Producer: Adventure International
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £9.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Scott Adams

Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle is adventure 13 by Scott Adams, marketed by Adventure International. It follows in the footsteps of The Hulk featuring superlative graphics at every scene.

Solon the Master Wizard and owner of the Secret Coat long ago lost the 13 stars of Power. The evil Vileroth, believing the stars to be the only source of Solon's power, acquired these magical prizes when in fact it was the cloak that controlled the stars. Unable to master the magical stars, Vileroth's strength slipped away leaving him with no option but to conceal the Stars of Power within Claymorgue Castle so no one else could possess them. You are Beanwick, Solon's faithful young apprentice, and your task is to retrieve the 13 stars armed with a few spells and with a few more to be found in the castle, but the problem is, how do you use them?

The first location is a super graphic showing fine detail of the turrets and battlements comprising a compact, but nonetheless imposing, fortress. If I were to describe a picture of a moat, surrounding a castle with a drawbridge, being a highly skilled and cynical explorer, you will immediately imagine a tidy graphic of a drawbridge which is, of course, raised. If you should ever meet an adventure where a drawbridge is not raised, knowing the deviousness of many adventure authors, I would tread warily. This first problem is tackled, like so many in the adventure, by making use of the magic bestowed upon you from the start or to be found in the various nooks and crannies along the way.

Getting the drawbridge down (the noun needs the first five letters DRAWS), you look up to see it down in the picture - a nice touch. Moving east onto the drawbridge you are met with a curious sight where you are contemplating your feet upon the bridge overlooking the moat, but it would be wise to resist the temptation to take the plunge as it may just harbour one of those nasty sleeping moat monsters. On the east side of the drawbridge you see a lever set in the western wall and you'd need to be half-baked or inappropriately impulsive to fail to appreciate the consequences of pulling it. Better to move further east into the interior of the castle and a courtyard with a highly decorative fountain set at its middle. Enter the magic fountain now and it could signal your first meeting with the horrific and very graphic depiction of a sneering skull which makes you shudder the first time you see it. If instead you content yourself for the time being with collecting the goodies here, you'll notice that the program follows what is fast becoming a trend. The fact that you have gained an object is not acknowledged as such. The only indication that you have indeed picked up an object is that object's removal from the list of visible items, this coupled with the knowledge that had you failed to pick up an object a report would draw your attention to your lack of success.

By this stage you will have already worked out the use of one spell (at the drawbridge), now let's look at another two. Well, Lycanthorpe in psychiatry as a person who loves that he as a wolf, so what use the Lycanthorpe spell is I'll leave you to decide. As for the Yoho spell it sounds like yoyo and yoyos spring back to your hand when spun. Indeed, the Yoho spell takes you back to the first location; unfortunately, if you were dying on using it, you'll still die at or near the first scene. Also, surprisingly, you are told the Yoho spell works on the second occasion of its use, but on the second attempt nothing seems to happen.

Further east you meet one of those situations which you just know will become a classic since it is both devious and difficult. In the ballroom is a giant chandelier secured to a wall by way of a rope. You discover the deviousness of the problem if you attempt the obvious, leading to an annoyingly obvious conclusion. The assumption is you'd be stupid enough to stand under the chandelier while untying it! Should you have had the foresight to fetch the crate from the kitchen you would be spared, presumably because the chandelier has less of a distance to fall before crashing onto your head. Incidentally, GET OFF will not see you off the chandelier, but GO BALLROOM will, rather strange when the former does work when getting off the crate.

I wonder if this game has enough to keep me interested until the seventh or eighth star, never mind the thirteenth, since clearly so much effort for this adventure has been invested in producing the ultimate graphics. The vocabulary is friendly, though restricted to verb/noun such as GO (FOUNTAIN) and ENTER (COURTYARD) both accepted, and it is reasonably easy to get around until the problems become more pedantic and intractable.

Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle is an offering from a highly regarded force in adventure publishing, Scott Adam's Adventure International. Commercially it is as slick, polished and viably marketed as only American software can be. Superb graphics and a racy response give the game the edge. However, you can't help but get the feeling that beneath the razzmatazz the plot is a shade dull and uninspiring. As was said during a hamburger commercial and the US Presidential Election, where's the meat?

COMMENTS

Difficulty: very difficult
Graphics: excellent and very fast
Presentation: well laid out
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: very fast

SPELLBOUND IN CLAYMORGUE!

Have you ever been led right up the garden path? No? Then you've not played The Scorcerer of Clayrnorgue Castle!

