Producer: Quicksilva
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Ivan & NDP

Mighty Magus can be best described as an arcade D&D game set in the 30 levels of the Rising Sun Temple. The temple is the haunt of warlocks, wizards and fierce dragons. There is an element of Jet Set Willy in as much as the various platform levels are connected by stairways up or down which you can walk, or jump through to ignore them. The overall object is to descend to the depths to confront your arch enemy, the dragon Fraugy The Fierce, and then escape by returning to the spot at which you commenced the game. There is no fixed exit, and each game resets the entire layout of the temple.

The screens scroll along with the movement of your hero, the Mighty Magus, a graphical cousin to The Alchemist from Imagine's game. On his travels he will encounter many hazards, some less obvious than others. The large nasties can be taken care of either by running away, fighting them or casting spells - you can jump on top of them too. Fighting and spell casting will rely on your strength versus that of the meanie. The floors are dotted with magic squares which may teleport you somewhere you didn't want to go, or knock you backwards. Other squares kill the unwary and some spring lethal traps. Chests and rubbish heaps will yield up various useful and not so useful goodies when they are searched. To the right of the playing area is a status panel with score, lives, power, magic levels and items collected.

COMMENTS

Control keys: preset are A/D left/right, S to search, F to fight, J to jump and 1 - 9 to select spell strength, but the main control keys are also user-definable
Joystick: almost any via UDK
Keyboard play: you have to be quick making up your mind which strength keys to go for sometimes, generally responsive
Use of colour: above average
Graphics: reasonable although a bit on the small side, and the 'bricks' are purposefully confusing
Sound: poor
Skill levels: 1 with progressive difficulty
Lives: 4
Screens: 30 floor levels of scrolling horizontal screens

Quicksilva haven't been very active for quite awhile now and I thought that they may have gone out of existence. Mighty Magus is one of the more complex platform games I've played for a while - more like a Jet Set Willy, but greatly enhanced. It's something of a weird idea to be thrown into dungeons all on your own, but it does add to the atmosphere of the game, with lively monsters ready to rampage against you. Attention to detail is very good and the flaming torches are excellently done, they do look as though they really are burning. One of the ideas I liked is the 'search' function, where an object may look innocent enough, but if you search further, more may be revealed - something to constantly keep your interest. The graphics and colour use is generally very good, although there is not much sound. This game has many levels, that is room levels, not skill levels, although it is obvious to state that it gets more difficult the lower you go down. Mighty Magus is quite original, and although it might resemble Jet Set Willy at first, it is in fact the first real departure in platform games from the JSW clone. I think most people are going to find this an entertaining game

At first sight, without reading the instructions, this game seems to be one of those that is absolutely impossible as you keep walking over traps and getting killed off. But on further examination of the Mighty Magus, I've found that although it is very complex, it is possible to complete. It has nice graphics - a shame some of them are very jumpy - its sound is very poor although there's a good tune. The traps on the floor are very infuriating, only a few kill you like the arrows and the walls closing in on you, the rest just drain you of power. The floor is also very confusing as there are different types of 'brick' with different patterns and they keep changing so you are always jumping over something that turns out to be harmless and often landing on a real trap. l enjoyed playing Mighty Magus as there was a lot of variation in play.

A bit like Imagine's Alchemist was my first thought, but the game is actually very different and much more complicated to play. It relies heavily on the fact that the dungeons are recreated every game, and that the tiny details of the 'brick' floors keep you literally on your toes in case you tread on a trap 'brick' and spring the trap. This can be bewildering at first and then annoying when you think you know what you are doing. But the game is original and engaging and I did find it moderately addictive.

Roger: With a name like a make of German articulated lorry, a chap could almost hope for a new set of platform imagery but it's not to be found here. Sorcery is something we appear to be stuck with. At least this reel of software mystics is competently assembled.

The plot consists of negotiating our wizard-clone hero through thirty scrolling levels of the 'Rising Sun Temple', searching chests and scrabbling through interesting piles of garbage like a folkloric tinker. Spell-casting and fight options are available for defence and advancement as the quest for Fraugy The Fierce continues up, down and across a magical minefield of behaviourally unsporting geography. Traps and nasty surprises abound, whilst witty graphical images portray temporary concussion or funerals faster than the Co-op's cheapest, upon loss of life. Originality is not one of the Magus's strongest character traits but it kept me out of the pub - for a while at least. 3/5 HIT

Ross: There's more sense of adventure than usual in this arcade/adventure, but there's little else to recommend it. And why spoil it with the unpredictable magic squares and the random generation of the playing area? Mighty it's not! 2/5 MISS

Dave: Wot, no joystick option? It's not exactly magic, but the randomly designed playing area makes it much more of a challenge, so even ace arcaders should take some time to crack it. 2/5 HIT

Publisher: Quicksilva
Price: £6.95
Memory: 48K

Hwo the mighty are fallen. Quicksilva, which produced Ant Attack and Fantastic Voyage, has just released a platform and ladders game.

Entitled Mighty Magus, the game is packed with the usual complement of spells, traps, monsters, and dragons.

As the Mighty Magus, you have to descend all 30 levels to the depths of the Rising Sun Temple, battle with monsters en route, avoid dozens of assorted traps and kill your arch-enemy Faugy The Fierce and escape back to your starting point.

The screen scrolls left, right, up and down with staircases leading to each level. Walking along the platform is dangerous in the extreme as they feature hidden traps - each one waiting for the wrong step to hurl you across the screen, make you disappear or to release a flight of poisoned arrows.

Treasure chests are situated throughout the levels which when searched bestow upon you magic which can be used to cast spells to open entrances and jump off stairs.

Mighty Magus is not a difficult game, frustrating perhaps and a far cry from the quality of Fantastic Voyage. The graphics are outdated, unclear and flickery - a pity it was not released a year ago.

Spectrum
Arcade adventure
Quicksilva
£6.95

Magus Delvin is too into matters cosmic to deal with Fraugy the Dragon, who is biting the knights, scrambling the damsels and pillaging the villages. So you, his humble acolyte must penetrate the fire-breather's lair and slay him in his place of power. And get out again.

Quicksilva
£7.99

If it wasn't for one absolutely unforgivable design flaw, then I would give The Mighty Magus an unqualified 'thumbs-up', but as it is, that one flaw spoils the game.

You play the part of the aforesaid Magus. Starting at the topmost level of an underground dungeon, you must penetrate deep into the lowest levels to face your arch enemy, Fraug the Dragon. As you descend, you can move around various sets of stairs and platforms, and use a SEARCH option to look for useful objects along the way. You begin with a certain amount of power and magic which are depleted by falls from platforms and magical combat with the denizens of the dungeon but can be boosted by things you find along the way.

These underground monsters are well animated, though your own movement and the scrolling dungeon layout are fairly jerky. Also, some of the traps on the dungeon floor are quite difficult to avoid as they often look no different from the normal, safe, floor tiles.

I was really enjoying playing this game until the fatal flaw that I mentioned earlier became apparent. The dungeon layout is randomly generated, which is fine as it provides plenty of variation but the drawback to this is that very often you can drop into a dead-end and find yourself with no way out. This means that you simply have to abort and start the game again from the beginning. This, as I said, is an unforgivable oversight, and makes the game incredibly frustrating. Surely some sort of check could have been built into the game to prevent this?

Mighty Magus is (or rather, could be) a very good game, but the 'dead end' syndrome could well result in the cassette being thrown out the window in frustration. It's up to you to decide if you're prepared to risk it.