Producer: Master Vision
Retail Price: £12.50
Author: R. Carnell, S. Kirk, S. A. Galloway

Wrath of Magra, following Black Crystal in the Third Continent Series, is a mammoth work consisting of a substantial text, The Book of Shadows, a smaller booklet giving interesting and detailed playing instructions, and three episodes of the adventure contained within two cassettes. Episode 1 differs markedly from the other two and the game must be played in sequence since the data given at the end of episode 1 is needed to begin episode 2, and so with 2 and 3. Each episode requires a considerable effort in its own right and you are unlikely to proceed very far without SAVE. The packaging goes to great lengths to point out that the characters are entirely fictitious; any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is coincidental. More curious rubric warns you of the dangers of meddling with the occult. You are advised not to drink acids, eat Deadly Nightshade or turn people into frogs. Sound advice indeed.

You play the Knight of Star Jewel, Hero of the Volcanic Dungeon, who although only a man, has won the esteem of the elves for slaying the witch Magra and rescuing the elfin princess Edora. But now all your efforts would seem in vain. The witch's body was retrieved by the Ice Giants and now lives again in the Black Mountains due to the restorative powers of the Black Arts. Princess Edora is now chained to a wall in a cold, dimly lit cell deep within the bowels of Amosthen 'Ugal, her once beautiful face disfigured with running sores. She is possessed and the only way to save her is to destroy Magra.

The episodes have a table in the top right hand of the display. There are eight factors, some of which are inextricably linked.

STRENGTH: if your power drops to zero due to tiredness or wounds, you die. SPIRITUAL STRENGTH and FAITH: the more spells you successfully cast the higher your faith. MOON PHASE PERCENTAGE: chance of killing a monster, changes during a fight. WOUNDS: effect your strength and ability to fight. GOLD: bits. TIME: 24 hr clock.

Time plays an important part in Wrath of Magra. Five minutes real time represents one hour in the game. You use the passing phases of the moon to help weave your spells and as the days pass you must satisfy your hunger, thirst and tiredness. Your early forays are frustrated by your inability to enter buildings until they open next day.

Episode 1 has you in the village at night where some strong force prevents the casting of spells. This section, featuring high resolution graphics, is designed to allow you to collect, buy and exchange treasures and ingredients using BUY and SELL. You have a silver sword, a shield, Fendal's ring, fur for warmth, and the Star Jewel, a gem from which you are never separated. Not every feature is described and so you have to guess where it might be feasible to pick up Deadly Nightshade, for example.

Episode 1 certainly has exceptionally good graphic representations of the locations but the circuitous route taken to achieve this result in delays of up to fifteen seconds. It requires the time taken in many adventures to draw a picture simply to remove the graphic from the last location. When entering a building the last graphic isn't removed at all - you are inside a cottage and yet you see the cottage. Not such a heinous crime you may think, but we're dealing with a dedicated 40K of program here, a preliminary to the more complex adventure itself, and I think no byte should have been left unaltered in the attempt to put some exceptional graphics at each and every location. The doctor's look like, and is, the farm house... and the woodcutter's cottage - eighteen seconds worth of graphics.

The vocabulary is confoundedly unhelpful. Its friendliness has you puzzled at ENTER TOWER. The program requires the full entry, ENTER WIZARDS TOWER and I mean full - no abbreviations. Were this all there might be hope, but what about this for a supposed 'megagame', GET VAMPIRE BAT SALIVA marks a fifteen second wait while GET RED TOADSTOOLS requires seventeen seconds. A huge task confronts you here. There are some pouches in the Wizard's Tower and you must guess their contents. This has you searching the back pages of the Book of Shadows to see which spell ingredients you might pick up. This task proves laborious when you consider the delays when no abbreviations are allowed and the shortest wait you can expect is fifteen seconds for each attempt. When you move off to the next location the screen scrolls in a manner which lets down the otherwise tidy presentation; the last location's description only partly scrolls up off the screen leaving its possible exits behind. So I leave episode 1 with what may well prove to be an unshakable conviction. This program is badly coded.

