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ISSUE #15 - October 11, 1998

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    The  |___/ociety for the |_|romotion of  |_|_|dventure  \___|ames.

    			    ISSUE # 15

    	     Edited by Magnus Olsson (zebulon SP@G pobox.com)
    			October 11, 1998.

    	      SPAG Website: http://welcome.to/spag

    SPAG supports the 1998 IF Competition (http://www.ifcompetition.org)

    SPAG #15 is copyright (c) 1998 by Magnus Olsson.
    Authors of reviews retain the rights to their contributions.

    All email addresses are spamblocked -- replace the name of our magazine
    with the traditional 'at' sign.

    REVIEWS IN THIS ISSUE -----------------------------------------------------

    The Awakening
    BJ Drifter
    Bloodline
    Enchanter
    Firebird
    Knight Orc
    A Mind Forever Voyaging
    Saied
    Sorcerer
    Spellbreaker
    There's a Hole In Your Bucket

    EDITORIAL------------------------------------------------------------------

    OK, you don't have to tell me: it's been a long time since the last
    issue, partly because of the intervening summer, of course, but I'd
    actually planned to release it a whole month ago, in early September.
    Unlike earlier, you won't have to listen to any pathetic excuses
    from me this time: I've actually got an explanation. The problem is
    only that I'm not at liberty to tell you everything yet, so the
    following may sound slightly less than believable. It is the truth,
    though.

    As I wrote above, I had planned to release this issue in early
    September, so I set a deadline in late August. However, some very
    interesting contributions had a string attached: I had to promise not
    to publish them until given permission.

    The problem was only that the permission was delayed, and delayed, and
    delayed... I've still not received the go-ahead. Since I feel that the
    time for a new issue is long overdue, I've decided to drop the secret
    contributions from this issue, and publish now, before angry mobs of
    torch-bearing subscribers start turning up at my door.

    So, here it is, a somewhat slimmed-down SPAG 15. I still intend to
    publish the dropped material, as soon as I'm allowed to do so. I'm
    sorry I can't say anything about when this will be - it could be next
    week or next year. Keep your fingers crossed.

    In the meantime, here's a number of excellent reviews of both old and
    new games. Enjoy!

    NEWS -----------------------------------------------------------------------

    The entries in the 1998 IF Competition have been released, and voting
    is underway. For more details (and instructions on how to download the
    games), see the official competition site at
    http://www.ifcompetition.org

    The games can also be downloaded from
    ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/competition98

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    In addition to the "big" Competition, a number of mini- and
    micro-competitions have been held on the newsgroups this year. More
    details, and all the participating games, are available from
    ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/mini-comps/.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    There is now a new official SPAG web site (the old one, at afn.org,
    was partially lost in a disk crash this spring). The URL is
    http://welcome.to/spag
    Thanks to Joe DeRouen at Sparkynet for donating the web space!

    SUBMISSION POLICY ----------------------------------------------------------

    SPAG is a non-paying fanzine specializing in reviews of text adventure
    games, a.k.a. Interactive Fiction. This includes the classic Infocom
    games and similar games, but also some graphic adventures where the
    primary player-game communication is text based.

    Authors retain the rights to use their reviews in other contexts. We
    accept submissions that have been previously published elsewhere,
    although original reviews are preferred. At the moment, we are
    reluctant to accept any more reviews of Infocom games (though
    exceptions happen).

    KEY TO SCORES AND REVIEWS----------------------------------------------------

    Consider the following review header:

    NAME: Cutthroats
    AUTHOR: Infocom
    EMAIL: ???
    DATE: September 1984
    PARSER: Infocom Standard
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2
    URL: Not available.

    When submitting reviews:  Try to fill in as much of this info as you can.
    Also, scores are still desired along with the reviews, so send those along.
    The scores will be used in the ratings section.  Authors may not rate or
    review their own games.

    More elaborate descriptions of the rating and scoring systems may be found
    in the FAQ and in issue #9 of SPAG, which should be available at:

    	ftp://ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive/magazines/SPAG/
     and at http://welcome.to/spag

    REVIEWS 1: NEW GAMES -----------------------------------------------------

    From: Chantikell SP@G aol.com
    NAME: The Awakening
    AUTHOR: Dennis Matheson
    E-MAIL: Dennis_Matheson SP@G compuserve.com
    DATE: 1998
    PARSER: Inform
    SUPPORTS: all Inform ports
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/infocom/awaken.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    Considering that "The Awakening" by Dennis Matheson is a rather small
    game, I was pleasently surprised by both plot and atmosphere of the
    game.

    The game starts out with the player finding himself in an old,
    decaying churchyard during a thunderstorm, not knowing how he came
    there nor who he is. But both the fact that he's originally located in
    an earth pit and the name of the adventure lead up to some
    suspicions...

