Reviews

In this early game from Imagine you play the part of an alchemist on a mission to defeat an evil warlock. Rather obviously, you'd stand no chance straight away, so you must travel around, gathering spells and useful items. You've got the ability to transform into an eagle which allows you to fly around, and yes, you do get an opportunity to transmute base metals into gold later in the game.

Despite having some big and bold graphics that have stood up quite nicely, it's not aged too well in terms of the gameplay. Although large for the time, the playing area is easily mapped and it suffers from jittery scrolling. Once you've found where everything is, there are only really a handful of puzzles to solve and as the objects and spells are always in the same places, there's little replay value once you've completed it.

This is probably one of those games where you had to be there at the time to appreciate it much. However, it remains memorable for the new ground it broke at the time.

Excellent atmosphere and excellent game!! you can intechange shapes between a wizzard and an eagle in the search of Warlock ... the evil entity. Very original and colorful. A 9 out of 10.

One of the earliest arcade adventures for the Spectrum, in which you're an alchemist that enters the castle of the Evil Warlock to destroy him by finding the four pieces of the "Spell of Destruction".

As I said before, the great merit of this game is that is one of the first adventures where you can use objects and spells to achieve your mission, and the original feature of converting yourself into an eagle whenever is needed to finish the mission.

In 1983, a game like this, with big characters, decent graphics, a 30-screens map and a level of stamina to control, all in a well done atmosphere was a hit. Nowadays is just a nice game to remember, one of the best games of Imagine before they broke out.

Alchemist, by the late Ian Weatherburn, is undoubtedly a well-written game and some nice colourful graphics that still look really good today. It's a game I really want to like, but there are just far too many keys for my taste and it ultimately left me confused and constantly pressing the wrong button most of the time. As a result, I suck at this game. It was well received back in the day and it deserved to be, but the older I get the more I like my games to be straightforward, pick up and play and intuitive, and this sadly isn't with so many keys to press.