Episode 2 finds you in the mines beneath the Black Mountains where you cast spells and build up your faith. You follow the three maps provided showing the three levels you must tackle, being careful not to fall down any chasm to your death. In episode 3 you are in Magra's fortress hunted by the evil witch herself. As you move around the fortress it is mapped out at the top left of the screen. The monsters are created by the computer and if you dodge these you must face and destroy Magra to survive.

Episode 2, alas, does not fair any better than 1. In fact things have taken a decided turn for the worse. When loading, the maze takes so long to set up you could be forgiven for thinking the program had crashed. The impressive high resolution graphics of episode 1 are replaced by token graphics, but what really jars is the wholly unimpressive input routine which is so inept as to border on the ridiculous. The best way to get round this unnecessary obstacle is to count as in music 1 & 2 & 3, or in this case, G & E & T etc. The problem is compounded by the insistence on the entry of complete words with a few abbreviations permitted. A main feature of this episode is the combat routine which is notable for the seeming unassailability afforded to you should you choose the shield for defence and the silver sword for attack. An overused, yet still effective, Anglo Saxon word denoting procreation is accepted, and after a few moments struggling with this input routine, you'll need it.

Wrath of Magra is a significant work full of imagination and atmosphere. It comes with a large book which resembles a cross between a Tolkien novel and a Dungeons and Dragons handbook. The playing instructions are full and creditable. The program itself is entirely in Basic and suffers from an absence of that expertise which separates a magazine listing from a top class game. The delays in the program are a disappointment; the poor input routine is scandalous. Taken together they are ruinous.

Wrath of Magra is a package with an exciting theme. What is missing is an equally exciting computer program to develop that theme.

Difficulty: Average but time consuming
Graphics: Some, excellent
Presentation: Very good
Input facility: Average to awful
Response: Very slow
Special Features: 3 programs with different playing styles

DUNGEONMASTER MAGRA

Memory: 48K
Price: £12.50

Despite adversities, the evil Magra and her creators, Carnell Software, have survived to offer inveterate adventure game players further mind-bending challenges. Long-awaited, The Wrath of Magra takes the adventure program one step nearer to full role-playing scenarios.

As in other Carnell adventures there are three episodes, each a program in its own right. Successful completion of one will provide the data password into the next.

With the package comes The Book of Shadows, a lengthy chronicle densely packed with information on the world of Magra. The second part of the book catalogues the creatures who inhabit this dangerous world. Attached to the creature catalogue is a grimoire, a book of spells. By careful study the player will learn how and when to gather magical ingredients and how to combine them to create spells which can be stored for combat or defence.

Although the Princess Edora was rescued from the Volcanic Dungeon she remained bewitched. Magra's body was returned to the Black Mountains by her Ice Giants and there restored to a demoniac travesty of life. Her powers are intact and she now thirsts for revenge. No one dares face her but you, driven as you are by the need to bring Edora back to the world of light.

At the beginning of the first episode you are placed in the valley of Di'Lief, where magic is powerless. Here you will have the opportunity to collect or purchase weapons or magical items and to find the way into the mines beneath the Black Mountains. The second episode takes you through those grim caverns where fearful monsters roam, guarding the entry into Magra's fortress. In the third and final part the adventurer must brave further savage creatures to encounter and destroy the witch herself. There are prizes for the first twenty successful warriors.

The screen display is in three pans. At the upper left appear the graphics. In the first episode pictures of the locations are shown, in the second the monsters are depicted, and in the final episode a map of the castle.

The upper right of the screen holds the status indicator, showing strength in points, spiritual power and faith. To make spells effectively the player needs faith and the more spells are cast the higher the faith value becomes. The time of day is displayed along with the phase of the moon. Certain spells can only be made in a particular phase and the player must take care to avoid wasting ingredients and power by performing magic at the wrong time.

A combat percentage is given which tells you what your chance of defeating an adversary is. The bottom half of the screen is for information and input, in standard text adventure style.

The computer keeps three main inventories for the player. There is the normal list of equipment and treasure and two specialised lists of magic phials, which contain spell ingredients, and spell cloths. Those cloths hold prepared spells ready for use in combat or similar situations.

The response to input is quite slow, but any Dungeons and Dragons fans will forgive this minor problem as the game is highly complex. In fact, the interpreter will take long entries of up to 59 characters which gets round the slow response time and cuts down on stop-start keyboard routines. Commands are also linkable.