    Besides, the author mentions to have been inspired by the works of
    Lovecraft, so for me the setting of the game was, if not outright
    obviously, so at least in all probability, part of the Lovecraftian
    Universe, with strange and malovelent forces at work.

    During the course of the game I found this to be true, and by and by
    learnt more about my surroundings, and the goal I had to achieve,
    until I was able to defy these forces and win "freedom".

    The atmosphere, especially during the first part of the game, is quite
    dense.  Especially, once I was inside the church, I felt like an
    intruder, at a place where some tradegy had already occured, trying to
    make sense of the remnants.

    But the end of the game came as something of an anti-climax to me: I
    had no problems to win against my antagonist, and no final explanation
    was offered to fill a few gaps I had noticed, just a plain
    ***You have won*** message.

    But, as I said before, "The Awakening" is a short piece of interactive
    fiction, and therefore due to lack some fleshing out that a bigger
    game perhaps would have had. For its length it's really a fine example
    of the art, capturing in its story, and convincing in its atmosphere.

    I've totally forgotten to mention the technical side, and that's
    probably because I found no flaws there, no bugs or parser problems,
    which of course heightened the pleasure of playing "The Awakening".

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: Jarvist Frost (BOBFROST SP@G compuserve.com)

    NAME: Bloodline, An Interactive Coming-of-age
    AUTHOR: Liza Daly
    E-MAIL: gecko SP@G retina.net
    DATE: 1998
    PARSER: Slightly below Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: Z code 5 interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/mini-comps/games/bloodline.z5
    VERSION: Release 1

    Bloodline is a game based abound its NPC's. The entire game takes
    place in the basement of a friend's house. You (female) are playing a
    board game called bloodline which involves chasing after the fortune
    mentioned in a will, battling with all the other relatives. This
    appears to have been a way of fulfilling the criteria for the mini
    comp rather than a central game piece. You are playing against the Boy
    of Your Dreams (tm) and the ultimate decision is to either use your
    special card and win the game or let the boy beat you. Your decision,
    either way, ends the game.  There is no movement and interaction with
    the NPC's is kept to a bare minimum (you're too distracted by the
    boy's eyes to even think of talking to him). I thought that the TV was
    an excellent touch, the slasher movies caused me to come back to the
    game time after time.

    If a Crinkly were to review this then they would complain about the
    blunt humour, absence of puzzles, obsession with the boy etc. As a
    teenager I found this to be a fun short piece of IF. My only problems
    with this game was the way that I had to be female and a few weird
    parser problems cropped up. In particular I liked the introduction,
    this is the 'reading of the rules' (essential for all board
    games). After reading the premise.txt I was expecting a serious game
    and the introduction confused me for a moment until I realised it was
    a 'tongue in {his} cheek' game.  This game captures the style of
    teenage sleep overs, right down to the passing of notes.

    As an example of a parser problem I give you this:

    >examine randy's game piece
    I only understood you as far as wanting to examine Randy's game piece.

    Weird or what?

    There is no movement and no real manipulation of items. The game will
    automatically end in 25 moves if you can't reach a decision. The game
    would generally be solved in 20 moves or under. There are no real
    actions that you can do, you just have to admire the scenery until you
    have to make the Ultimate Decision on which your future teenage
    happiness is based. Apart from examining and reading objects, there is
    nothing much that you can do. The ending that would appear to bring
    the most satisfaction to the girl that you are playing seems to give a
    rather un-feminist view of live, you have to let the male win so that
    he likes you.

    All in all, this game was a fun five minute piece of vagely
    interactive fiction.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    NAME: Firebird
    AUTHOR: Bonnie Montgomery
    E-MAIL: firebird SP@G pobox.com
    DATE: 1998
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/firebird.gam
    VERSION: Release 1.0

    PLOT: Charming, appropriately fairy-tale (1.4)  ATMOSPHERE: Appropriate
    (1.3)
    WRITING: Strong, often amusing (1.6)  GAMEPLAY: Uneven at times (1.1)
    PUZZLES: Not too hard, some a bit random (1.2) CHARACTERS: Amusing (1.4)
    MISC: Whimsical and very playable (1.5)
    OVERALL: 6.9

    Some genres of literature have become common stomping grounds for IF,
    but fairy tales are not among them: the dearth of children's stories
    in the IF library means that Firebird attempts something distinctly
    new, and the Russian themes make it all the more unique. Though many
    traditionally fairy-tale tropes are present, including evil wizards,
    captured princesses, and a series of marriages at the end, the author
    gives the work more than enough humor and creativity to carry it off
    successfully.

