, wargamer, roleplayer, adventurer and reader of fantasy novels. Joe Dever and Gary Chalk have produced something to make the distinction even less clear - the Lone Wolf programmed adventure books, which have now been turned into computer adventures. It's easy to see why the computer games have been written. A programmed scenario in book form is only a couple of removes from a computer adventure, as the description 'programmed' tells us. Any competent programmer can turn such a book into a simple game with ease. In fact this is probably the easiest way to write an adventure. Using a computer to play such a paragraph game has various advantages over the book version. No pages to turn, no risk of losing your place or forgetting the next paragraph number, no need to throw dice or to keep records on scraps of paper. But if you are looking for an interesting computer game you want more than this, especially if the game is based on a book with the same structure and which is a third of the price. Most people would have a shopping list of additions which would include things like 'attractive graphics', 'animation', 'real time action', 'significant differences from the book in plot', 'use of sound'. Five Ways Software, the company which programmed the games, clearly know this and has gone some way towards ticking off all the items on your shopping list. You get real time combat, illustrations of each setting, moving characters and use of sound. However there does not seem to be much in the way of variation from the original books - in fact you can proceed through the programs in many situations by using the book as a reference guide. What variations there are are generally by way of reducing descriptions and missing events out. Occasionally this becomes a real problem. For example in the first four 'paragraphs' of Fire on the Water so much has been taken out of the original that you are given no choices at all and have to play through three combats. Unless you start with a well trained character you stand little chance of surviving this onslaught. Real time combat on the Spectrum replaces the combat system of the books. The conflict in the computer versions is the most detailed and novel aspect of the program. You have choice of weapons and choice of tactics, including the psychic modes and mind blast and mind shield, and have to move your character to the most advantageous position on screen for striking a particular kind of blow. Movement is only in one plane (left to right) and you cannot change weapons halfway through a fight, but simply remembering which keys govern which tactic makes the contest quite hard. Different weapons add different values to combats and the most effective tactic also depends on the chosen weapon (it's quite hard to stab someone with a mace!). However the Spectrum's keyboard means that timing of blows is haphazard - you never know if a particular keystroke has led to a particular blow and I found that sometimes my blows were 'queued' so that the figure went on striking even when my fingers were not on the keyboard. Nor is the feedback of effects during combat all that it might be. You do not get the usual constantly updated stats on performance. Instead your own endurance and combat skill are represented by two green thermometer like columns. When the liquid in endurance has run out, you are dead. As for the monsters, they sometimes indicate weakness by adopting slightly crumpled postures, but in other cases you have no real idea if you are doing the right thing or not. The combination of these devices means that combat feels more haphazard than it probably is. In practice you tend to bash away at the keys in no particular order (because you have no indication of which does best) until your endurance gets low, when you attempt to retreat (and, if you are like me, you hit the wrong key only to find that you have killed the monster by mistake). It seems a little silly to design a complete system which the player is totally ignorant of. Another novelty is that, instead of being given a character to start with who has pre-generated skills, you must undergo a training session to establish your basic skill. This takes the form of a fight with one of the elders. Apart from the report at the end of the fight you do not get a good indication of how well you are doing and the whole business is a little mystifying the first time round, but it is quite a good idea and works well once you know what is supposed to be happening. The graphics themselves are somewhere between The Hobbit and Valhalla. They certainly offer no major advances on previous games. The backgrounds are rather better than those in The Hobbit with a better use of colour and some shading. Some are more imaginative but others less well drawn than Valhalla. The moving figures are less convincing than Valhalla's despite being better drawn and on a larger scale. The silliest thing is the way that your own character hops around the place on a single leg. The other leg is supposedly hidden by a cloak but the visual effect resembles an amputated Kermit imitating Little Red Riding Hood. On the other hand some of the monsters are quite well done, and the combat sequences produce some credible combinations of hacking and slashing. However our copy was a pre-production model and we are told some of the weaker graphics may change by the final version.

