Producer: Level 9
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code
Author: David Williamson & Pete Austin

After an Emerald Isle comes a Red Moon and I've spent about a week kicking my heels, or to be more precise, a red balloon around the house waiting for Level 9's latest masterpiece of competent, commercial programming to drop through my letter box. (The red balloon, with Red Moon written on it, was a piece of slick promotion from the canny Austin team which arrived some time before the actual game). And the verdict? - I can keep a balloon aloft for several minutes without tiring - longer if I first fill it with helium. Oh!! It's the game you want to know about? - oh, well, that's very absorbing too!

Let's try that one again - and the verdict? - well, it's another humdinger and a dead ringer for popular acclaim. The type-ahead is marvellous having been refined to enable you to go way ahead of the program without hardly looking up. The speed of the whole thing seems much more up-tempo than Emerald Isle - you can really whizz through this one. Combat is an essential element with weapons and armoury affording protection but the major new theme is one of magic, or Magik as it is called in this game, with numerous spells to add that little bit of spice. Indeed, Level 9 call Red Moon their first magical adventure.

With this game Level 9 have laid all that science future stuff to one side and produced a more fantasy/mythical monsters sort of environment. The story too, is mainstream fantasy adventureland.

An old storyteller addresses a crowd in a marketplace. She tells a tale of how once their moon was not dim but glowed with a cold crimson light. After many battles with the sun, the moon became pale and ashen and its light had little power. The all important Magik faded with the moon. Mythical beasts, which once ventured abroad by day, were restricted to the night, and more recently, to the full moon. Something had to be done to stop Magik failing altogether. And so it was that the Red Moon Crystal was made as a new source of Magik. While too weak to illuminate the world it did illuminate the kingdom from its position in the Moon Tower in Baskalos. Sadly, the moon crystal was stolen and Baskalos almost degenerated into barbarism. The story of how one brave magician recovered the crystal and saved the country is the story enacted by the player in this game.

Loading up Red Moon the presentation is up to the same high standard of Emerald Isle, though the scrolling text with no gaps or colour changes to distinguish between prompts, input and descriptions looks just a little cluttered. However, this is a small niggle for such a well turned out game. As I've said, the type-ahead, allowing input while the picture forms, or for that matter, while the program works on anything, is super - not only entertaining but surprisingly useful. The need to type in only the first three letters of a verb or noun ensures this speed never flags.

The structure of the plot constantly places you in the rather familiar bind of having to drop something in order to pick up something; you could almost say in the time honoured fashion. As ever, deciding which object to drop is far from easy and often entails retracing steps. However, the game makes amends by politely offering many lives before the player has to resort to starting a new game - a super friendly gesture to the battle-weary adventurer.

As you might expect in a Level 9 game the location descriptions are long, detailed and superbly crafted. Take this one which appears early on: 'You are on a grassy mound which rises a few metres above a sea of waving grass. The plain seems to go on forever, broken only by three landmarks: a small, steeply pointed volcanic mountain to the north; a thin, marble tower to the southwest; and a wide forest to the east. Red flowers cover the mound, perfuming the air with a smell of magic.Exits are north to a volcanic outcrop, east to a wide, flat grassy plain, south to a ruined stone house and west to a wide flat grassy plain.' The ruined stone house mentioned here seems an ideal place to cache your loot.

Combat and Magik are themes which wn throughout the game. Combat involves you pitting your strength represented by hit points against your assailant's, whether rat, guardian or cloaked statue or whether aided or abetted by armoury such as swords, daggers and magical cloaks. The combat routines are somewhat imposed upon the game to the extent that a fallen combatant cannot be examined or play any further part in the game (excluding, that is, the ghost of the rat which comes back to fight again). Having slain the rat EXAM RAT gives 'You can't see an enormous rat!'. Now that I've mentioned the examine command it should be noted that in this respect this game is somewhat atypical compared to other Level 9 games. Examine only seems to work when barking up the right tree - otherwise the range of responses is well down on the norm, although a few funny replies survive nonetheless.

The Magik is an integral part of Red Moon. To cast a spell the format CAST 'spell name optional target' is used, eg CAST ESCAPE or CAST SCOOP NORTH. To cast a spell you must possess the focus for it and the objects needed are scattered liberally throughout the adventure. For example, to cast ESCAPE you need the dulcimer, a porcussion instrument struck with a pair of hammers or a goose quill, while the SNOOP spell, which allows you to look into a nearby room, requires a pearl.