    For what it's worth, you're the third son of a tsar, and you've been
    chosen to bag the Firebird of the title, which has been stealing the
    golden fruit from your father's orchard. Once you do catch the bird,
    you get sent on a Quest to defeat the Evil Nasty Guy, overcoming scary
    obstacles along the way and even getting Useful Social Guidance as
    well, namely that you should be kind to animals. (Moreover, everything
    seems to come in sets of three, a common number--along with seven--in
    these stories.) Russian folk tales are not, it appears, drastically
    different from those of Western Europe, such as the Brothers Grimm and
    Hans Christian Andersen, certain not in their hallmarks. But there is
    also plenty of humor along with the stock scenes and characters,
    fortunately: a series of dimwitted guards, even if repetitive (you
    defeat all of them with the same ploy), is sufficiently comic to make
    the idea feel fresh.  There is plenty of absurdity as well: you get
    help from an army of Japanese cooks at one point, who attack with
    pepper grinders (really), and kissing a frog turns it into...an axe
    murderer. The humorous bits and the small size of the game keep the
    game moving along despite the more time-worn elements.

    The authenticity of the references to actual Russian stories cannot be
    verified, but judging from the bibliography and the footnotes
    sprinkled here and there, the author seems to have done plenty of
    homework along the way, which helps reduce the sense that this is a
    generic fairy tale. At one point, you encounter two peasants swapping
    jokes which, somehow, feel just bizarre enough to be real Russian
    jokes; at another, you encounter "three times nine" knights, which, as
    the author explains, really means, in Russian folk tale parlance,
    27. There is more than enough of this sort of thing to keep the story
    feeling fresh, though it's more the author's wit than the stories
    themselves that gives the game its appeal. (My favorite reference of
    all, actually, was the Firebird's tendency to "whistle the greatest
    hits of Stravinsky.") My one real objection is that women are more
    often than not reduced to helpless playthings or decorative objects,
    admittedly more the fault of the genre (and, maybe, the culture that
    inspired the story) than the author but still a mite irritating. (And
    ironic, since the author is one of very few women currently writing
    IF.)

    As noted, the puzzles are straightforward enough that they shouldn't
    slow the player down much, though there are some slightly unfair
    bits--notably, having to wait around for 15-20 turns before someone
    comes along and drops an item that turns out to be useful later
    on. There are some clues to the possibility of that event, but they're
    not particularly strong. There are some other bugs, but not many, and
    they don't impede the game all that much, and the end of the story is
    appropriately climactic and easy to figure out. Moreover, even the few
    moments where puzzle solutions are not entirely obvious are
    decipherable on fairy-tale terms; since the genre demands some
    suspension of logic anyway, thinking in fairy-story mode is usually
    the best way to move things along; though one solution might be better
    suggested by the context in that respect, it's certainly not
    unfair. The relative ease of the puzzles also makes this an appealing
    possibility for younger players, though some of the references--such
    as the baba yaga--might require explanation. The real fly in the
    ointment is a large maze; it doesn't seem like the game would lose
    much if it were cut down or eliminated.

    The writing is excellent, though there's rather a lot of it at certain
    key points, often several screens' worth, and several descriptions are
    a bit on the skimpy side--though most locales are standard enough that
    they don't need extensive writing to come across. Appropriately for
    the story and the age group, the writing gives more attention to plot
    than to drawn-out description: events and action get long chunks of
    text, not images. Still, it's worth noting that the author rarely
    slips into fairy-tale excess--not every woman is breathtakingly
    beautiful, not every obstacle is horribly dangerous, etc.--though one
    occasionally wishes for more details than the author
    provides. Moreover, as with most good fairy tales, the scale starts
    small and then builds--you start out doing menial tasks for your
    father--so that, when the author does lay on superlatives, they don't
    feel tired.

    Though the plot won't exactly throw anyone for a loop, Firebird is a
    quick, enjoyable game that might herald something new, namely IF
    grounded in a specific cultural tradition; Sound of One Hand Clapping
    and Pesach Adventure are the only other examples I can think of. If
    Firebird encouraged more research into backgrounds of games, and more
    innovative settings, it might lead to more creative games, never a bad
    thing. In its own right, it's a worthy effort.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: "Paul O'Brian"

    NAME: Firebird
    AUTHOR: Bonnie Montgomery
    EMAIL: bkm SP@G pobox.com
    DATE: March 1998
    PARSER: TADS standard
    SUPPORTS: TADS ports
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware/Charityware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/tads/firebird.gam
    VERSION: 1.0

    When Def Leppard's "Pyromania" album came out in 1983, it was a good
    album and a big hit, but it never made it to #1 on the American
    charts. Why?  Because Michael Jackson's "Thriller" was perched there;
    for months the Def Leppard album sat at #2, then sank, never reaching
    the top spot. What does this have to do with IF? Hold your horses, I'm
    getting to that. In the spring of 1998, Bonnie Montgomery suffered a
    similar fate -- she put out an excellent game which never got the
    recognition it deserved, because it was overshadowed by a concurrent
    release, Andrew Plotkin's masterful "Spider and Web." (Hmmm, perhaps
    this comparison isn't so good after all.  I'm not sure how much
    Plotkin wants to be the Michael Jackson of IF, let alone how thrilled
    Montgomery is to be called its Def Leppard. Plus, now I've outed
    myself as a fan of 80s heavy metal, not to mention an incurable
    parenthetical rambler. I should probably just delete this whole first
    paragraph, but knowing my Piers Anthony-like inability to erase
    anything I've written, I probably won't. Magnus, I leave it up to
    you.)

