Greetings, wandering ones, and welcome to the hallowed pages of the Balrog.
This month has some special offers from Topologika, the review of the first PAW
game out on the Amstrad (and it's free as well!) and all your regular
favourites.
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News
Topologika have some special New Year offers on their classic, disc-only
CPC adventures.
Until February 28th each game is available at £11.95. If you buy two games you
can deduct a further 10% from the total price, three games deduct 20%, four or
more 40%. A similar offer, say Topologika was popular around Christmas last
year, so they're making it again!
Titles available include: Avon (reviewed in AA51, real
AA rating 89%), Acheton (AA29 69%), Kingdom of Hamil, Countdown to Doom
(AA26 59%), Return to Doom (AA36 70%), Philosopher's Quest (AA26 58%), Giant
Killer (a maths adventure for children of 9 to 13) and the economics simulation
game Yes Chancellor
Topologika can be contacted on 0733 244682.
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Reviews
The Island
Ken Bond, 17 Adel Park Gardens, Adel, Leeds, West
Yorkshire LS16 8BN. Tel: (0532) 672278
£3 disc only or free if you send a disc and SAE to Ken.
The Balrog loaded the Island with anticipation - it is the first game I have
seen written using Gilsoft's Professional Adventure Writer (PAW) and hence I
was interested to see what the system could create.
I was not disappointed! The Island is a lovely text only adventure. You start
on board an old tramp steamer, returning to Britain after a long sojourn in the
Far East. Unfortunately, while you were sleeping, the ship hit a mine left over
from the Second World War and in the resulting confusion you lost
consciousness. You awake to find the ship rapidly sinking and the crew
disappearing of the edge of the horizon in the ship's life boats! So, you must
try and escape from the ship before it sinks to the bottom of the sea!
Once you escape from the ship you find yourself on a deserted island complete
with a lagoon, a ship-wrecked seaman, an abandoned German U-boat and a
mysterious pyramid.
The adventure is well written and demonstrates PAW's power expertly. True, it's
only disc based and has no graphics but PAW games are no doubt the closest
thing to Infocom that Amstrad owners will get nowadays. Locations and
descriptions are atmospheric and long; there is a complex parser supporting
RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD and even commands such as Look under and Look behind!
But best of all - the game is FREE! Ken has decided to give the game away to
anyone who sends him a disc and SAE (or just a £3 cheque). In short, a great
game that is well written and is a give away! I hope Ken realises the response
he is letting himself in for! I look forward to reviewing his next game, The
Base, soon...
Atmosphere 70%
Interaction 63%
Challenge 80%
Overall 88%
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Balrog's Post
'Welcome Balrog! Your help is needed. I am an avid fan of adventure games
(in particular text only), and also enjoy creating my own with either the Quill
or the GAC. I would like an opinion on whether or not my adventures are of a
marketable quality. Who could give me this help?' writes A Guthrue of Aberdeen.
Well the best people to ask are the experts on adventures themselves - the
players! Some software companies use to (and still do) market any old rubbish
(not mentioning any names!) but the best person to ask is a Lord or Lady of
Adventure. But before you ask them, play-test the game thoroughly - if possible
send the game to friends to test for you. Their suggestions and criticisms can
convert a game from bad to great! Mr Guthrue goes on to ask where he can
complete his Level 9 collection - the simple answer is write to Level 9! They
still have stocks of nearly all the games on the Amstrad. The Balrog gets a lot
of pleas from people wanting older games - there is no real place to get them
from but check out mail order companies, the company that made the game and
failing that place an advert in an adventure fanzine (such as Adventure Probe
or Spellbreaker).
Dave Havard has written in raising many interesting points - 'As an ex-Spectrum
owner, I upgraded to my Amstrad (Amy) as I wanted to play Infocoms, and since
then I have never looked back. I especially enjoy programming adventures on Amy
using GAC, PAW and Quill and I look forward to reading your comparison of
creators and the programming series. Having been an adventure for many years I
like to think I know what makes a good adventure - reasonable length location
descriptions, logical mapping, good use of Examine, separate responses to
search, logical problem solutions and obviously, a good plot that doesn't
weaken at the end. Some things to avoid are the instant/random death syndrome,
"in jokes" that are only understood by a few people, movements taking
you from "A Forest" to "An Oil Rig" etc., responses such as
"You can't" with no apparent reason why, and my particular hate word
matching - when you know you have the correct solution to a problem, but are
unable to find the correct input due to lack of synonyms - a classic example of
this is the "KILL ELF WITH BOW" in Forest at the World's End, no
other response will succeed and each go there is a chance the elf will kill you
while you are typing things such as
"SHOOT ELF WITH ARROW" or "FIRE ARROW AT ELF"!' I couldn't
agree more with you Dave! As to the adventure creator reviews please bear with
me, I am still waiting for ADLAN to be released from
Graduate... In the meantime the Programming with the Balrog starts this issue
so read on...
