Producer: Clwyd Adventure Software
Retail Price: £7.95
Author:

A new company of keen adventurers, this one, set up to produce challenging adventures which keep to their own critical standards and provide value for money. There's only one thing wrong with the company's stated philosophy (ignoring the fact that this game is nothing special just for the moment) - the price of £7.95 is far and away above what other similar teams are asking for similar standard games.

In the middle of the 21st Century, after years of patient research, Hugo Skoltz, a brilliant scientist, finally succeeded in producing an interstellar drive unit theoretically capable of propelling a ship through space faster than the speed of light. The first ship to be fitted with the Skoltz drive was loaded up with a cargo of test animals and despatched under computer control to a destination eleven light years from Earth.

The test ship had been programmed to remain in the target area for 24 hours and then return, so the World settled down to wait for its expected reappearance, around 14 months after the departure. When the ship returned, its mission completed after only fifteen days, the human race now realised the shackles chaining it to Earth were gone. Man's age-old dream of conquering the stars was about to become a reality.

The race to build the new starships began. With the rapid advances in technology over the previous fifty years, the techniques required were already available and Governments, Private Corporations, in fact anyone who could raise the huge sums required, all became engrossed in Mankind's latest adventure. One by one, and manned now by human crews, the ships slipped away to explore the stars.

Yet the flow was not one-way. The great ships that now departed the Solar System with their cargoes of human seed did not return empty. The wealth of a hundred worlds flowed back to the Mother Planet and Earth became a world of plenty. Although a few specimens of alien life had already found their way to Earth it was not until 2130 that the idea of a vast zoo filled with such creatures was first conceived. Billed as the Futurezoo it met man's craving for ever more bizarre forms of entertainment but then, in the vicinity of a small and largely unregarded solar system, Mankind met the Senissa, a strange alien race of a similar technological level as Mankind.

Against the background of the ever-increasing threat of interstellar conflict, the two races signed a peace treaty during which the Great Seal of Senissa, a most revered artefact, was handed over to the Earthlings as a lasting tribute to the treaty. The Earth Ambassador took the next available flight home, a freighter transporting alien life-forms to Futurezoo. As unloading began on Earth a freak accident released the cargo to roam free aboard the ship. It was during the investigation into the accident that the Security Forces were alerted to the fact that one of the creatures destined for the Futurezoo had taken the Great Seal of Senissa. As head of the investigation you are the one now responsible for the Seal's safe return.

Being a sensible chappie you decide to begin your investigation at the Futurezoo. An inventory shows you are wearing a warm coat and a nearby robot is selling tickets. A shrewd player will have these swapped in no time to ensure access to the zoo grounds. No sooner have you entered the grounds when another passing robot gives you a raffle-ticket (all these robots seem a trifle careless with their tickets) which no doubt will be put to good use later. Sadly, it won't be long before you meet another robot who isn't so friendly. It man-handles you out of the park whenever you trample on the flower borders or transgress (however unwittingly) the park's rules. Getting back in isn't an easy matter either. This is not the only danger as you wander round collecting the torch, spade, red fish and (totally unyielding) step ladders as a trip through the carnivorous plants building will soon show.

One of the better aspects of this dame are the wonderfully evocative location descriptions, one of which runs like this: 'You are in the centre of a wide paved plaza, near a fountain which sprays water high into the air. Visitors sit at low tables nearby and several small children scamper after a ball thrown by a patient robot-nurse maid. To the west a row of red and yellow booths stands at the edge of the plaza'.

Futurezoo is a game which has been well presented for review but sadly the adventure is not quite up to scratch. In text-only adventures, the memory released from the chore of forming pictures can be expended on providing a deeper game with friendly vocabulary and atmosphere-creating EXAMINE and LOOK commands. Unfortunately Futurezoo has neither a friendly vocabulary, nor an EXAMINE command worth mentioning, and therefore can only be described as disappointing. The player feels alienated from the game as not much beyond 'Sorry, I don't understand. Try some different words' can be achieved in any reasonable length of time, and trying any other words doesn't seem to do anything. The lack of a HELP option just adds to the feeling of playing a most unhelpful adventure.