    This review is meant to partly make up for the unwarranted neglect
    "Firebird" has suffered. The game is cleverly written and well-coded,
    with a number of design and puzzle strengths as well. Not only that,
    it includes the command "WEAR THE CLAW"! How could I resist anything
    that makes reference (though probably not consciously) to my own
    one-game contribution to the world of IF? In fact, oddly enough,
    "Firebird" has several resemblances to "Wearing the Claw": both
    feature a circular wall with a plaque mounted upon it, each of which
    has "hints of honey" inside, and both games have a section where the
    parser prevents travel for three attempts. Now, of course I'm not
    suggesting that "Wearing the Claw" was somehow the inspiration for
    "Firebird" -- I doubt Ms. Montgomery has even played my game -- but I
    did find it interesting that our games had so many specifics in
    common. I'm inclined to think that these two games, taken together
    with some others such as Infocom's "Arthur" and Whizzard's "Lesson of
    the Tortoise", are taking steps towards creating a basic vocabulary of
    puzzles and devices for folk-tale-oriented IF.

    Whether or not this is the case, "Firebird" stands on its own as a
    remarkable piece of interactive fiction in its own right. Its clear,
    elegant prose is a pleasure to read, and in spots becomes quite clever
    indeed. For example, early on in the game our hero Ivan must pass by a
    gaggle of overeager female admirers wearing beeswax lipstick (to which
    Ivan is allergic). The women are described thus: "They're swarming
    everywhere, their constant chattering an irritating drone to your
    ears."  However, if Ivan fails to pass, the death message says "You
    are swarmed by these eager noble honeys. Much as you feared, their
    lipstick-tainted kisses cause hives to cover the entire surface of
    your skin. A severe allergic reaction ensues and you succumb." In a
    few quick sentences, Montgomery manages to work in "swarm" "drone"
    "hive", and "honey"; death by allergy has never been described with
    such wordplay and wit! The combination of humor and action is
    characteristic of "Firebird," and gives it a lighthearted tone which
    works quite well. Though the deeper structure of the game has a number
    of fairly serious elements, Montgomery finds a way to inject humor
    into most of the scenes, sometimes spilling over into outright
    hilarity. That this mix of humor and action creates balance rather
    than confusion is a testament to Montgomery's writing skills.

    As strong as the writing is, the design is just as good. The game
    provides multiple solutions to many of the puzzles, solutions which
    often are so well thought-out in themselves that it's rewarding to
    play through the puzzle each way, just to see how imaginatively the
    game approaches the problems. "Firebird" is flexible enough to handle
    lots of different kinds of thinking, and there were many times when I
    thought I'd made a game-killing mistake and later found out that
    although I had created a problem for myself, the game provided for a
    way out of it as well.  Moreover, when critical junctions do come up,
    the game gently suggests that you think about "praying to save your
    soul." If you acquiesce to this suggestion, the interpreter's "save"
    function is invoked, and you now have a bookmark just behind the
    critical point. There is only one place in which Montgomery's very
    player-friendly design approach breaks down, which is the inclusion of
    a fairly large, irritating maze. The maze, as far as I could
    determine, is of the bad old variety to which there is no alternative
    but slow, tedious mapping. Nonetheless, even if you hate mazes, it's
    worth it to slog through this one, just because the last part of the
    game is so rewarding. "Firebird" has several excellent climactic
    scenes (which one you see depends on what you've done up to that
    point) and it handles multiple endings in a number of highly creative
    ways.

    Finally, in addition to the big-picture factors, "Firebird" includes a
    number of nicely done, subtle touches. For instance, the author (who
    is married to Unkuulian implementor Chris Nebel) manages to sneak in a
    very sly reference to that series by naming a nearby tavern "The
    Cheese and Pig Inn." Neat coding effects abound as well; at one point
    Ivan is given a list of items he'll need in the next portion of the
    story. The initial contents of this list vary depending on what Ivan
    is holding when he receives it, and as he collects the items
    necessary, the corresponding list items are checked. Another example
    of clever coding is that the game not only frequently sends Ivan
    tumbling to the ground, but it counts the number of falls he's taken,
    and responds accordingly: "Just a reminder, this is the third time
    today that you and the ground have had an abrupt meeting." Puzzles are
    also soundly executed: not too difficult, well-clued, and
    strategically dispersed to keep the narrative at a steady pace. At
    this writing, the game still has several bugs, one or two of which can
    in fact render the game unwinnable. I have forwarded these bugs to the
    author, and she assures me that they will be fixed in the next
    release. If version 1.0 of "Firebird" was this good, it will be even
    better when all the niggling problems are repaired.