A separate combat mode is used which not only takes account of spells and weaponry but balances strength and defence capabilities, similar to the routines used in Volcanic Dungeon.

Carnell have obviously made every effort to include as many aspects of role playing games as possible. Those efforts seem to have paid off. The Wrath of Magra takes a different direction from games like The Hobbit or Valhalla and acts as a Dungeonmaster for the player. Its sophistication should not be measured in terms of its ability to understand long sentences but by its strength in allowing the player to develop a comprehensive character whose identity will depend on conscious decisions and choices, not simply programmed chance.

WAITING FOR MAGRA

Adventure-meister Steve Keaton looks behind the drapes of The Wrath of Magra, rescues a victim of Twin Kingdom Valley and finds a book... while with his other hand...

A NOTABLE new Spectrum title is Master Vision's The Wrath of Magra, the long-awaited climax to Carnell Software's Volcanic Dungeon and Black Crystal Third Continent saga. For a time it looked as if this epochal enterprise would never get to see the light of day, as Magra's software house kicked the can just as she was entering the home straight. All looked lost until those gallant Elves down at Mastertronic stepped in with a reprieve. Brandishing a cut-price want they created an in-house adventure label, which allowed the phoenix-like Magra to live anew.

BOOK AND TAPE

"They arrived like the 7th Cavalry." recalls Magra's coauthor Stuart Galloway. "Things started to turn rotten in January 84 and then promptly collapsed in April. The game was actually finished at that point. We'd even sent a few copies out. Developing it was straightforward, it was the manufacturing side of the business that finally broke the camel's back."

Magra is a remarkably accessible adventure. It's a prog of only moderate difficulty which sprawls across 3 tapes and comes bundled with The Book Of Shadows; a weighty 158-page tome that details pretty much the entire history of Carnell's imaginary Third Continent. Along with a history lesson, it speculates on Magra's dodgy denizens and even lists a mountain of spells to combat them. Delightfully illustrated with Trolls, Hobgoblins and the like, it's a great read. Few adventures go to such extravagant lengths to establish their credibility.

Magra's prologue begins deep beneath the earth, in the dark, dank, worm-ridden vault of Dominian (a locale not unlike the BIG K office). In your guide as the Knight of the Star Jewel and Hero of the Volcanic Dungeon, you've been brought below by an elfin wizard who claims to have something of interest up his sleeve. Naturally you're curious. The old wizard guides you to a stout wooden door and beckons a timourous guard for a key. The lackey hands it over with obvious apprehension. With a rusty groan the portal opens and the wizard ushers you in. Shackled to a dank slab is the Princess Edora, her once beautiful face aflame with sores and her hair awash with dandruff. The sight understandably makes you groan (not least because you've only just rescued the stupid woman from The Volcanic Dungeon), "She's possessed by the soul of Magra!" the wizard declares. This also comes as something of a shock as you thought the old witch had perished in the previous game! 'Twould seem that you've little choice but to venture back into the Black Mountains and slug it out with the old bat for a second time. Your reputation (not to mention the soul of the Princess Edora) hangs on the line.

As you might expect of a multi-load adventure you're unable to play it out of sequence. You'll need the data given to you at the end of episode 1 in order to play episode 2, and so on. There's no chance of jumping the gun. The game commences in the valley below Magra's Black Mountains, where armed with only a silver sword, shield and a couple of trinkets you must beg, borrow or steal all the materials you'll need for the mission. When suitably attired you must find your way into the mines beneath the mountains. In episode 2 you must negotiate a dangerous labyrinth. A map is provided in the accompanying booklet to help you survive the journey. Chasms abound so one false move could spell NEW. Episode 3 takes you inside Magra's fortress, where you'll play a deadly game of hide 'n' seek. Naturally the place is crawling with yuks and the peril quota's frighteningly high. SAVE as you go, is the motto.

BIGGER BETTER

"It's a huge advance on both Volcanic Dungeon and Black Crystal," declares Stuart. "They were originally written in BASIC, although they've been improved since then. I know that Magra looks fairly ordinary, but in fact it's very complex. There are little routines churning away in the background all the time. They consult your physical status, monitor the phase of the moon, and check the time. They're constantly updating data regardless of what you're doing. The evolution routine used in episode 3 is particularly sophisticated. It enables the computer to decide exactly what kind of monster you'll meet as you wander about the fortress. We're very pleased with the way it's turned out. The Spectrum tends to be a bit quirky but the rules are quite strict. You should never encounter anything invincible."

