<!--
	Title: (EXPRESS CHECKOUTS) Beginner's Gothic
	Author: Harry Bee
	Source: 80 Micro, v8(5)
	Date: May 1987
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

<p style="font-size: 2em; margin-top: 0;">★★</p>

**Moonmist** runs on the Tandy 1000/1200/3000 (128K) and requires one disk
drive. Infocom Inc., 125 Cambridge Park Drive, Cambridge, MA 02140. 617-576-3190.
$39.95.

A letter from your old friend, Tamara Lynd, is a pleasant surprise in your otherwise
harried life. After all, being an attractive, celebrated, brilliant, young
detective is demanding. So you smile, perhaps with a touch of envy, as you
learn how Tamara's trip to Europe has turned suddenly into a storybook romance.
"You'll never believe what's happened!" she writes. "I'm living in a
castle in Cornwall, engaged to marry a British Lord!"

Her words bubble from the page as she tells you of the ancient castle, complete
with its ghost and buried treasure; of her fiance, Lord Jack Tresyllian; and of
all the other stuffy, charming, scheming, sinister characters who populate her
new life.

Lord Jack himself is no gadabout, she assures you, nor is the life of a British
peer carefree. For one thing, Jack's former girlfriend drowned in the castle well
soon after he broke off the romance because of her affair with his best friend.
Her body was never found. And Jack inherited more than a castle and a title
from Uncle Lionel. The family's debts forced Lord Jack to open the castle to the
public to keep what remained of the family heirlooms from the likes of a too eager
London antiques dealer.

Tamara's second letter, however, is another story. "Help!" she begins.
Someone, it seems, is trying to kill her.

Moonmist has all the elements of a classic Gothic mystery fit for a Holmes
or a Whimsey. If you've never tried interactive fiction, if you've been looking
for a text adventure to begin with, Moonmist's Tresyllian Castle might be the
place to start. The ojectives are clear, the puzzles are well-defined, and none of
them require the often frustrating and defeating leaps of logic for which adventure
games are notorious.

However, gamers with any experience will be disappointed. Moonmist is too
easy. Its setup—the set piece at the beginning that leads you by hand to the
first hints and clues—goes too far. By the time the program leaves you on your
own, the promising mystery has been reduced to the level of a pulp romance.

Moonmist offers four scenarios based on the same characters, plot, and setting.
Each begins with the same opening sequence, varied only by the specific
clues you are given. Each ends with a different villain, treasure, and rationale.

In theory, that's not a bad idea. In practice, because the four stories share
not only the same premise but also the same map, props, and devices, it doesn't
work. Once you've solved the first story, about all that's left for the other three is
the drudgery of searching the same territory for only slightly different quarry.
And nowhere is there the least hint that your characters is in any danger.

The highly entertaining presentation, for which Infocom games are famous, is
not enough by itself to invent excitement and sustain interest. Moonmist is
a passable demonstration of the techniques and possibilities of text adventures,
but no more than that.