    "Firebird" proves beyond a doubt that the intersection between folk
    tale and IF is a fertile one. At the risk of making an overreaching
    generalization, I would contend that folk tales often tend to have a
    strong sense of structure, a distinct "best" ending, somewhat "flat"
    characters who mainly serve as ciphers for the plot, and frequent
    appearances by riddles or somewhat artificial puzzles, all of which
    are perfect for adaptation into conventional-form IF. The strengths of
    interactive fiction, on the other hand, include exploration of exotic
    landscapes, a strong sense of score/progress, and participation in
    structured narratives, factors which can combine to give us new ways
    to experience very ancient stories. What's more, the global audience
    of interactive fiction means that no matter in what tradition an IF
    folk tale is written, it will serve to teach at least some of its
    players about cultures outside their own. Here's hoping that others
    follow in the trail that "Firebird" has blazed.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: Jarvist Frost (BOBFROST SP@G compuserve.com)

    NAME: Saied
    AUTHOR: Robb Sherwin
    E-MAIL: robb_sherwin SP@G juno.com
    DATE: 6/8/98
    PARSER: Slightly below Inform Standard
    SUPPORTS: ZCODE interpreters
    AVAILABILITY: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/mini-comps/chicken.zip
    VERSION: Release 1

    { Editor's note: this was one of the entries of the 1998 Chicken Comp
    (see the NEWS section above), hence the reference to chickens crossing
    the road. The file chicken.zip contains not only this game, but the
    other entries as well. }

    In this game you play the role of the spurned lover (male). Your Ex
    has left you for someone else 18 months ago (while you were standing
    there at 3am waiting for her in the freezing cold). Now, she has
    phoned you and asked you to come round and comfort her since she has
    just been arguing with her new lover, your replacement. You start this
    game in your bed, and have to get up and decide whether you are going
    to respond to your Ex's call for help.

    This game has more bugs than a tropical swamp. Instead of typing
    'stand' or 'get out of bed' you have to type 'pump it up' to get out
    of bed. The direction of your door (the only exit from your apartment)
    is not actually mentioned in the room description and so you have to
    guess wildly by typing in directions at random until you realise that
    it is towards the east. This game hardly recognises any of the items
    mentioned in the room description. The main way that the story
    progresses is through people phoning you up. After you finely decide
    to get out of bed and exit the house you find yourself faced with a
    decision (which will, either way, end the game). Should you go to your
    Ex lover's house you should you cross to the other Saied to see your
    close (female) friend?

    This game had some _very_ infuriating parser problems. The two items
    (of which only 1 can be picked up) served no purpose other than to be
    looked at. Only the second of the 2 locations contains any information
    about the exits from it. The telephone calls are hard wired in, where
    ether you are, you still get the telephone calls (which occur at 'so
    many turns').

    >From the last two paragraphs of complaints you would expect the
    writing to be terrible and the game to be boring, frustrating and
    excessively hard to understand. It wasn't. The writing was of a very
    high standard throughout and both endings seemed very fitting, in
    particular I liked the joke about why the chicken crossed the road
    (and no it isn't "to get to the other side"(TM) but it is something
    similar).

    As a whole, this game was good fun and I would heartily recommend it
    to anyone with experience with bad parsers (i.e. all you Speccy Ifers
    out there). Once the parser bugs have been navigated, this game turns
    into a fun, short game and I found it well worth the download time. I
    will certainly look forward to the 1998 i.f. competition entry from
    Robb Sherwin.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From:  Audrey De Lisle ,

    NAME:	  There's a Hole In Your Bucket
    AUTHOR:	Karen Tyers
    EMAIL:
    DATE:	  1998
    PARSER:	PAW (Professional Adventure Writer)
    SUPPORTS:      Spectrum and emulators
    AVAILABILITY:  Adventure Workshop, 36 Grasmere Road, Royton, Oldham,
    	       Lancs, OL2 6SR, England
    Also: Adventure Probe Magazine,
          52 Burford Road, Liverpool, L16 6AQ, England
    Other games may be had for C64 and Amiga, inquire of author.
    Price:  A small fee for postage and handling to the Workshop
    or an optional donation to Adventure Probe magazine if emailed by Karen.