The screen display for each episode is quite different. Only part 1 features the familiar status table/graphic window/description mode. The graphics consist mainly of simple line drawings and appear with only modest speed. They can be toggled off although there's the little point. The text descriptions are far too sparse to stand on their own. "During the 9 month lay-off we spent quite a lot of time trying to speed the graphics up," explains Stuart. "I think the results are perhaps 70% successful. There are a few disappointments. A certain amount of complexity had to be sacrificed from the original design. We were constantly condensing the routines and eventually managed to get them down to 12K, but it was still a compromise. In many ways graphics have stifled adventure development. They've become too important. But I guess you can't expect people to look at text all the time. Even Tolkien had illustrations. Personally I think the most important ingredient in an adventure is plot. That's what gives it individuality. Roy (Carnell) and I never intended Magra to be fiercely complex. The idea was to make it true to life (?). You begin as Joe Hero, rather inept and inexperienced, then (as you become more familiar with The Book of Shadows) you grow wiser and stronger. It's certainly not traditional in the sense of their only being one solution. In fact we estimate that there's more than 3 million ways to complete the game! You can rush straight through it and kill Magra if you want, although you'll be missing the point".

MAGRA CLONES

Stuart assures me that Magra is destined to appear on a number of micros. "A version for the 64 is imminent," he claims, "and there are more in the pipeline. Stephen Kirk, one of the team, has just developed a highly sophisticated adventure generator. At the push of a button it can produce customised code for almost any machine. The Spectrum, CBM64, MSX, Apple... you name it. It's a wonderful device, and it's totally flexible. A customised version of Magra at almost the touch of a button! Imagine that. It's development was made possible by the MasterVision deal. Don't expect us to put it on sale though! No one could afford to buy it! Believe me, it proved very expensive to develop. Still it's a state of the art tool and will really push us forward. The amount of time it saves is incredible! And it means we never have to work on the CBM64 again! That machine really is a pig to program! I'm sure the generator (we haven't christened it yet) will pay for itself very quickly."

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £12.95

THE MAGIC OF MAGRA

It's been a long and tiring month for the White Wizard. As a result of a number of powerful spells, mostly involving British Telecom, I was at last able to get hold of Carnell Software's The Wrath of Magra, a massive 120K program for the Spectrum that had me glued to the keyboard for hours.

Magra comes excellently packaged with two tapes, full instructions, and a 158-page book that details the history of the Third Continent and makes very enjoyable reading.

As a mythic hero your destiny is to seek out and destroy the evil Magra, using whatever resources you can lay your hands on. The program comes in three parts. In the first you must explore the Valley below the Black Mountains and gather as many objects as you can to help you in your task.

In the second part you explore the caverns beneath the Mountains, battling with all manner of monsters and practising your spell-casting. As a professional wizard I can't tell you how important it is to practice those spells. After all, you never know when you're going to bump into a Balrog, do you?

In the final part you explore Magra's fortress, defeating her monstrous guardians and seeking out the evil witch herself in an attempt to fulfill your mission.

Carnell's program has a small vocabulary, but the scale of the undertaking is so enormous that it soon becomes an absorbing task. Some of the graphics are very nicely done, and there's a status panel in the top right-hand corner that tells you the time of day, phase of the moon, your strength, and other useful bits of information. Despite the simple commands this is a complex game that rewards careful play.

My only quibbles are that the response times are very slow and that you have to reload part of the tape (admittedly a very small part) every time you die, rather than just pressing a key to start again.

Apart from these minor reservations, I can wholeheartedly recommend the program, and will be reporting on my progress in the next couple of issues. Drop me a line if you're also playing the game and we can compare notes.

WRATH OF THE RECEIVER

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £12.95
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: Carnell Software Ltd., North Weylands Ind. Est. Moseley Road, Hersham, Surrey KT12 3PL

As adventures grow ever more complex, there must surely come a point when it will be physically impossible to solve a particular game in one sitting: the Guinness Book of Records may have to open a new category, specifically for those people who have managed to solve the Wrath of Magra in a single attempt.