Red Moon is a highly competent adventure program which neatly walks the tightrope between absorbing plot and commercial, memory-guzzling colourful graphics. It displays many features to ensure this game keeps Level 9 at the top - the superb type-ahead, friendly input, imaginative graphics and long, descriptive prose. The combat routines and Magik spells add much to the player's interest but where this game really excels is in its storyline; as the game unfolds it becomes more and more clear a great deal of thought has gone into its construction. Red Moon is computer entertainment at its best.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: a long adventure which is quite easy to play
Graphics: on every location, generally good
Presentation: good choice of colours but text cramped
Input facility: some way beyond verb/noun
Response: reasonably fast
Special features: type-ahead allows program to always accept input regardless

How do they do it? It seems that every game Level 9 brings out is better than the last. This is their third truly graphical adventure and it's easily the most brilliant yet. There are, hold your breath, over 200 piccies and although you can turn them off if you want to race through at top speed, it hardly makes a difference with this game. You can even type in your next instruction while the pictures are being drawn.

Your aim in the game is to track down and take back the Red Moon Crystal. The text is as descriptive as ever and there's the usual sprinkling of Level 9's wacky humour.

As you may have gathered, I reckon this is a pretty magic game but it also has the added attraction of real Magik. So, in addition to the usual commands, there are a number in the format, CAST XXXX. Now, you can teleport, locate objects, look into nearby rooms and so on.

This game will occupy adventurers with a wide range of skills - the beginner will have plenty to explore without becoming too frustrated, while hardened head-bangers will find plenty to frustrate them!

If I were to rate Red Moon on a scale of one to a hundred this would be up there in the nineties. Go on, treat your friends to a quiet week or two!

Publisher: Level 9
Price: £6.95
Memory: 48K

If the tribulations of the Spanish seaside are just too much, you may decide to immerse yourself in the cool magic of Red Moon, Level 9's new graphic adventure.

Long ago, when the moon was red, Magik was powerful and all-embracing. Then the moon grew colder and greyer and the arts of darkness became more difficult and obscure. In time, Magik failed and the warlocks and sorcerers met to remedy their loss.

They created the Red Moon Crystal and placed it in the Moon Tower in the land of Baskalos. Thus did Baskalos became the centre and heart of Magik and the other arts of civilisation.

One day, though, the Crystal was stolen and Baskalos nearly collapsed into barbarism and chaos. Then a magician came who recovered it and saved his world from fear and eternal darkness ...

Baskalos is a world of reclusive and dangerous sorcerers who dwell in mist-shrouded castles, unscalable towers or endless networks of caverns beneath the volcano torn landscape. Here were once dragons and may be still and giants beat out runestrong swords in subterranean smithies.

As usual with Level 9 the game is big, with over 200 locations to explore. Many of those have graphic illustrations of the scenes and the descriptions are atmospheric.

The pictures appear relatively fast but will not interfere with your text entry, as you can carry on typing as they draw. They are pretty enough in that impressionistic style Level 9 has adopted. If they do get in your way you can dispose of them simply by asking for 'Words'.

It's always debatable as to whether the sheer volume of graphics affects the text interpreter and there were occasions when I felt that the Examine function could have been more informative about objects or locations. The detail in the descriptions does balance that, though.

As befits a world where Magik is all, you have the opportunity of casting up to a dozen different spells to deal with many threatening situations. To cast a particular spell you must be in possession of an object which acts as its focussing point.

If, for instance, you own a certain pearl you can 'Cast Snoop North' to look into a room to your north. A dagger will allow you to 'Cast Zap' and magically attack an enemy, and a dulcimer will help you to teleport to and from the start point, thus escaping some fatal peril.

Combat, also can be undertaken - but make sure you have some sort of weapon and armour first. At the beginning you have 50 'hit points' which will be depleted by battle. Hit points are also used up when you cast spells, so be sparing with Magik and fight only when you really have to. Special objects, such as rune swords, appear to increase your ration of points but they may be costly to acquire.

One other cautionary note - iron has always been known as a specific against magic and its presence in a location will reduce or totally nullify the effect of your spell-casting. When I was underground in the lair of Ziix the Magician I found it impossible to cast proper spells despite dropping every iron object I had collected. Are the caverns iron-ore bearing? Only time and yet more effort will tell.

Be sure of one thing; the solution to Red Moon is no easy linear progression from task to task. You will have to work hard to discover the significance of many objects.

Red Moon comes at the same price as the earlier Emerald Isle which Level 9 claimed was easier than their higher priced adventures. I suppose it all depends what you mean by easy!

"Once upon a time, when the moon was still red, there lived a magician. He, or she, for you can never be quite sure when sorcery is involved, was not the best magician in the world. But it was already the age of failing powers, when simple spells worked best. This is the tale of how that magician kept Magik alive."