    Adventure Probe is a small, hand assembled magazine published by Karen
    Tyers.  It contains reviews, hints and a walk-through each month.
    Most of the games are for the C64 or Amiga, but some are pc.  Its
    listed price is two pounds sterling (in England).  There is no
    provision for foreign money.  The February issue has 50 pages, 6"x
    8.5".  For those in UK, there is a telephone help line and solutions
    can be downloaded.

    BUCKET is a charming small game based on a folk song, "I've Got A Hole In
    My Bucket, Dear Liza".  The player first learns that his wife, Liza, wants
    some water to wash the windows and there is none.  During his search for
    a water source and a bucket, he finds the duck pond is empty and the ducks
    are miserable.  Blossom, the sow, is most unco-operative and the chickens
    are hungry.  By frequent use of the LOOK command coupled with BEHIND, IN,
    or UNDER, the player's search is rewarded with objects leading to success
    in achieving this goal.  Besides the farm area, there is a five room house.
    Liza does not contribute much, but is an npc.  The only HELP is a reminder
    to follow the words in the song.

    Emulators: the Lunter Z80 emulator (registered) is used by the author
    with Win 95 and she reports that it works fine.  OTOH, I use DOS and
    found that the Lunter emulator (shareware) did not work well with the
    pentium/60MHz, but does work well with a 486/30MHz.  I downloaded the
    other pc emulator and it does work with the pentium, but not .z80
    files.  Of course, that may just be my pentium.  I was playing with
    the PAW .z80 file and not with a .sna file.  The author now has a
    proper .sna file ready.  At some future time, she hopes to have pc
    versions written with Inform or TADS.

    The song: There's a hole in my bucket dear Liza, dear Liza.
    	  There's a hole im my bucket, dear Liza.
    	      Well, mend it dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry.
    	      Well, mend it dear Henry, mend it.
    	  With what shall I mend it, dear Liza? (etc).
    	      With some straw, dear Henry (etc)
    	  But the straw is too long, dear Liza, (etc)
    	      Well, cut it, dear Henry (etc)
    	  With what shall I cut it, dear Liza? (etc)
    	      With an axe, dear Henry (etc)
    	  But the axe is too blunt, dear Liza (etc)
    	      Well, sharpen it, dear Henry (etc)
    	  With what shall I sharpen it, dear Liza? (etc)
    	      With a stone, dear Henry (etc)
    	  But the stone is too dry, dear Liza (etc)
    	      Well, wet it, dear Henry (etc)
    	  With what shall I wet it, dear Liza? (etc)
    	      Try water, dear Henry (etc)
    	  In what shall I fetch it, dear Liza? (etc)
    	      In a bucket, dear Henry (etc)

    I prefer not to rate games.  I enjoyed playing this one or would not
    offer a review.  There were two 'hunt the verb' problems; one easily
    resolved, but the other could be a sticker.  However, this could be a
    difference in culture, so Americans might have more trouble than
    others.  I am not sure younger players with no experience with C64, RS
    Color Computers, Spectrum, etc, would be interested.  These games do
    not resemble MYST, et al, but are great for older players.

    REVIEWS 2: OLD GAMES -----------------------------------------------------

    From: Gerhard Peterz (peterz SP@G mags.net)

    NAME: A Mind Forever Voyaging (AMFV)
    Author:Steve Meretzky
    EMAIL:????
    DATE: 1985
    PARSER: Infocom Standard
    SUPPORTS: Infocom Ports
    AVAILABILITY: LTOI 2, MSTRPCS.
    URL:?????
    SUPPORTS:Infocom ports
    PUZZLES: Good, ranging from easy to hard.
    CHARACTERS: Great.
    ATMOSPHERE: Very well done.
    DIFFICULTY: Medium - Hard

    You are PRISM. A super computer able to "live" in simulations in the
    future. RIght now, the world were you were created is slowly being
    pushed into chaos. Schools are becoming violent. Suicides are up.
    Overpopulation and food shortage threaten the world. A Senator Richard
    Ryder has proposed a plan that everyone is willing to follow. But
    there is one thing that stands between the plan's finishing stage.
    You. It is your mission to simulate the future of the plan and hurl
    yourself far into the future. A land of wonders and peace, or one of
    cruelty and death? Only you can decide if the plan shall fall through.

    Overall, AMFV is a great game. The plot is really intriguing and
    Rockville, the city that the simulations take place, is a vast area of
    exploration throughout the time periods. The writing is good quality
    and excellent. It draws you into the game.  The best points of this
    game are: 1) The writing is just superb.  2) The ability to visit and
    compare the same city in 10 year intervals.  3) The amount to explore
    and see.