Claymorque is No. 13 in Scott Adams' original series and starts off in a field separated from a castle by an enchanted moat. The drawbridge is raised (of course!). A quick dip in the moat reveals a sleeping moat monster and getting back reveals one of the most awful puns ever perpetrated!

An inventory check shows you have been endowed with an impressive list of spells, but no instructions on their use! Try one and it may work or fail. In many cases, you'll be none the wiser why or what, either way! If you've played Pirate, then the YOHO spell might suggest something to you - but as for the others, they're wicked!

After staggering around an enchanted forest for far too long, only to have my advances rejected by the trees, I was determined to get the upper hand. After all, I thought, I must at least be seeded in this quest! So I ferreted around and came to a courtyard. All castles have a courtyard, but as courtyards go, I've not seen one as weird as this! Its main attraction is a magic fountain - how very odd! Scott obviously means what he says about needing to be young in mind to play Adventure - but there is a limit and by the time you've solved this one you could be feeling far too old for another!

There are few obvious exits from the courtyard and those appear to lead nowhere special - except more problems. Conventional thinking is a severe disadvantage in solving these! Think "What?" Think "Not!" Think "Scott!" Once your mental inhibitions are gone, you will start to progress.

After a while, I was patting myself on the back, feeling I had been pretty slick ("C&VCs Adventure supremo - who else?!"), only to discover that, whilst my solutions were valid, they were not the right ones. They couldn't be! I had been tricked into thinking I was right. So the same problems had to be solved all over again - another way! And then again!

A chandelier secured by rope is crying out for an accident, whilst the castle kitchen doesn't seem to be over hygienic, with its dubious drains. What is the real purpose of the large crate? How do you get rid of water droplets? What is the solution to the Adventureland lookalike problem? This one is aimed at Adventureland players are likely to get more than hot under the collar, giving Scott a devilish laugh at their expense!

So get ready to SAVE your game time and again. You need to be able to test different theories repeatedly. Don't worry if few come to you at the start - they will!

It is interesting to note that this is the first of Scott's games to demand four letters for the verb and five for the noun. He had the vocab neatly wrapped up, including not only necessary words, but many that you're likely to use but aren't needed, so beware! And read even the most innocuous replies carefully!

Sorceror of Claymorgrue Castle is full demanding problems. For sheer puzzling and excitement, to my mind it is Scott's best. I'm glowing about it - definitely a game not to be sneezed at! If you're a beginner, I suggest get some experience in before you try to tackle it, though.

It is available from Adventure International UK for a wide range of micros at varying prices, depending on whether you choose the disc or tape version, with or without graphics.

MACHINE: Spectrum, Apple, Atari, BBC, CBM 64, Dragon, Electron, Tandy
PRICE: N/A

Another important recent release is Scott Adams' Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle. This is available for the Commodore, Spectrum, Apple, Atari, BBC, Dragon, Electron, and Tandy... phew! Quite a list!

The White Wizard has dabbled enjoyably in the Spectrum version, which features some very pretty graphics indeed. It's worth noting that the Spectrum conversion was done by Brian Howarth who writes the Mysterious Adventures, to which this program bears some superficial resemblance.

Well, what can one say about Scott Adams' adventures? They've been around for a very long time now in one form or another, but the fact is that whenever a new one comes out it is always a good buy. Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle is no exception.

As in most Scott Adams' games, the object of the game is simple - you must collect a certain number of readily identifiable treasures and store them in a particular location. The challenge of the games is in overcoming the different puzzles, most of which are encountered when you try to move from location to location.

None of Scott's games have that many places to visit, but that doesn't mean they're a doddle by any means. Sorcerer is definitely a case in point here. You start off behind a castle and I guarantee that you won't enter it inside ten minutes of cursing, howling, and (as it happens) holding your breath.

Once you get inside, you'll still have to try every trick in the book to explore more than about six locations. Just to tantalise you, one of the treasures is plonked almost right in front of your nose at the beginning - but try picking it up and you'll see that all is not as easy as it seems.

So that's two new games tor your shelves - and both available on a wide range of machines. Now let's take a look at something quite different - three releases each of which offers something rather unusual.

Various
Adventure International
£7.95

This is the best adventure out of my leather pouch this month. I must confess to liking all of Scott Adam's adventure; but this is definitely his finest yet.

You play the part of Beanwick, an inexperienced wizard, whose mission is to enter Claymorgue Castle and recover 13 lost stars. When you start you already have a number of spells and will find more on your travels. Only trouble is, you don't know what these spells actually do.

If you want attractive graphics, you'll find them here.