Spoof

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Keith Campbell

SPOOF THE MAGIC DRAGON! Spoof by name, and spoof by nature, this refreshing Spectrum game pokes fun at all those cliches so often met by avid Adventurers. The game starts with the title "The Chronicles of Yaw, Part 5387". Yaw, so the inlay tells, is the husband of Dro who, together with their children Mo and Complay, form the Ning family. In fact, the inlay makes good reading - it had me in stitches! Yaw is fed up with his mundane existence and goes off to his local, The Dragon Inn, to find himself an Adventure. "Well don't come back drunk!" shouts Dro and slams the door behind him. Down at the Inn, the Innkeeper has a laugh at Yaws expense. "Haven't YOU heard of Spoof?" asks, winking at the other customers, "Legend says that when King Froggo returns, so will the Magic Dragon to avenge old wrongs." "What we need is an adventurer, to kill him!" shouts a drunk. "I'm here, I'll kill him!" shouts Yaw who sets off and soon finds himself in Necessary Forest. This game, as well as providing a lot of laughs, is also crammed full of challenges - in fact, you can hardly make a move without being interrupted in one quest and given another one. At one point, you find yourself near a phone box and the phone starts ringing. Like a mug, you answer it. "Hello, is Dave there?" asks a voice at the other end. "No," you answer. "Call him, will you, he's probably just down on the beach." So you do and, sure enough, Dave waves and makes his way up to you through a secret tunnel in the cliffs. Dave is sent a mysterious mission and he invites you to follow. You get in his boat and, as he rows you across the Essential Ocean to the lighthouse, he sings songs about fish fingers - you're sure you've heard them before. You notice his black beard glistening, either with spray or spit, as he sings. Spoof is a text-only Adventure with instant response and constant wit. My only complaint could possibly be that every now and again a command is difficult to phrase - but that is not to say the vocabulary isn't adequate. If you enjoy a good laugh, then try Spoof, you'll love it! Meanwhile, I'm going back in to see if there's a Mandatory Maze! Spoof is for 48k Spectrum from Runesoft, priced £7.50.

Your Spectrum

Alan Grier MISS

Alan Hunter HIT

Alex Entwhistle HIT

JOYSTICK JURY On the jury this month are Alex Entwhistle, Alan Grier and Alan Hunter - all members of the Saltcoats Computer Club. Meeting every Tuesday evening (7.10pm) at the Argyle Centre, [redacted]. Contact Daniel Canavin on [redacted] if you'd like to join them. SPOOF Runesoft £5.95 Fed up with his mundane existence and his nagging wife (Dro Ning), not to mention his whinging kids (Mo Ning and Complay Ning), Yaw Ning decides to leave them and look for adventure down at the local (The Drink Ing?). There he hears tell that Spoof the Magic Dragon has returned...

