Producer: Incentive
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Peter Torrance

A touch of the old Blazing Saddles and Little Big Man with this, the first MEDALLION release from INCENTIVE produced with their Graphic Adventure Creator. Peter Torrance is the chap who Quilled those cheapie classics Subsunk and Seabase Delta put out by FIREBIRD, so it will be interesting to see how he performs with this new adventure medium at full-price level.

It's 2am in the saloon bar of an old west town - known as Skintsvllle for good reason, as its inhabitants, including yourself, are short of readies. You are Luke Warm, by both name and nature, as you sip on your tenth and last shot of liquor. Through the smoky atmosphere you make out the rotund outlines of some old-timers sitting in the corner, and presently their voices drift over above the din of the bar. "Yap Jake, the legend I their gold in the grave of their chief, goes that them pesky indians bury I hear that one of the Apache chiefs has just kicked the bean-can. Only trouble is there are some mighty strange powers at work in their territory... " Our chap isn't too keen on the spooky stuff, but is quite excited at the prospect of seeing the glint of gold in his eyes and sets off to find the injun's grave...

Groan. Yes - an irritant is spotted as soon as you start playing. Your input begins straight after the end of the location description (and on the same line). This is not altogether untidy, but what makes it worse is the splitting of words between lines. Groan Number Two is the way the program leaves one or two lines of the previous location description on the top of anew location description when the graphics are on (although this seems to be a GAC trait). All-in-all, there's a slightly scruffy look to this game. The pictures would be considered quite good for a budget release, but when you get to the dizzy heights of £7.95 they don't look so good.

Loading leads you straight into the first frame, where you find yourself in the back of a wagon on a wild open plain. This first part is remarkably straightforward, with a brief and cursory examination of what you see quickly leading onto tangible progress. These early problems are just a little too easily solved for anyone other than a beginner. For example, after your inevitable capture by the indians, simply wearing a blanket gives the guard the creeps as he flees what he regards as a great white spirit. "I'm 'um off!" he screams.

Reading the sign on the totem pole reveals that the indians are out to lunch (or more correctly, out hunting it). This gives you time to explore their cosy little settlement, but you'll encounter your first real difficulty in finding out exactly what the somethin' glitterin' atop the totem pole is. All attempts to dislodge said item with the tomahawk or spirit stick from the medicine man's wigwam come to nothing, as did the obvious attempt to chop the pole down. This isn't the only problem to be resolved in this area: getting the canoe under way in the fast flowing river also requires some thought.

Once you get the wagon going again (it had lost a wheel) there is a large area to the east to explore. Picking up all the items on your journey (and you are allowed to carry a considerable numbs you are then left in the familiar adventure dilemma - which objects are associated with which problems? Objects I can remember include a spirit stick, tomahawk, a bottle of dirty water, a doctor's medicine cure, a hanging rope, a sack, some dirt, and a squaw's handbag. Problems abound in the east, with a skull on a stick guarding the entrance to a mine, a huge eagle on its nest on top of a rock face, and the painful problem of negotiating the hot desert sand without burning your feet.

The adventure has some fine touches, like when you throw the dirt on the fire which gives off puffs of smoke. Examining the smoke reveals your total lack of understanding of smoke language - "Wish I knew Smoke Code" is the amusing riposte.

The Legend of Apache Gold is an entertaining adventure which is far from difficult. Both experienced players and novices would find much to do and explore in this land of the indians.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: not difficult, easy start
Graphics: reasonable
Presentation: blinding bright white background
Input facility: basically verb/noun
Response: reasonable, not as fast as Quilled games

FAX BOX
Title: The Legend of Apache Gold
Publisher: Incentive
Price: £7.95

The first of Incentive's releases on its Medallion label, Apache Gold was written using GAC by Peter Torrance, of Seabase Delta and Subsunk fame. Also bad pun fame, for instead of playing Ed Lines, you're now playing Luke Warme, the dimeless cowboy who hears the legend that Apache gold is to be found in an Indian burial ground. Any resemblance to the real west is purely accidental, as Luke is given the benefit of eternal life - yep, folks, an adventure game in which you can't die! Why did no-one think of it before?