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The Balrog's Cluepot
The collection of clues this month comes to you from Jerome Young,
Antcrusher, Graham Wheeler, Trevor Fuller, Lawrence Gilson, Philip Haddigan,
Adrian Forbes and Joan Pancott - all true adventurers.
Bard's Tale
The pureblade is only useful with paladins.
The name of the mad god is 'Tarjan' (in case you didn't know)
Let the Bard sit on the Baron's throne.
Colossal Adventure
From West End Hall of Mists, S, E, Sx3, N, E (orange column), N, E, NW, get
Pirate's chest and the treasure stolen by the pirate, SE, N, D orange column to
splendid chamber.
From West End Hall, S, E, W, E, W to the vending machine, (you can drop coins to buy batteries, but they are treasure and you will lose points), W, E to West End Hall, N, E, E to Hall of the Mountain Kings.
Cutthroats
To find proof that Weasel is Double Crossing your party with McGinty - after you have purchased your equipment go to the Ferry Landing, Wait until you see McGinty and Weasel together. Wait, and you will see Weasel give McGinty something. Now go to the Back Alley behind the vacant lot, wait until you spot McGinty going west, wait until you see him return and go west for a second time. Open window, N, get envelope...
Hollywood
Hijinx
To enter the house turn the statue west. TWICE!
Imagination
Drop the coals near the forest to melt the snow. You can also use them to attract the bull. The chips are in the dispenser. Give the child with the yoyo the icicle.
Knight Orc
Run to castle, throw spear at drawbridge. Go onto bridge and drop something. Go to the top of the castle and look. You will get a list of all the areas you can run to.
Knightmare
Give the old man food and water. He will then give you a spade. Open the door and leave. Go to the locked door and dig ground.
Leather Goddesses of Phobos
To
Un-Angle the Princess - Drop machine (that removes "T"s) open
machine, put jar in machine (jar of untangling cream), close machine, switch on
machine, open machine, get jar, cover princess with cream (she is changed back
and the King gives you the angle) Get angle...
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Just for Laughs
Have you just found an amusing response in a game - if so send it in and get undying fame by being mentioned in Amstrad Action! Thanks this month go to Ken Bond and Simon Netherwood for their selection of amusing responses.
Boggit
Try swearing, why and hello.
Hollywood Hijinx
Put the film called the corpse line in the projector and run it!
Dig in sand at beach and then answer hand.
Leather Goddess of Phobos
An old one this, but for those who missed the original review, try tying the hose to the cage.
Lurking
Horror
Try swearing.
Very Big Cave Adventure
Try swearing.
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HELP!
Trevor Fuller is stuck in Rigel's Revenge - he has scored 40% but cannot get
out of no-mans land (he has the mine detector)...
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Bard's Tale Club
Calling all adventurers from Novice to Archmage - come forth and help your
fellow Bardists!
Neil Bailey is stuck in the game 'I can't understand the map supplied,
so I can't find the Adventurer's guild and thus cannot get anywhere! Please,
someone, help me!'
101 St Austell Avenue, Broken Cross, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK10 3NY
Stuart Whyte has completed the game three times now (wow!) and has Mangar as
his special character. His only problem now is that he has bought protext on
ROM and somehow the ROM interferes with the game!
53 Ridgeway Road, Timperley, Altrincham, Cheshire WA15 7HL
Philip 'the Bard' Haddigan has explored everywhere in the game and thus is well
qualified to help any of you with your problems...
49 Main Street, Fairlie, Ayrshire, Scotland, KA29 OAB
'I have a very powerful party, including Norman - the 23rd level Paladin and
two archmages but I am stuck - I can't get anywhere apart from the Mad God's
Catacombs and the Baron's Castle - and I am tired of slaying poor defenceless
Green Dragons. How do I get further?' writes Lawrence Gilson, 91a Purbook
Gardens, Purbook, Portsmouth, Hants, PO7 5LE. Tel: (0705) 262984.
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Programming with the Balrog
Have you got any tips for writing adventures? If so send them in! Or I'll
have to come round and eat you... But before you put pen to paper here are a
few challenges that I am sure are possible...
Thanks to Stuart Whyte and Mike Barnard for thinking of features they would
like to see in their games. If you can help them, or if you know of a tip for a
utility then send it in!