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Big K

Steve Keaton

DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT YOU'VE BEEN HAD Runesoft 48K Spectrum £7.50 It happened ont he witching hour 'neath the glow of a Trinitron tube. I felt a sense of alarm and a definite tightening of the skull. Whipping out a pocket mirror (always carried) I found myself confronted by what appeared to be a grinning potato. My stony visage had finally crumpled with pleasure. I'd stumbled upon one of those rare delights, a genuinely funny adventure,. The thing was called Spoof, for the 48K Spectrum from Runesoft. I cackled hideously long into the night. Spoof is a standard format text prog that parodies all those now familiar sword 'n' sorcery cliches. Anyone with a fondness for the genre can't help but raise a smile as they wander past rotting wooden signposts proclaiming, 'The Obligatory Mountain' and 'The Necessary Forest!' You take the guise of Yaw Ning (the tired one), a wretched peasant embroiled ina number of puzzling tasks. There's the shopkeeper who's really The Doctor (yes, him) in disguise - he needs a vital component for his time machine; Bulbo the enlightened lighthouse keeper who's after the legendary Golden Fleece (well it gets chilly out there on the rocks); the cheerful proprietor of The Bog Inn... I can't remember what he's after... Still these tasks are of little import. The game's strength is in its jokes and witty repartee. The telephone routine is a good example, and it doesn't give too much away! The scene takes place after a trudge across 'The Obligatory Mountain'. Imagine a telephone. It starts to ring... Keaton: Um. Answer 'phone... Spoof: "Hallo. Is that Dave?" Keaton: "Um. No. Spoof: Can you get him for me? He'll probably be down on the beach. Shout him for me will you?" Keaton: Um. Shout Dave. Spoof: As I shout I see a figure on the beach. It waves to me and disappears into the cliff below. Moments later he arrives at the cliff-top singing about fish fingers or something. He stops singing and takes the 'phone from me. He puts the 'phone down. "I have to go to the lighthouse. Would you like to come?" Keaton: Um, Yes. Spoof: "Follow me," he says and then he disappears down the secret tunnel. Keaton: Um. Follow Dave. This quality of interaction is maintained throughout the game. Beautifully observed and precisely anticipated it's a real pleasure to play. Apparently author's Don Slack and Dave Stevenson conceived the idea after an altogether larger, more sombre project. "We'd just finished this fully fledged heavy duty Dungeons and Dragons adventure," says Slack, and thought that the whole genre could do with a send-up. We bounced some ideas around and decided on Spoof. Spoof the magic dragon! It sounded about right. I think it's a good idea to have a bit of variety on the adventure scene. There's plenty of room for parody." FAVOURITE Both authors have their favourite sequences. "I like it all!" declares Stevenson with undue modesty. "No, I think the place names tickle me the most. They're so corny." Slack is fond of the Owl and the Pussycat routine. "That whole section on the barge is really funny," he says. "I also like the double endings." He goes on to explain in detail and I suddenly realise that what I thought was an odd bug in the program is in fact all part of the joke! Slack and Stevenson are so pleased with the character of Yaw that he's slated to return at a later date. I for one will be waiting.