You start this enchanted existence in the back of your wagon in a wide open plain. Ah, just fill your lungs with the rich smell of the tall wild grass... and the horse droppings. In your wagon you can see a bag of oats and some reins, though you're strangely not allowed to get the bag. You can feed the horse and flick the reins, soon finding yourself attacked by Apaches and bunged in a wigwam, with only one exit and an Indian guard who's easily scared off. Then you explore the Indian camp, finding such indigenous (good word, eh?) objects as a tomahawk, a pipe of peace and a squaw's handbag. A handbag? Well, you do get a chance to show it off later.

The first few problems are fairly easy, but as you might expect from this author's previous titles, there's a lot of humour about as well. I found a fairly friendly eagle at the top of a rock formation, and for no logical reason tried giving it a jar of Doctor Dodgy's Miracle Cure, that I'd already discovered was rather a thick viscous liquid. Now I'm left with an extremely annoyed eagle with sticky wings. Examine a fern and you discover it's a peculiar Indian variety: a tomtomato plant.

The game's fun if not stunning, though it's slightly spoiled by lazy screen layout which leaves odd letters and even full stops on their own at the start of a line. At budget price it would be a must, at full price its more of a maybe.

Label: Incentive
Author: Peter Torrance
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

Legend of Apache Gold is one of two adventures written using the Graphic Adventure Creator by incentive Software.

For anyone who hasn't read the review of Winter Wonderland (elsewhere this issue). Incentive's GAC is their version of Gilsoft's Quill.

Apache Gold is at least reasonably original. I can only think of one other adventure off hand that is set in the Wild West. But at the same time, it's a little too regimented. Things are very neat. In an adventure like this, you get the idea that someone has sat down and worked out the best solution. There's nothing really spontaneous or particularly inventive about it.

The story is as follows: you, Luke Warme, are a cowboy down on your luck. Hearing of a legend that says that the Apaches bury gold with their dead chiefs, and knowing that one has just died, you decide to do a quick bit of grave robbing. Not, I would have thought, particularly heroic, but then Luke seems hardly John Wayne material.

So here you are in your dusty wagon. The first problem is to get the horse moving: the second is to escape the Apaches who turn up. Actually, I'm not sure that you are supposed to escape them, as you get transported to their encampment remarkably quickly. Plus, it's very easy to escape the one guard they've left behind. This Indian at least seems more like one from the Beano than any real threat.

You then find, much to your surprise that the Indians have gone out hunting lunch. You know this because they have left you a note telling you. This means that you are at liberty to explore the encampment and the surrounding countryside - a place of magic, mystery and some very strange furniture.

The game plays well enough, and the graphics are OK, but there's nothing really exciting here. The graphics are a bit repetitive too - rather too many wigwam interiors, I thought.

SUPPLIER: Incentive Software
MACHINE: CBM 64/Spectrum 48K/Amstrad CPC
PRICE: £7.95

Legend has it that when an Indian chief dies, his gold is with him. Down at the Skintsville saloon, rumour says one such has just kicked the bean can. Not knowing where your next drink is coming from, you, Luke Warme (second cousin twice removed from Ed Lines) decide to go in search of the grave.

Aboard your wagon, with a deft flick of the reins, your faithful horse trots off clip, clop, down the trail. Unfortunately, some Apaches are waiting in ambush, and before long you find yourself in a wigwam, with an Indian guard between you and the open flap of the tent.

Escaping from your captors (well, of course you do!) you find the settlement is deserted - all the Apaches have gone off to hunt for lunch. This is. convenient, for there're some mightily useful things lying around in the other tents. The snag is, your wagon's busted.

Eventually you hit the trail again, and start the exploration proper. Near a water hole lies the town of Jakesville, inhabited, it seems, entirely by Jakes.

What secret property does the tree hold - and can you exhume Wyatt Burp? What use is the eagle out in the desert, and bow can you enter the mine?

Back at the settlement everything is not yet settled, though, for there is something strange at the top of the totem pole, which could, perhaps, help with the mine... But how do you get it? How do you use the tom tom, and what will put paid to the croc whose beady eyes never stray from the handy canoe?

This is a graphic adventure, with a WORDS/PICTURES option, although there is not a picture to go with every location. The GAC problem of disappearing text behind the graphic has been largely overcome by having been deliberately written to fit the text area, although dropping a number of objects in the same place can cause problems even then.

The vocabulary is adequate, and response, with pictures, fairly fast. On the Amstrad version I played, you can also type ahead, which is useful when wanting to make a number of predetermined moves.