It is worth noting the amount of 'goodies' that you get for your £12.95 with this package. Two tapes, which together form the three adventures that comprise the Wrath of Magra, a detailed instruction leaflet (which gives a number of hints about playing the game), and a book in the best 'Lord of the Rings' tradition, called The Book of Shadows. You'll need this book, since it contains details of all the spells that you'll be able to cast during the game, as well as giving a detailed description of the land you find yourself in: an interesting read in its own right.

Make no mistake, this is an adventure in the best gothic traditions. Your mission is to destroy the "most powerful sorceress in the Third Continent", the evil Magra.

Rescued from death by the Ice Giants, she has been taken to her castle in the Black Mountains, and seeks only to create wickedness and evil throughout the lands. In her grip is the fair princess Edora, herself possessed by the power of Magra.

Given only a silver sword, a shield, a fur to keep you warm, a copy of the Book of Shadows, and a 48K Spectrum, off you go to do battle against the forces of darkness.

This is a great game, and it could take a lifetime to solve it. Presumably by then the fair princess Edora won't be worth rescuing, but still.

The screen display shows an optional graphical picture of wherever you happen to be (which takes an age to appear), along with a chart of your progress. Time elapsed, your courage and stamina, and other details are all constantly displayed. The bottom part of the screen is the input window, used for typing in your commands (to the accompaniment of an annoying beep or two every time you press the enter key) and the computer's response.

For less than thirteen quid, this is well worth buying. Any game that forces you to drink mead in order to survive can't be bad.

CATHY FOOT FACES THE WRATH OF MAGRA

Still exhausted by climbing my way laboriously up the social scale towards Hampstead last month it came as something of a shock to be thrust into a world of spells and monsters as I began The Wrath of Magra from Mastervision. Having compiled a list of does and don'ts for players last month, I felt no compunction in producing some for games writers this month.

1) Will SOMEONE out there bring out a grammar for games program writers - and a dictionary for the players!

2) Will firms at least allow us to "save" to microdrive - I WOULD like to copy the whole program to microdrive, but I suppose that would increase games pirating. Saving to microdrive would speed up my games no end.

If you like this sort of thing, you DO get good value for money - for instance, there are hieroglyphics on the inner walls of the Wizard's tomb . All I got from investigating the tomb was to be buried in six unmarked graves! This was one area I had not explored with the graphics on - you can translate the hieroglyphics with the aid of the Enchanted Warrior spell in the Book of Shadows. Thanks, MasterVision, both for the various hints you gave me as we discussed Magra and for taking a lot of time and effort yourselves so as to get me into Episode Three.

Since I used to be a Gamer (when I had time) I like the Dungeons and Dragons touch, where not everything is revealed if you "look". Along with many other people, though, I would have preferred an 'examine" comand, so many games of this type have such that one feels disoriented when told that "examine" is not understood. While it is a good idea to be able to go to a likely spot and look for herbs etc., this program is too slow overall for such frills to be suitably appreciated. Similarly, we are not given any clues as to native habitat of the herbs in this universe. Neither dill nor wolfsbane are mentioned in any of my plant books, and stinging nettles are not to be found in many of their more normal Earth environments.

Yes, the machine will accept multiple instructions but remember to leave a space between commands. "N space N" will move you two map squares North if you can take them. (Having plugged in a programmable joystick my son discovered that NESWNESWNESWNESW... paused the machine as if it were awaiting a tape input and, since there was none available, the whole program crashed - a pity, since we were just about to risk a trip into Skull Cavern loaded for bear - now does one buy aspirin for a computer?)

Spelling mistakes are bad enough in written work, but when you have to use them because they are stored in the program they become frustrating in the extreme - Vipers TOUNGE, for instance, or Death CUP mushrooms, although Mastervision told me that the last is so that even crazier players might not try the "spells" outside the program. Since it takes the machine so long to check for sure that "you can't get that there 'ere" each time, my level of frustration rises as my spelling ability plummets.