Personal Computer News

Bob Chappell

ADVENTURES CAPITAL Bob Chappell surveys the scene to evaluate the influence of new crop of innovative adventures. Melbourne House's The Hobbit and Legend's Valhalla were both important watersheds in the development of the adventure, but how much has the adventure moved on since their launch? Like them or not, these two games set new standards in two fields, most obviously in graphics, but also in popularising semi-intelligent characters (in addition to the one usually found sitting at the keyboard). So, post Hobbit and Valhalla, you might have expected the floodgates to open for a new breed of adventures. A look at a representative sample of some of the latest releases should give us an indication of the state of this particular art. FANTASIA DIAMOND Spectrum £8.95 Hewson Consultants, [redacted] This one is Hewson's follow-up to Quest. The plot is hardly original, being littered with stolen treasure, elves, castles and the like, but there's no doubt that Fantasia Diamond is one of the most sophisticated of the current wave. It shows clear signs of the influence the Hobbit has had on the genre. The command analyser is powerful, allowing the player to enter compound commands such as 'OPEN THE DOOR AND GO EAST', 'GET THE FOOD AND THE WINE' or 'LOOK THROUGH THE WOODEN DOOR'. You can also communicate with the various characters in the adventure with the syntax 'SAY TO THE GNOME "GET THE ROD"'. The characters themselves lead separate lives, and will go about their business as you go about yours. Many of the locations also include simple graphics, and if you know the Hobbit, they will seem fairly familiar. Hewson has obviously taken the lessons of the Hobbit to heart by combining a powerful command parser, character communication, independent characters, graphics and a large scale mission. The end result is a fantasy adventure that is both sophisticated and stimulating, and offers a great challenge. WAXWORKS Commodore 64 and others £9.95 Channel 8, [redacted] Fresh from the fertile mind of Brian Howarth comes yet another in the popular Mysterious Adventure series. Originally these adventures were text only, but they've been updated, in keeping with the trend towards graphically depicted locations. One excellent feature of this particular series - apart from the fact that it is available for a wide range of micros - is that you can switch the graphics on or off at any time during the adventure. Waxworks follows a theme beloved of devotees of spook stories. You've been visiting a waxworks museum and you've fallen asleep - in this respect it's a bit like visiting the House of Lords - and you wake up to find you've been locked in for the night. The adventure breaks no new ground in terms of technical development - apart from the graphics it's a traditional verb/ noun command driven game - but, nevertheless, like its predecessors it's a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining adventure. GENESIS II Spectrum £6.95 Mikro-Gen, [redacted] Since the days of Noah, 'ark' has generally been what passes for intelligent conversation among ravens. But no more: MikroGen's Genesis II is the biblical tale of survival on board a galactic Noah's ark. It has a good analyser, instant response and graphics, and a vocabulary of some 300 words. There are over 100 locations to explore, and 60 objects to play around with - more than enough to satisfy the most inquisitive and acquisitive of explorers. What next, one asks? Exodus II, where the children of Israel pass through a black hole into the promised galaxy? The sky quite clearly isn't the limit ... THE INFERNO Spectrum £6.50 RIchard Shepherd, [redacted] Moving right along, we fall like Lucifer into - with apologies to Richard Shepherd Software - the pits. This latest from the Shepherd stable also exhibits signs of progress. It has a command analyser which allows the entry of compound commands, communication and interaction with the characters, and has graphics which can be switched on or off. The plot is unusual, being modeled around a plan of Dante's vision of Hell, with the adventurer having to pass through nine circles of Hell to reach the centre and escape. The theme is unusual, and overall it's an attractively presented adventure. SPOOF Spectrum £6.95 Runesoft, [redacted] Program generators are just starting to have an effect on the market, and Gilsoft's Quill is certainly the most popular of them. Since its appearance the Quill has been used to produce a goodly number of commercial adventures for the Spectrum. With its release on the Commodore 64, we can expect to see a similar outpouring of adventures for that machine. Spoof is a Quill-generated adventure, but what makes it worth special attention is its humour. There are already of a number of humorous adventures to be had, the most notable being Supersoft's Streets of London (Commodore 64), Salamander's similar Cricklewood incident (Dragon) and Infocom's superb Planetfall (various micros). But Spoof stands out from these because it is a parody of the standard adventure. In it you will come across such exotic locations as the Obligatory Mountains, the Secret Mysterious Hidden Cavern (clearly signposted) and the Necessary Forest. You will also encounter a three-headed vulture who wants a bit more than the usual food to let you pass. If you happen to have on you a bottle of wart remover, the dress of a princess, a magic rope and the ring from a pig's nose, you're in business. AFRICA GARDENS Spectrum Gilsoft, [redacted] This is one of Gilsoft's own Quill-produced adventures, marketed under the title of The Gold Collection. It's a particularly good example of the series, and is set in a mysterious hotel. It's reasonably detailed and its atmospheric text descriptions ensure the player's imagination is caught. MINDBENDER Africa Gardens, Mindbender Spectrum £5.95 Gilsoft, [redacted] The Gold Collection's contribution to mind-bending is named, aptly enough, Mindbender. It's crammed with testing puzzles and action, and starts as it means to go on by forcing you to stretch your imagination if you want to progress beyond the first couple of locations. A good sense of humour in the text helps keep you from biting the carpet when you're stuck - great stuff. WHAT'S NEXT? Certainly adventures have improved in the long term, but as yet it doesn't seem that there have been any material developments since the Hobbit and Valhalla. The standard of these two is, however, being matched regularly. And as if Movisoft (the graphics system used by Valhalla) wasn't enough, Legend is currently working on Movisoft 2 for the follow-up, to be called The Great Space Race, and due for release later in the year. The next great leap forward? We'll see...

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 7/10

Richard Price 7/10

Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 After a long career of portentous and mysterious adventures the grim, hardened explorer may well have lost his sense of humour somewhere in the depths of his copious backpack. Never fear Spoof, by Runesoft, will go some way to restoring that essential character trait. Using the Quill interpreter, this classic text adventure invites you to participate in the hunt for Spoof the Magic Dragon. That may well be intended to mislead, as there appear to be a number of other sub-quests. As you leave the obligatory village in your role as Yaw Ning, the deeply-bored citizen, you will discover signs pointing to such typical destinations as The Secret Mysterious Hidden Cavern. Despite the spoofy style the adventure is well-constructed and contains all the necessary problems to make an adventure the brain-racking experience it should be. The authors have made good use of the Gilsoft system and its minor limitations do not intrude on the action. The humour gives a real lift to the program without interfering with the journey and its problems.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Atmosphere 6/10