Written by Peter Torrance I enjoyed it more than Peter's previous efforts, Subsunk and Seabase Delta. While retaining humour, the THANKS BUT NO THANKS message (thankfully) been replaced with the rather more subdued THANK YOU KINDLY... BUT NO SIREE!

This is the first adventure released by Incentive Software written using Incentive's own Graphic Adventure Creator.

It is on the special Medallion label, reserved for "the very best adventures..." using the GAC. It is certainly the best GAC'd adventure I have yet seen, with a range of problems from basic to head-scratching. Recommended as a good lighthearted game - pity about the price!

Spectrum 48K/CBM64
Incentive Software
Text Adventure
£7.95

We have seen a few adventures written on the GAC but this is the first of two new releases on the new Incentive adventure label Medallion, the other being Winter Wonderland which I was hoping to review but had loading problems with. Apache Gold , written by Pete Torrance, the man responsible for baffling us with Seabase Delta and Subsunk, sets you firmly among ancient tribal burial grounds, hot dry deserts and other equally disturbing locations as you endeavour to find if there is any truth in the legend of Apache Gold.

In your trusty old wagon, a quick flick of reins and off you trot into the wild west but it is not long before a band of unfriendly Apaches attack and take you prisoner. After solving an infantile problem you make your escape and travel to the nearest town, there to collect sundry items which will help you to progress further towards your goal.

Having played and enjoyed Torrance's earlier games I was a little disappointed with this. The problems are very basic and do not take any figuring out. The graphics, which were very good in the previous releases, are of the type we saw in very early adventures and do little to add anything to the game.

If Incentive intends to make a name in the adventure market, releasing games like this at top prices will do little to enhance its reputation. At £1.99 the game would have been passable but at £7.95 I feel many people will pass.

Medallion Graphic Adventures (Incentive)
£7.95 each

These two adventures are reviewed together because their faults are similar; and they're the first I've seen written with Incentive's Graphic Adventure Creator, so are they better than your average Quilled piece?

Apache Gold sees you as cowboy Luke Warm (groan), in search of the treasure buried with an Indian Chief. The writer is Peter Torrance, described as a "fantasy author" on the packaging; in fact a credit arising from his previous successes, Firebird cheapies Subsunk and Seabase Delta. Winter Wonderland casts you as an anthropologist - original at least - who must investigate a Tibetan civilisation, which has never been in contact with the rest of mankind, yet developed at the same rate.

Immediately you notice the graphics - appropriately so considering the utility's name - which are faster, bolder and much bigger than in Quilled games, and remain on screen rather than scroll up. The pics are jolly enough in Apache Gold, but poor and repetitive in Winter Wonderland. In neither game are they consistently up to the design standard of The Hobbit from four years ago! The text window is too small, with no border separating it from the graphics. Because everything scrolls out of sight so soon, you have to keep LOOKing, but this causes the picture to draw again on top of itself, with a resulting, unnecessary delay. Text display is black on white (or on blue, deeper into Winter Wonderland), with no redesigned character set. Combined with slightly sluggish printing times, this means that the games don't appear anything like as slick as, for example, The (Quilled) Colour Of Magic.

An advantage of GACed games over Quilled ones is the editing facilities: you can enter commands in upper and lower case punctuate, and use cursor keys. Also, these games sometimes require sentences with more than two key words. However, despite their technical superiority, the actual adventures are fairly primitive by today's standards. Description in both is below par, dull in Winter Wonderland and simple almost childish, in Apache Gold. Torrance STILL has an ANNOYING habit of breaking into CAPITALS for no APPARENT reason, and PUNCTUATION problems. Neither game is particularly atmospheric or innovative - just fairly traditional puzzle solving, marred in Winter Wonderland by "instant death locations", a dumb idea which should have died out aeons ago. Torrance gives clues which are laughable for their lack of subtlety. Both games have limited vocabularies and a disappointing lack of responses. And the instructions are too skimpy - nothing on tape storage, or (in Winter Wonderland) on how to communicate with other characters.

In short, what we have here are two unremarkable adventures, which could have been written a year or two ago. They would make ideal, indeed particularly entertaining, budget games. However, eight pounds is a ridiculous price for such mediocrity, so steer clear. What I find surprising is that these were the best of the many games Incentive were sent (Medallion is Incentive's own label for such games). Evidently there are no hordes of potential McNeills and Austins out there - unless you can prove otherwise...