Continuing to look at this as computerised Dungeons and Dragons. I see Episode One as the preparation of my character and Episode Two as a first level adventure preparing you to face Magra herself in Episode Three. Yes, it can be improved - there must be some way to speed up the action, for instance - but, even as it stands, you still get a lot for your money. IMPORTANT:- Take your first games slowly if you are new to Magra and find a source of food and water; your character seems to have been through some hard times before reaching the Valley.

They only sell mead and meat at the inn, and everything for sale costs at least one gold bit. You will find that villagers will not buy things they sell for one gold bit, since they seem keen on making a profit out of you.

If you need a hint, then move the letters in the next lines back by one in the alphabet - tfmm Tjsfot Ibjs up jodsfbtf zpvs wealth in Episode One. vtf uif Hspx Xjoht tqfmm up jodsfbtf zpus faith in Episode Two).

My first venture into Episode Three lasted exactly three caverns. There I was confronted by a large fire-spitting, furry monster with a long scaly tail - not at all cuddly!

At that point, the gremlins struck again, NEWing out the program, much to my relief, since I was thirsty and backed into a corner.

The message which appears on the screen if your character dies in Episode One is not accurate , continue reloading from the beginning UNTIL THAT MESSAGE LEAVES THE SCREEN - about 100 turns of the counter.

Dislikes:- a) the slow graphics. After the initial mapping run, I would suggest taking advantage of the "no graphics" facility, which speeds things up a lot (just you wait until you reach Episode Two, where every letter calls forth a "beep" from your Spectrum and slows you down no end. Even my son can type in instructions faster than they can be handled and he is still at the "prod" stage of typing). "No Graphics" in Episode Two continues to show you which room you are in, it only fails to draw in any monster here.

b) The need to type in everything in full each time. I KNOW there is a huge vocabulary, but there must be some short cuts for us SOMEWHERE.

I AM impressed by the amount of work and loving care that has gone into episode three. The monsters the machine comes up with have been the sort of thing that any sensible adventurer would tiptoe past, hoping not to be seen. None of them have been other than magnificently offensive. My only hope has been to get in first with a lucky blow.

After my first monster, I met, in quick succession, a bipedal creature with a body covered in green slime which spat out lightning bolts, a giant slithering monster with fiery breath, extending steel jaws and coarse hair, which turned out to be surprisingly vulnerable to my silver sword - on my first meeting I killed it with one lucky blow; on the second it took three rounds before it lay dead at my feet.

In my opinion, however, the moment AFTER you have killed your first monster is where the most delicious terror strikes. As you stand there, thanking your Gods that you have overcome on of the beastly guards of Magra, the computer informs you that Magra is making a new monster.

You have only just penetrated her fortress and already she knows you are there! Can you still win through? As one already stricken in the fray, my best wishes go with you, adventurer, and may you succeed where I failed!

This, the latest adventure in the Third Continent series by Roy Carnell, has been much awaited by Spectrum owners.

imagine you are taken down into a darkened cell, where you see the once beautiful Princess Endora who is chained to the wall. Her face is covered with sores and she hurls obscenities at you. The evil Magra has possessed her and the only way to rid her of the evil spirit is to find Magra and kill her. Easy, huh?

You start in a village at the bottom of a valley next to the infamous Black Mountains. In the forge you can buy supplies and at the inn you can get a drink and a meal. A most infuriating location is the graveyard, with a Wizard's tomb that seems to be inaccessible. I spent many fruitless hours trying to get into the tomb - perhaps it is not even possible, who knows?

The good ideas behind the plot were, unfortunately, mined by poor programming and lack of thought. The response to input is very slow - with the graphics turned on it is an unbelievable 15 seconds! At least the graphics can be turned off, a pity that the boredom cannot be.

The package comprises three 48K programs and a fairly hefty 158 page Book of Shadows, full of spells and stories about the Third Continent. The game has multi-word input and hi-res graphics, but when will people realise that these things should be regarded as an added extra - the bones of the game are the most important facet? After all, what is the point of buying a car full of all the latest gadgets if the engine is not up to much?

I cannot really tell you if this game is worth buying, as I never came near to solving it. I found it didn't hold my interest enough to give me reason to battle on. That little extra that makes me stay up all hours was just not there. It might be different for you, though. It was not the worst game I have seen, by any means, but I suggest you ask for a demo first, if you are considering buying it, to check that it suits your tastes.