Vocabulary 6/10

Logic 5/10

Debugging 7/10

Overall Value 6/10

Derek Brewster 6/10

DEREK BREWSTER'S ADVENTURE TRAIL IMAGINE.... When it comes to adventures, memory is the limiting factor but, if you think that if extra memory should become available it should be used in creating even more locations to visit, then you clearly haven't played as many lifeless, unimaginative adventures as I have. Graphics adventures have proven the more commercial yet too many are burdened by mediocre or downright useless pictures that add little to what would otherwise be another lacklustre text game. Graphics should not replace vivid, imaginative text. Many text-only adventures concentrate on getting as many locations as possible into the 48K of the Spectrum and some even brag of such efforts as if this alone were any indication of the quality of a game. Inevitably, there results a loss in quality of location descriptions or even the problems themselves. The microdrive seemed at first a good opportunity to provide the memory for both the imaginative text and good graphics. Strange that no one has produced a microdrive adventure and I know of none being developed, it is true that such an adventure would be more expensive but perhaps adventures, some of which are a bit pricey in any case, might accommodate the extra cost. If and when the microdrive adventure does arrive I hope the extra room is used, not to double the length of the adventure, but to improve the vocabulary, descriptions, graphics and friendliness. Now let's think, you might combine the graphic quality of The Hulk with the rich text of Level 9-some adventure! SPOOF Producer: Runesoft Retail Price: £7.50 Author: D.V. Stevenson, J.A. Slack With a name like Spoof you might guess this piece of software represents a lampoon on the software scene. On playing, it reveals a sometimes biting satire on the fantasy world in general and the text adventure in particular. Unfortunately, much of the humour will be lost on all but the most experienced, and literally die-hard, adventures as this adventure proved most difficult without some guidance. As in most comedies there is a fall guy. You help Yaw Ning (The Tired One) to find Spoof the Magic Dragon, despite the whole world being set against him. You begin in the village square and enter the store to collect your adventure kit and sword to find that the shopkeeper is really a doctor. Who can this doctor be? We learn he is stranded on this tiny planet because he has lost a vital component from his Time Machine. Thus start the Chronicles of Yaw, Part 5387, with the first quest of many to find and return the part. Moving south past a Keep Out sign you find a green slimy frog sitting amongst the folds of a beautiful dress. Once you've kissed the frog you have nine moves to get back to Grimy Gerty's which lies nine moves somewhere to the north. This may now seem straightforward but what might you have done had you not read what you must do in this column? Luckily my hair is firmly attached to my scalp and I managed to contact Runesoft. A little further on you find some wart remover but don't drink it - it's one of the items needed to fulfil the quest from the three headed vulture; others are the dress of a princess, a magic rope and the ring from a pig's nose. This last is wonderfully and amusingly set up since no sooner do you learn of your need for a pig's ring than you see a conspicuous sign pointing to a pig's cave. These ever-so easy occasions comically contrast with the utter lack of mercy shown should you make a wrong move with any of the puzzles. To this extent not only is the vocabulary unfriendly but so is the program as a whole, One slip or inappropriate input and you're dead! And it is no use matching satire with silliness. On requesting HELP I was told to panic. I input PANIC to meet IN A BLIND PANIC I THRASH ABOUT, LOPPING MY HEAD OFF WITH A SWORD AS I DO SO with the inevitable result I AM DEAD. One very cute point is you can panic to your heart's content - but only before you find the sword. At the Bogg Inn you find yourself with yet another quest - the place is riddled with them - this time to get Lancelot's armour. It may show how pedantic this adventure can be to say that you can only enter the inn once (so wandering around aimlessly is not a good idea) and you TALK to the locals in the bar but don't SAY anything, this last being the more usual entry for communication. One of the few places you can examine anything is within the fairy ring and the only thing you can examine here is the goblet whereupon you drop it. If you stick the pieces back together again you have, in the vernacular of another source of satire, something completely different. This may be the time to mention that you'll need the Holy Grail before you can embark on the barge. Humour necessarily pervades each and every place name with the Obligatory Mountains, Lake Necessary and Necessary Forest. In the Lake Necessary monster's lair you are told THERE'S A FUZZY PHOTOGRAPH OF WHAT MAY, OR MAY NOT BE, A HUMAN BEING ON THE WALL. The monster busies himself eating half a cat and your left arm and if you try to swim away the monster kills and devours you. The last thing you see are half a cat, a bit of owl and your left arm swilling around the contents of the monster's stomach. Spoof is a Quilled adventure and therefore has an almost instantaneous response time. As a satirical piece it is often amusing and would suit a jaded and very experienced adventurer. COMMENTS Difficulty: Very difficult Graphics: Occasional, things like signs Presentation: White text on blue. Good Input facility: Verb/noun Response: Very fast