REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Waydor
by David Brown [2]
IMS Software
1984
Crash Issue 9, Oct 1984   page(s) 67,68

Producer: IMS
Retail Price: £
Author: David Brown

Waydor, a graphic adventure written first on the Oric, has a lot going for it. It has full-screen, well-designed graphics at every location. The plot and logic of this adventure is strong but the lack of supporting documentation, and the theme this normally creates, gives rise to the situation where you would like to recommend the game but you cannot quite remember its name. It's not so much that the story and theme are forgettable, more they just didn't exist in the first place. Compare this with Sherlock with all its rich mental imagery.

The object of your adventure is to find eight treasures and to return them to their proper place. This place transpires to be a small wooden hut since it houses a notice, 'Put Treasures Here'. Your endeavour to find the treasures is fairly easy apart from (as always) one or two occasions when the game falls off the end of the map.

You set off in very inhospitable countryside beside a castle surrounded by a moat. The way things are in adventures the drawbridge to the castle is up and you won't get it down until much later. Moving east is the most profitable early on where, in quick succession, you can fruitfully enter the now famous wooden hut, workshop and blacksmith's forge. However, it isn't much further before almost every turn brings you to a 'Clearing in the Forest'. This wouldn't be so bad, but this just happens to be the slowest graphic and you soon start to dread turning a new corner should you see those trees. I'm surprised the author didn't consider this an irritation at the design stage - after all, no-one plays an adventure more than the author himself.

This adventure sports very fast graphics and a good response time and so the adventure flows at a steady, fast pace. Apart from its friendliness and no-nonsense character what greatly aids this ease of use is the clear text layout. A standard format at every location begins with a concise, but always interesting, description followed by clearly marked Visible Items and Obvious Exits. The items are most fully described in ways that lead you logically to possible solutions to the problems that confound your journey.

Where this adventure really shows others the way is in its use of full size, very fast graphics. On entering a new locality the picture appears almost instantaneously, remarkable when you consider their size and quality. When the picture is complete you are told to press the SPACE key. Perhaps it may have been better to press the ENTER key here as it is difficult to think of the SPACE key in this way, i.e., as a control button. Further, perhaps the flashing sign on each picture reminding you to press the key is superfluous and soon becomes nothing more than a distraction. One last word on the graphics; impeccably, some of the later pictures depicting the castle are the best.

Getting beyond technical considerations the charm of the game lies in its atmospheric plot, informative descriptions and comment, and the powerful implementation of a command that adds immensely to any adventure - EXAMINE. Without a powerful EXAMINE, locations and the objects within them become unreal and hazy but this adventure really shows how a strong EXAMINE can enrich a game.

Almost every item in the adventure lends itself open to scrutiny. See how an abandoned graveyard comes to life with this command. EXAMINE GRAVES brings forth, 'They're mostly overgrown with weeds and there's only one tombstone left standing.' EXAMINE TOMBSTONE?, why not indeed. You get 'There's an inscription on it - Unwise he who moves my bones, wise be he who moves my stones'. Naturally you move the tombstone whereupon you hear a noise. LOOKing at the location again shows you a new Visible Item - an open tombstone with a secret passage. Note how an examine command has led you on deeper into the narrative. This is adventuring at its best - a million miles from the now hopefully archaic string of puzzles that marked the early adventures.

In even the best adventures there's room for improvement; in this case no I or L abbreviations for INVENTORY or LOOK. Also, when mazes, which can prove over-difficult for a beginner, are forced into adventures, well, to actually call this perennial irritation a maze! Frankly I have never been in 'a maze' but I have no doubts as to the confusing nature of New Town roads or to the success attributable to the torturous paths and well-hidden exits in large department stores!

Waydor is an excellent adventure. It has super large, quick graphics, an atmospheric plot and friendly vocabulary. Highly recommended, even more so for a beginner.

Difficulty: Quite easy
Graphics: On every location, good
Presentation: Good
Input Facility: verb/noun
Response: Fast
Special Features: None


REVIEW BY: Derek Brewster

Atmosphere9/10
Vocabulary8/10
Logic9/10
Debugging10/10
Overall Value8/10
Summary: General Rating: Very good.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 35, Feb 1985   page(s) 32

WAYDOR
IMS Software
Memory: 48K
Price:

According to the instructions, the purpose in Waydor is simply to collect a set of treasures and return them to their proper place. The game is set in a fairly undefined world of villages, castles and rolling hills and there are the obligatory underground labyrinths. A few monsters are thrown in for good measure.

The game uses location graphics, which add little to the 'plot' and you are constantly treated to a redrawing of the picture if you enter Look.

The lack of any story line means that it is difficult to feel involved in the proceedings and there is little sense of playing a role. Mechanically searching, examining and moving is all very well but the process tends to come fairly automatically to most experienced adventurers. If you are to feel part of a world and a process of discovery you will expect to get detailed description and scene setting. Don't look to Waydor for this.


REVIEW BY: John Gilbert

Gilbert Factor3/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Micro Adventurer Issue 17, Mar 1985   page(s) 38,39

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £7.50
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: IMS Software, 143-145 Uxbridge Road, London W13 9AV

I have to admit that this was a surprise - and a nice one, at that. After loading (in the Spectrum version, using LOAD "" CODE, which we don't often see nowadays), it is obvious that this is a good solidly traditional adventure. It includes illustrations at each location, and these are almost instantaneously and very charmingly drawn, too.

Unfortunately, the graphic is presented at each and every visit, there is no facility for switching off the pictures.

Although the pictures are rather pretty, on the other side of the coin, the text descriptions of the locations are rather sparse, so there is not a lot of atmosphere.

As I said, this is an adventure in the good old sense of lurking monsters, dark caves and castles with raised drawbridges.

The thing about traditional adventures is that an experienced adventurer will have come across most of the problems before, and will know how to handle most of them. So, there is that raised drawbridge, the vampire which will bite you unless you have first drunk the holy water, the keys in one location and, to and behold! a locked gate in the next.

There is the empty oil lamp and then - what's this? Oh goody, a pool of oil! The lamp is good for about 30-some turns before running out, and you can return again to the pool - but only once, so be prudent in your use of the lit lamp. Fortunately, the dark locations, while being remote, are interconnected (this is where the keys come in handy).

There is also the traditional maze, illustrated at each step, but it's a doddle. I'm the world's worst maze-solver, and quake with fear when confronted with any example of this most useful weapon in the adventure-writer's arsenal - but I solved this one in two seconds flat (just go down as far as you can go and then south; I couldn't believe it was this simple at first, but a second and third attempt proved it to be so).

Eight treasures are here for the picking and must all be returned to a hut near the start for scoring.

The first two treasures are, unbelievably, in adjacent locations, guarded by the good old vampire.

Although you live for a little while after getting bitten, it is not long enough to get your treasure back to the hut. Yes, the next time, you drink of the Holy Water, but this will only protect you once - after that, you get bitten yet again as the vampire comes back for more blood.

Luckily, there is a Save-game routine, but this seemed to go haywire (on my copy) after a while. Apart from this bug, there was another that would eventually stop proceedings with an "Out of Memory" error message.

Waydor is a very good introduction to adventures - it's easily mapped, with lots of useful objects lying around not too far from where they need to be used.

I said that it was a surprise, and this is because it is deeper and more inventive than would at first appear. However, for the experienced adventurer, the problems are not hard enough to give more than a few moments' diversion.


REVIEW BY: Tony Bridge

Transcript by Chris Bourne

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