REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Adventure Quest
by James Horsler, Mike Austin, Nick Austin, Pete Austin
Level 9 Computing Ltd
1982
C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 35, Sep 1984   page(s) 111

Being the owner of an Atari with disc drive, I have tended to concentrate my Adventure playing on disc-based games. But the tape-based Adventures from Level 9 have been hitting the headlines recently, so I thought it time to try one myself.

In this Adventure, the player has to overthrow the demon king, who is tucked away far behind many elaborate defences. Using either cunning and skill, or brute force, you must find a way through these to reach the Dark Tower. This you must destroy, for it contains his source of power.

Once at the tower, gaining entry could be a big problem for, if you have missed one of the four keys on the way there, you may never get in. Once inside, staying alive long enough to kill the demon king will involve you in a dangerous game of hide and seek with demons and some very nasty guards. Being in the right place at the right time will eventually let good (you, the player) triumph over evil.

To say that this is a big Adventure would an understatement, for there are over 200 locations and some of the most elaborate problems that I have ever to overcome encountered.

Adventure Quest more than lived up to my expectations for a tape game. The text descriptions were long and made both compelling and exciting reading - the like of which I had only before seen on disc Adventures. The response time was good and the vocabulary understood by the program left little to be desired.

Level 9 Adventures are supplied with an envelope and card entitling the player to one free clue. But Level 9 have now gone one better and supply very comprehensive hint sheets for all their Adventures free, if you end a stamped addressed envelope.

Although available for a wide range of micros (see below), Atari fans in particular should be overjoyed at the price - £9.90 compared with the usual £30 price tag on most Atari software.

Adventure Quest is from Level 9 Computing, priced £9.90, for the following micros: BBC 32k, Commodore 64, Spectrum 48k, Lynx 48k, Nascom 32k, Oric 48k and Atari 32k.


REVIEW BY: Paul Coppins.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

ZX Computing Issue 21, Oct 1985   page(s) 68,69

To a seasoned adventurer 'Level 9' will have long been a household name, with games like Lord of Time, Snowball and Return to Eden to their credit. However Level 9 didn't make their name from these, excellent though they are. Any self-respecting adventurer worth his or her salt, really ought to have the Middle Earth Trilogy on his/her bookshelf. They are masterpieces of imagination, verbosity (some responses rival Infocom in length!) and speed. They really are the yardstick by which adventures should be measured. Colossal Adventure, Adventure Quest and Dungeon Adventure are well presented, supplied with a good instruction booklet (which gives VERY little away.) If you write to them they will send you a huge hint sheet, cleverly devised so that you don't accidentally find the answer to a puzzle you haven't yet come to.

The adventures are all text only, which will please many people who, like me, think that graphics are pretty, superficial and rather gimmicky. After all, if you've seen a static picture once, you don't really need to see it time and time again, particularly when it resides in memory and wastes valuable RAM. The locations (200 + in all three adventures) are 'graphically' described in eloquent text, They are all, of course, entirely machine coded, and Level 9 use a purpose built text compressor called 'a code' which replaces text with signs in memory, and then reconstitutes it on screen. Thus a quart is very effectively squeezed out of a pint pot.

The puzzles in all the games are clever, (reasonably) logical, and artfully devised to keep you coming back. Many's the time I've had to give up at two o'clock in the morning, 'slept on it' and come back the next day to solve a puzzle that kept me awake hours. There is an enormous list of objects, some useful and some valuable, to be collected on your journeys, and the answer to a puzzle in the last-but-one location! You really have to use your brain the whole time, tn these games there is no such thing as luck! Well, not much.

Colossal Adventure is a faithful, even better, rendition of the original Crowther and Woods 'Colossal Caves' with the added bonus of an extra 70 location end-game. It is worth noting, however, that if you already have a copy of 'Classic Adventure' from Melbourne House, or indeed anything with a picnic area, bird and cage and PLUGH/XYZZY (!) then you'd better be careful not to duplicate a game you've already got, though I suspect that with the end game Colossal Adventure is a better buy.

The objective of the game is to enter the vast Colossal Caves, score maximum points by gathering up as much treasure as you can, rescuing some pitiful elves and living to tell the tale. The game is complex, but fairly easy to map. A word of warning: it isn't easy. As with all Level 9 games, response time is virtually nil, the vocabulary large, and text prolific to say the least.

Adventure Quest has a rather less vague objective: find the Dark Tower and destroy the Demon Lord, Agaliarept, who resides therein. I only completed this game yesterday after a year and a half. The game starts off in the same area as Colossal, so those people who played Colossal will affectionately remember the little brick building etc, etc. However, after navigating the desert, nearly drowning in the underground river, exploring the underwater churchyard, meeting a Balrog on a rocky bridge over a huge chasm, and solving innumerable other tricks, traps and conundrums, you have far more to think about than mere sentimental memories! What is particularly frustrating with Quest is that you are only allowed to carry four objects at a time, so you often have to retrace your steps to collect objects you couldn't take the first time. This is really excruciating in the desert, but I suppose it's the price you have to pay for such a huge amount of objects.

And now, the piece de resistance! Dungeon Adventure has no less than 100 puzzles to solve, over 220 locations and about 100 objects. Even the most experienced adventurer can expect to get fried a few times here, and end up like a stinking chip! Still, rats don't like stinking chips, so you should be all right.

The adventure takes place immediately after Quest, although you don't need to have played Quest to understand what's going on in Dungeon. It is well documented, and, if you go to the right place in the adventure you can get even more precise instructions. Basically though, the object of the game is to ransack the shattered Black Tower, getting out (alive) with as much loot as you can. Level 9 don't hinder you by only letting you carry four items here. You have a rather cleverly designed packing case to carry everything in. It also stops you getting killed. If you thought the other two games were tough - beware. This is the ultimate text only fantasy adventure.

All the Level 9 adventures show that care has gone into the concept and design of the adventures. For instance, you are never killed outright (what is more frustrating than sudden death, back-to-the-beginning adventures?) You are always given three lives, and in Dungeon, you can, theoretically go on for ever. None of their adventures have ever crashed on me, though occasionally the text compressor gets it wrong. Have you ever heard of 'a grate as rusted as y'? Neither had I, until I played Quest. Still these are only minor quibbles, with what must be the best trilogy of adventures on the market at the moment.

Colossal Adventure, Adventure Quest, and Dungeon Adventure are available in many shops, or by mail order from:

Level 9 Computing
Dep. V
229 Hughenden Road
High Wycombe
Bucks. HP13 5PG

They cost £9.90 each, and are worth every penny. If anyone needs help, or a complete map of any of these three, please send 70p to Simon Hollands, Woodside Cottage, Graffham, Petworth, West Sussex. GU28 0PU.


REVIEW BY: Simon Hollands

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 32, Nov 1984   page(s) 44

A sequel to Colossal Adventure, the original mainframe adventure game, and the second of Level 9's Middle Earth trilogy. It is distinguished by its poetic text descriptions and perhaps draws closer to a literary form than any other text adventure.

Although most of the action is set in deserts, mountains, forests and by the side of mysterious rivers, the game makes continual reference to the earlier game both in plot and also vocabulary used. Although there are no graphics in the game Level 9 is one of the few companies which really uses the English language to paint pictures in the imagination.

Position 42/50


Transcript by Chris Bourne

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