<!--
	Title: Spellbreaker: Infocom's Toughest?
	Source: QuestBusters, v3(2)
	Date: February 1986
	Transcription by Steve Derby
-->

Did you waltz through *Wishbringer* and sail through *A Mind Forever
Voyaging*? Or maybe you're one of the hard-core adventurers who
passed them by completely because they didn't offer the mindgrinding
challenges, you finally solved in the *Zork* series? Then the final
installment in the *Enchanter* trilogy was designed with you in mind.
*Spellbreaker* is full of ingeniously constructed puzzles that are hard
enough to reduce even Mr. Spock's logical mind to a pathetic pile of
burned-out synapses.

It begins at a clamorous meeting in the Enchanters Guild Hall at
Borphee, a meeting attended by guildmasters from across the land.
They want to know why the magic spells of the enchanters are backfiring
or simply not working at all. In a world founded on magic, this spells
disaster for all. When Hooly of the Brewers Guild threatens that lately
the beer tastes like grues have been bathing in it -- and that without
proper magic there won't be any more Miller Time in the Great
Underground Empire -- the gravity of the situation sinks in.

<img class="float-right" src="/public/img/articles/questbusters-spellbreaker-review/spellbreaker-packaging.jpg" alt="Spellbreaker packaging">

But before everyone rushes out to the bar to finish off the last keg,
Ardis of the Poets Guild suddenly turns into a large orange newt, and
the rest of the guildmasters are transformed into frogs, lizards and
other creatures. Only you remain unscathed by the spell, only you can
track down the shadowy figure that ducks out the door as you scramble
off the stage -- only you can stop the evil force that is interfering with the
magic upon which your civilization's survival hinges.

If only you could get out of this place, which proves to be the first
problem, one that reminded me of Sorcerer's first stage. Oh, you can
bound right out the door, but traveling further than the courtyard
will take more than putting one foot in front of the other. You might
consult the spell book, which contains the frotz, gnusto, rezrov,
and other familiar spells as well as some new ones. Jindak will detect
the presence of magic, while blorple enables you to explore the mystic
connections of an object; others turn up as soon as you get out of town.
The unseen force that is eroding the power of magic in the Great
Underground Empire affects even your spells. They may have odd side
effects, forcing you to recast them several times until they finally work,
or you learn they won't accomplish the desired effect.

A tip for anyone still trying to gain entry to the Governor's House
outside the Guild Hall -- blorple the strange white cube you find at your
feet and move on to the *real* game-stoppers. The cube teleports you to a
remote part of the GUE, where you'll encounter an ogre with a horrible
sneeze, a hermit high on a hill, and a serpent so huge its body completely
fills the circular hall in a crumbling temple. In each problem you must
obtain a similar cube. Each cube, if blorpled under the right conditions,
will zap you off to another location where a couple of other rooms and
progressively tougher problems await. It's like *Hitchhiker's Guide* in
this sense, with the cubes serving the same function as the Improbability
Drive.

The puzzles are even more difficult than in *Hitchhiker*, the preceding
games in this series and maybe even the *Zorks*. Most of them are
interlocked as tightly as a wooden Chinese puzzle: you can't solve get
past the ogre without an object obtained by getting the cube from the
hut -- however, you don't use it on the ogre but to reach a distant location
and solve a different problem, thusly obtaining an item that will help
circumvent the Big Sneeze. Rarely is there an obvious connection, though
some answers -- a hermit who says "it was perfect" when discussing his
hut -- are in plain sight. I haven't seen puzzles so convolutedly dovetailed
since *Zork II*. There are just enough spell scrolls and items lying
around in plain sight to get you off to a good start and keep you motivated.
At least one major mapping challenge is part of this package deal, an
adventure vacation you'll never forget, because it may go on for
months. (Even one of Infocom's crack gamma-testers wasn't able to
get all 600 points.)

Along the way to attaining the highest score ever in an Infocom
game, you'll trek to remote comers of Zork's unexplored regions, to the
Flathead Mountains and the nest of a giant roc, to the unfathomable Water
Room, to the inscrutable Octagon Room and finally into slippery planes
of reality unimagined by mortals until Lebling envisioned them. Lebling's
lyrical prose invokes a sense of wonder and charm that distinguishes
this as his best writing since Starcross. Occasional events may
elicit a smile, but don't expect the zany humor of Steve Meretzky's
*Sorcerer*, the initial game of this series. This one has its own distinct
personality -- and its- own distinct personalities, with more characters to
meet than in the previous games in the *Enchanter* series.

<h2 class="center">SPELLCASTING, SPELLCHECKING</h2>

Did you ever consider that an adventure game's parser acts first as
a spelling checker? Mispell a word and the parser will reprimand you as
coldly as the severest fifth grade English teacher and then make you
retype the entire command. Introduced in *A Mind Forever
Voyaging*, Infocom's "oops" feature reduces the amount of retyping. Just
say "oops" and follow it with the correctly spelled word; the parser will
put the correction in your previous command and re-execute it. The
vocabulary can be extended by adding your own words, a first for
an adventure. This is done by carving words on a cube with a
special tool called a burin. (I scratched "xyzzy" on mine, but it
didn't teleport me back to the wellhouse.)

Adventuring is like mountain-climbing: plenty of ways to get
killed, more than one way to the top, wondrous discoveries on each leg of
the journey, and an unparalleled sense of accomplishment when you
reach the summit. If you 're one of those jaded adventurers who thinks
you've climbed every mountain, think again -- you'll need the practice
to reach the peak in *Spellbreaker*, the Mount Everest of adventure.

<hr style="border-top: 4px double;">

**Computer:** All Personal Computers, including Amiga and ST<br>
**Skill Level:** Master Adventurers Only<br>
**Saves:** Eight (unlimited on Macintosh)<br>
**Price:** Atari $44.95; ST and others, $49.95<br>
**Manufacturer:** Infocom