How do you use different styles of font from GAC (as Sandra Sharkey used in her
Case of the Mixed up Shymer) - or any other utility...
Has anyone out there written any extern routines for PAW? Routines such as
graphics or sound would add greatly to the value of a game.
Has anyone worked out how to select a random number between two limits and used
it to select a message? Then you could for example choose a random message for
an event from a list messages. Can't do that in PAW and with GAC you can only
choose between 0 and X, not X and Y.
How about an extern routine for PAW that accesses the disc - then, in theory
you could write an Infocom game...
Mike also has a few things to complain about today's creators 'I find I use a
lot of messages for things that happen around the player, like weather (wind,
rain, wet, dry, warm cold...) and so the usual limit of 255 messages quite
quickly get used up (yes I do use system messages to effect.) I wish that the
writers of these creators would use 2 bytes to number messages and allow us to
use as many messages as the machine memory allows. Also, how about the ability
to input new nouns into a game. Then I could name the player (as in
Seastalker), have items in his favourite colour (as in Moonmist), write a
message on a wall etc.. This all adds up to increasing the atmosphere in a game,
being able to see the world in the computer within your own mind - thus adding
to your enjoyment.'
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Lords & Ladies of Adventure
As always, send an SAE and say where you are stuck.
Classic Adventure, Eye of Bain, Fantasia Diamond, Golden Apple, Golden Baton,
Hobbit, Hollywood Hijinx, Inca Curse, Invincible Island, Mountains of Ket,
Oracles Cave, Perseus and Andromeda, Planet of Death, Sorceror, Temple of Vran,
Urban Upstart and Velnor's Lair.
Dave Havard, 21 Belvoir Close, Fareham, Hants, PO16 OPJ.
Boggit, Hobbit, Fantasia Diamond, Forest at the Worlds End, Heroes of Karn,
Hitchhikers Guide, Jewels of Babylon, Kobyashi Naru, Lurking Horror, Rigel's
Revenge and Very Big Cave Adventure.
Simon Netherwood, 36 Toothill Bank, Rostrick, Brighouse, West Yorkshire, HD6
3EZ. Tel: (0484) 719325 (Monday - Friday 5-9pm)
Adventure Quest, Aftershock, Angelique a Grief Encounter, Arnold Goes to
Somewhere Else, Big Sleeze, Black Fountain, Bugsy, Case of the Mixed Up Shymer,
Castle Blackstar, Castle of the Skull Lord, Crystal Theft, Cursed be the City,
Cutthroats, Dracula, Dungeon Adventure, Dungeons Amethysts Alchemists n
Everything, Enchanter, Escape from Koshima, Espionage Island, Fantasia Diamond,
Fish, Football Frenzy, Forest at the Worlds End, Frankenstein, Gnome Ranger,
Gremlins, Guild of Thieves, Haunted House, Hermitage, Heroes of Karn, Hitch
Hikers Guide, Hollow Graphic, Hollow Text, Hollywood Hijinx, Hunchback
adventure, Imagination, Inca Curse, Infidel, Ingrid's Back, Jack the Ripper,
Jewels of Babylon, Jinxter, Kingdom of Hamil, Kobyashi Naru, Lancelot, Leather
Goddesses of Phobos, Lifeterm, Lords of Time, Lurking Horror, Mansion, Message
from Andromeda, Mindshadow, Monsters of Murdac, Mordons Quest, Mountains of
Ket, Mystery of Indus Valley, Myth, Necris Dome, Never Ending Story, Nova,
Nythyhel, Pawn, Planet of Death, Planetfall, Questprobe, Rebel Planet, Rigels
Revenge, Robin of Sherwood, Robocide, Seabase Delta, Shard of Inovar, Sharpe's Deeds,
Ship of Doom, Smashed, Sorceror, Souls of Darkon, Spellbreaker, Spytrek, Star
Wreck, Subsunk, Theseus, Top Secret, Trial of Arnold Blackwood, Venom, Very Big
Cave adventure, Warlord, Winter Wonderland, Wise and Fool of Arnold Blackwood,
Wishbringer, Wolfman and Zork I, II & III!
Graham Wheeler, 2 Burford Close, Southdown, Bath, Avon BA2 1JF. Tel between
1-10pm (0225) 426919.
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Contacting the Balrog
That's all for this month. Don't forget to keep in touch else I'll come
round and eat you! Readers can always contact me via Amstrad Action. Watch out
next month for reviews of all the adventure clubs and magazines available, the
latest game from the maker of Treasure Tunnels and Dungeons Amethysts
Alchemists n Everything and of course your regular favourites... See you then!
The Balrog.