Another near classic storyline has been manipulated and turned into an excellent adventure by the Level 9 crew.

This adventure concerns a time when Magik was still rife in the world, a time when the moon was red and idled the plains of earth with a mystical radiance.

Unfortunately, the moon has since lost its splendour, and Magik has faded from the earth. A few magicians, though, constructed the Moon Crystal, which radiates Magik all around Baskalos, but it has been stolen and it is your task to find it and replace it in its cradle in the Moon Tower.

The use of Magik is necessary to complete various parts of the game, and you are thus equipped with a number of spells, and a list of their functions.

For example, to use the FIND spell you need a lamp, or the Magik has no point to focus.

It is well known that iron prevents the use of Magik, and this point has not been overlooked either.

The adventure hots up when you find yourself inside a cave system which leads inside an abandoned castle. As you enter the pothole, something hisses SATARH and, going down to investigate, I found myself face to face with giants, the wizard Zux (who is quite a coward) and an enormous rat.

As with all the latest Level 9 adventures, this one contains graphics for all locations and, considering there are over 200 locations, that makes for a lot of pictures!

With so many of them you might expect the text to be somewhat limited, but it is more than adequate. The quality of the graphics is fairly high, too, although they do tend to become somewhat repetitive.

This game MUST rate as the best adventure I have played this year. It is streets ahead of Level 9's previous games, and they are good enough! I can't wait to see what they will produce when they start writing games for disk users!

Various
£6.95
Level 9 Computing

The day a new adventure from those Quest masters at Level 9 arrives is always a red letter day in my calendar. Red Moon, their very latest text and graphics fantasy, maintains their high standard and will bring much pleasure to their legions of fans.

Red Moon signals a departure from Level 9's earlier themes - it is their first adventure to have a purely magical theme and also features a combat system based on hit points.

The quest is set in a time when sorcery fills the air, when strange creatures roam the land and when fabulous treasure is there for the finding.

In this tale, you must try to recover the stolen Red Moon Crystal, the source of all Magic. You begin on a wide grassy plain. Over to the north, a smouldering volcano beckons. Looking east, a deep dark pothole calls for investigation. Nearby, a ruined lunar temple and a large lake entices.

Careful exploration brings quick rewards and should see you gaining entrance to an enormous castle. At some point you'll come across So9 the Newtling. So9's role may not be immediately obvious but at least the program tells you what a newtling is. Young and mischievous, newtlings are the offspring of dragons but lack much of the power and wisdom of their parents.

As well as recovering the Red Moon Crystal, there are nine treasures to be collected along the way. There are 12 spells available to you, 10 of which also require the possession of a certain object before they are effective.

For example, you must have a dagger when you cast the zap spell (attack enemies magically). Other spells include bounce (reverse fall), strong (become stronger), magic (tell if an object is magic), extinguish (put out fire) and snoop (look into nearby room).

Every one of the 208 plus locations is described both textually and graphically. The text descriptions are fulsome and atmospheric, the graphics (which can be toggled on and off) simple but fast and attractive. Please note that the Atari and Memotech versions are text only.

Level 9 Computing
£6.95

Hello, you say, what's an adventure doing in the arcade reviews? Simple, I reply, it arrived too late for Brian's section and was too good to leave until next issue.

I HATE Level 9. Why? The reason is simple, every time they bring out a new adventure I get so absorbed in it that I neglect my work, eventually I have to leave it and then never get round to completing it. I have not managed to succeed in any of their games yet.

Level 9 have so far concentrated on unusual scenarios for their adventures and have gain ed a reputation for not only being good but also for being different. Red Moon is their first Magical/Traditional theme and as such it sets a new standard for this type of program. It is hard to define what makes it so good, could it be the quickly drawn pictures for each of the 200 + locations? Or the atmosphere created by the literate text? Or perhaps the well designed and created storyline?

I certainly find the speed with which you can get into the game before encountering those mind-twisting problems irresistible. And, when you do die there is the possibility that I may be reincarnated with all the objects I've found so far - although this doesn't always work.

Excuse me, I just had an idea about how I may be able to get rid of that Giant Rat...

Adventure specialists Level 9 pay homage to fantasy role-playing - particularly Runequest - in Red Moon. The accustomed 200 plus locations, poetically atmospheric text descriptions and multitude of illustrations are backed up with a combat and magic system.

Purists may scowl, but it all works very well, with nice touches such as the presence of iron negating spells. The problems are slightly easier than Level 9's usual brain-busters, making Red Moon a good one for less experienced adventurer - though it's no doddle. The standard plot - retrieve magic jewel before land is doomed - contains a few surprises, too.