    A few weak points:

    1) The library feature doesn't really need to be used.
    2) You have to wait a bit, but sleep mode takes care of most of the time.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: Second April

    NAME: Enchanter
    AUTHOR: Marc Blank
    E-MAIL: Beats me
    DATE: 1983
    PARSER: Infocom Standard
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: Commercial
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 29

    Enchanter, as most Infocom fans know, is the first in a fantasy series
    intended to complement the Zork trilogy, a set of games where success
    depends both on wits and on judicious use of magic. (By implication,
    the adventurer in the Zork trilogy is a sort of grunt by contrast,
    using combat skills as opposed to spell-casting, which isn't really
    true--but the blend of the two in Beyond Zork lends credence to the
    idea that it was supposed to be a resolution to both trilogies.) The
    player's use of magic in this series is based on a simple system of
    copying spells into a book and then memorizing the spell each time it
    is cast, an approach that has earned much criticism over the years but
    which I still enjoy and find realistic (well, realistic on
    fantasy-game terms, anyway). It feels more natural to have known
    spells in a book than floating around in one's head constantly,
    somehow, even though it can become a form of inventory
    management. Part of the fun of this magic system, moreover, is the
    humor value inherent in casting certain spells on inappropriate
    objects (and the funny responses Infocom provided, of course).

    Anyway, the plot of Enchanter is a fairly standard save-the-world
    deal, wherein you, the novice enchanter, are sent into Krill's castle
    because your powers are minimal enough that he won't bother to get rid
    of you.  (Why it wouldn't be worth his while to smush someone prowling
    around his castle isn't wholly clear to me, but oh well.) The layout
    of the plot is rather "wide," in design parlance, meaning that almost
    the entire territory and most of the puzzles are available early in
    the game; it's up to you to figure out what can be solved at any given
    time. Wide games can be irritating if the puzzles must be solved in
    one particular order, but 'tisn't so in "Enchanter", fortunately;
    quite a few of the puzzles are solvable very near the beginning of the
    game.

    The puzzles themselves are mostly good, and not especially difficult,
    with one exception--one vital action is without motivation and relies
    on a somewhat obscure hint. There is another instance of a verb I
    didn't expect the game to recognize and spent hours upon hours
    devising alternative solutions to the puzzle--and no, my copy was not
    pirated; I just didn't think to look at the verb list, I guess. There
    are a few other mildly unfair elements--the effects of a spell expire
    after a small number of moves, but there's no way of knowing that (and
    no sign when it happens) and it might seem at first like that spell
    doesn't have the desired effect. Another puzzle, while the idea is
    fairly obvious, requires considerable trial and error for success--and
    there are some incorrect solutions, for which the game gives a fairly
    obvious warning. As an introduction to the use of magic in puzzles,
    Enchanter succeeds admirably; you use almost all of your spells at
    least once, often in creative ways.  If there's a weakness here, it's
    that virtually everything you do turns on magic; whereas the other two
    installments in the series called for more puzzle-solving and less
    trying spells, Enchanter is largely solvable by pulling out a spell
    for every occasion. It's not a major drawback, but it's not optimal
    either.

    Enchanter's plot, as noted, is not especially innovative, and is beset
    by contradictions, primary among them that Krill would not bother to
    notice when you acquire the means to defeat him (and that said means
    is sitting around in his own castle). That said, though, the
    atmosphere and the setting are quite well done--the abandoned village,
    the view of the castle from the Lonely Mountain, and the spread of the
    effect of Krill's spell, characterized thus: "Everything you see is
    gray and lifeless, as though covered with a veil of ash. Sound is
    muted and there is a faint acrid odor." Room descriptions change as
    well as the spell spreads, deteriorating from reasonably tidy
    abandoned castle to something altogether more sinister; it reminded me
    of the Nothing from Neverending Story. The effect is to lend some
    urgency to the plot, even though the time allotted to accomplish the
    mission is far more than needed, and to make the game something more
    than a collection of puzzles. There is humor as well, though: possibly
    the high point of the game is the arrival of the "adventurer," who
    seems to be you in the Zork trilogy (though it does, sadly, assume
    that said adventurer is male), and who plays on all the sillinesses of
    Zork and its genre, from illogical "wonder what happens if I do this"
    actions and their snappy responses ("The adventurer attempts to eat
    his sword. I don't think it would agree with him.") to classic
    vacuum-cleaner adventurer behavior--put the adventurer in a room and
    watch him pick everything up. In that and in a few select instances--a
    ludicrously overguarded door, for instance, and the arrival on the
    scene of the Implementors, meaning the game authors--Infocom manages
    to get in a few digs at the swords-and-sorcery universe, even while it
    invokes many of its cliches.