Only having the main compass directions (N, E, S, W), and using a bright yellow background to the black print (like trying to read the print on a light bulb), with a conspicuous lack of proof reading are not damning features on their own, but put alongside the unfriendly vocabulary, in what is a text-only adventure, then the evidence for the prosecution becomes overbearing.

Futurezoo is available from CUNYD ADVENTURE SOFTWARE, 14 Snowdon Avenue, Bryn-y-Baal, Mold, Clywd CH7 6SZ.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: reasonably easy
Graphics: none
Presentation: poor, no highlights of inventory etc
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: it's that quick Quill again!

All manner of creatures rear their ugly heads in Futurezoo from Clwyd Adventure Software, 14 Snowdon Avenue, Bryn-y-Baal, Nr Mold, Clwyd CH7 6SZ. At £7.95. It's a bit pricey because there's lots of good budget stuff around, but it does come with a bookley and is a two-part game, though it's text only. The text is good, though, with detailed descriptions of the various life-forms in this 22nd century Whipsnade. Most of them could do with a bit more supervision, however, as they all seem out to make you extinct before you can get on with the task of tracking down the Great Seal of Senissa, for reasons it would take ages to explain. The Great Seal of Senissa is not the type that swallows fish by the bucketful; rather it is a 'revered artefact', or so it says here. This game would be quite buyable at £1.99, but as it is I'll look forward to future releases at cheaper prices from the Welsh adventurers.

SUPPLIER: Clwyd Adventure Software
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £7.95

Man has reached out to the stars and found many inhabited planets, but none with intelligent life. In the year 2130 it is decided to set up a zoo of alien life-forms for a population always seeking bizarre new entertainments.

Then man encountered the Senissa, an alien intelligent race, from a Planet some 200 light-years distant, in signing a treaty the Senissa presented Earth with Seal (no, not one of those things, with flippers that swims!) to be put on display.

But when it comes to unloading, the precious Seal has gone missing - carried off by one of the strange creatures. Your job is to find and retrieve it.

This is a promising scenario, with overtones of Strange Odyssey. But this text-only adventure, in two parts, is Quilled, and not very well, at that.

All too often comes the reply YOU CAN'T, with no indication of why. Have you not the correct object? Are you in the wrong place? Or are both words recognised, but the action invalid? There's just no way of knowing.

Many words so unrecognised, and the number seems greater than it is, due to the YOU CAN'T feature. Although EXAMINE is a valid word, I have not yet found anything that CAN be examined. This, given a subject as imaginative as an alien zoo, fails to exploit the full potential of the scenario.

The first problem, of course, is getting into the zoo. But the solution doesn't come anywhere near the classic 'entering the game' problems, as found, for example, Pyramid of Doom, and Mystery Fun House.

Clwyd offer a Clueline postal service, entitling purchasers to ask two written questions during each of the six months following date of purchase.

Clwyd Adventure Software
£7.95

Intergalactic peace depends on the recovery of The Great Seal of Senissa (an artefact, not an animal) before anyone notices it's missing. Unfortunately it is lost in the zoo of the future, which is made up of strange alien beasts from man's many planetary colonies. Guess who has to find it?

Futurezoo is Quilled, text-only and covers two sides of the tape. Some of the description is good, but it's enormously variable and in places is terribly dull. Vocabulary is very restricted: no EXAMINE, SEARCH, WAIT. LOOK or HELP amongst many others which should nowadays be standard. The program allows you to do very little: most of the time is spent just wandering around. You seem only able to do what is absolutely necessary for the solution: a simple example is that you cannot SWIM in any of the numerous pools and rivers in the game (the word is not understood). The problems are infrequent, uninspired and difficult due to the impossible vocabulary. The movement system is incoherent and unrealistic. Presentation is poor.

Futurezoo would only make a passable budget game with these faults: but its price is a death blow. The higher than usual packaging quality for a small company probably accounts for the ridiculous cost: at EIGHT POUNDS this is actually more expensive that some Level 9 games, as well as other far better products, and is hopelessly out of its league. I liked the plot but otherwise disappointing.