Big K

Nicky Xikluna

WOLF IN DUNGEON MASTER'S CLOTHING by Nicky Xickluma Joe Dever, 1982' World Dungeons & Dragons Champion, has hit the Software Road. His Flight From The Dark and Fire on the Water began life as role-playing books, and now meet their electronic foils - text adventures with graphic illustrations. The two title comprise the first sixth of a mammoth adventure series, Lone Wolf. Each of the twelve episodes, published by Hutchinsons, will tie-in with an adventure book of the same name. Both can be played as self-contained units but rabid gamesters will be pleased to find it possible to cross-reference between the two for a really comprehensive game. Initially for Spectrum, the series is being translated for the Commodore 64, and, notably will be among the first available for the QL. Big K was chosen to be the very first magazine to play Flight from the Dark. Each screen is detailed and complex as an old manuscript with a graphics window and text area below. You choose from the courses of action scrolled in the lower half of the screen, and the characters animate themselves accordingly. The graphics are excellent, and the adventure pushes the Spectrum's 48K to the limits. In the game you are Wolf, kin to the Kai Lords, One day the sky is darkened by the sickening, leathery-winged Darklords. When they leave, you find yourself the sole survivor of your ancient race - Lone Wolf. Our hero is about 15 years old in Flight from the Dark. He grows older and wiser through the episodes. Later he will acquire the skill of Dimensionality; the ability to travel through time and space. He'll need all the skill he can get for the final conflict. Lone Wolf's vow of the revenge starts him on a quest that will take him all the way through the world of Magnamund. Lone Wolf has been fermenting in the mind of Joe Dever over seven years of Dungeons & Dragons exploits. It was a during particularly primal D&D session that Magnamund was conceived. "I was bringing together amorphous gassy formations; great, floating worlds of ice and other strange phenomena" (he wouldn't part with the exact recipe) - "and POW! Worlds combusted into being!"" And Joe had created Magnamund. And he saw that it was good. Joe's youthful, ethereal looks belie his maturity. His low-key self-assuredness kind of sneaks around the back and hits you. Joe, 28, set out on life's rich path as a musician. He moved over from double-bass to electric bass and worked with a lot of bands including Mike Oldfield, "I enjoyed it all at first." Then he found himself hired out to sessions with the punk bands of 1977-8. "Suddenly, music was about anything but virtuosity. You had to dress the right way and share the same political pretensions." The era compounded a growing disillusionment, and Joe quit. He's recently written music for Flight from the Dark. "The Spectrum didn't allow for much elaboration. I'm looking forward to writing for the Commodore version." But Joe doesn't program himself. Lone Wolf is being translated for him. Joe has a passion for military history, was an David boardgames man and collected lead soldiers for years. This drew him to London's Games Centre, a branch of which he managed for two years. It was during a business trip to Los Angeles that he encountered D&D. "One game and I was hooked." He finally won the championships in LA - a week long marathon. Joe was the only Brit there. "There was no disadvantage," he says. "Every competitor has to take on all character classes: fighter, cleric, wizard and thief." Joe's favoured role is that of Dungeon Master. "It's an art - you've got to get the balance of the game just right. Neither too hard no too easy." Lone Wolf heralds a great drawing together of the clans. A decade or so ago, something was stirring amongst the idle young of America's college campuses. It was an ongoing Dungeoning and Dragoning situation. It spread. In such a big way that the ex-Wisconsin postman Gary Gygax, first to document D&D by creating its two rule books, for Masters and players, declared a staggering $52 million profit in 1982, making D&D the sixth fastest growing industry in the USA! And from the East came the quiet literary genius of Professor Tolkien. His fertile imagination met that of thousands of others somewhere in Middle-Earth - a land created privately for his son. Then there was computer adventure. Even prehistoric mainframes found themselves harbingers of adventuring data, as furtive, hard-bitten programmers eked out available K's in down-time. But it's with the micro that adventure is coming into its own. We'll keep you informed of happenings. Watch out for news of Lone Wolf. And expect some surprises.