    It's interesting, though, that as a fantasy game, Enchanter plays
    everything much more conventionally than the Zork series did. The
    parody elements largely address adventure games themselves, not of the
    fantasy world; the evil warlock, the good sorcerer, the friendly
    animals are all reliable fantasy elements, and Enchanter doesn't do
    much with them--whereas the Zork trilogy derived its humor value from
    making fun of fantasy itself. The feel, moreover, is less lighthearted
    than the Zork trilogy (at least, less than I and II; III was a
    departure in that respect); the adventurer's pratfalls aside, the
    onset of the "veil of ash" and the way it takes over the game has a
    sinister quality that doesn't fit well with the humorous
    aspect. Krill's sidekicks are more menacing than any enemies from the
    Zork series, since they're not given foibles or funny lines (no lines
    at all, actually); even when the thief in Zork I was intent on killing
    you, it was hard to actually be afraid of him because the game took
    pains to play up the "gentlemanly" aspect. Here, though, when
    "guttural voices seem to be coming in your direction," there's a
    genuinely ominous feeling. An early description sets the tone:

        To the east, far away, can be seen a great castle at the edge of
        the Sea.  Three turrets it has; two, old and still majestic, lie
        on either side of a third, cold, black as night and squat as a
        toad. An evil smoke seems to emanate from this tower, shrouding
        the others in a darkening fog. A small mountain trail leaves the
        peak and descends to the south into a small village far below.

    Obviously, there isn't a lot that's new here; the ideas and images
    could have come directly from Tolkien or from one of his
    imitators. But the writing is restrained enough that these and other
    atmosphere moments work well--the game builds up to your final
    encounter with Krill by giving more and more space to the
    looming-menace aspect. It's hard to explain why it works well, but it
    does--though you start in a bucolic natural setting, as the game
    progresses, your discoveries bring you closer to the heart of the
    castle, and the atmospheric changes are calculated to reflect that
    progress. Likewise, your accomplishments as an enchanter build on each
    other: you move from minor triumphs in the beginning to more
    significant or daring uses of magic later in the game. The point is
    that Enchanter does quite a lot with a sparely written plot and its
    few puzzles, and the cliched aspect doesn't prevent the story from
    being effective.

    On the whole, Enchanter works, and while there are problems--I wish
    the authors had rethought the insistence on hunger, thirst and sleep,
    for example--this is an example of one of Infocom's more solid early
    efforts.  Though it takes a very different approach to its fantasy
    element than does Zork I, it's no less entertaining for that.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: Second April

    NAME: Sorcerer
    AUTHOR: Steve Meretzky
    E-MAIL: Good question
    DATE: 1984
    PARSER: Infocom standard
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: Commerical
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 15

    RATING:
    ATMOSPHERE: A bit inconsistent (1.2)    GAMEPLAY: Very strong (1.7)
    WRITING: At times too jokey (1.5)       PLOT: Save-the-world (1.3)
    CHARACTERS: Few, not central (1.1)      PUZZLES: Good, two excellent (1.8)
    MISC: Style doesn't work as well as it might, but entertaining and
    satisfying, with lots of very funny Easter eggs (1.3)
    OVERALL: 7.0

    Sorcerer, the second entry in the Enchanter trilogy, begins
    arrestingly enough...

        You are in a strange logation, but you cannot remember how you got
        here.  Everything is hazy, as though viewed through a gauze...

        Twisted Forest

        You are on a path through a blighted forest. The trees are sickly,
        and there is no undergrowth at all. . One tree here looks
        climbable. The path, which ends here, continues to the northeast.

        A hellhound is racing straight toward you, its open jaws
        displaying rows of razor-sharp teeth.

    That may be the best hook of any of Infocom's games--no desultory
    "west of a white house" here. Escaping from the hellhound leads to a
    attack of locusts, a crumbling riverbank, a pit of snakes, a rotted
    drawbridge...the danger comes thick and fast. Unfortunately, it soon
    turns out that the landscape in question is a dream--a dream that
    exactly predicts the middle of the game, true, but still just a dream
    and unrelated to one's performance in the game. I spent quite a while
    trying to figure out what exactly I was supposed to be doing in that
    dream, and only grudgingly concluded that it was a long, elaborate red
    herring.

    Steve Meretzky is among Sorcerer's authors, and his influence is
    clear: his earlier Planetfall was crammed with red herrings, and the
    jokey approach to NPCs (distinctly different from the other two
    entries in the series) also echoes the earlier game. The role of red
    herrings in a game is a matter of taste--though this reviewer doesn't
    care for it, he can't unequivocally declare that a large percentage of
    irrelevant objects and locations makes for a bad game. He can,
    however, warn the potential Sorcerer player to set aside the "anything
    this complex must be useful somehow" assumption and not to spend too
    long on any given problem or object, since chances are good that
    Meretzky is up to his old tricks.  (Lord knows, I spent hours in some
    of those areas that proved irrelevant, trying to figure out why they
    were in the game.)

    Also notable in Sorcerer is the introduction of magic potions, absent
    in Enchanter and Spellbreaker--though, typically, only some of the
    potions that you find are relevant. Some of the potions have effects
    that are limited in duration, and one is permanent (it still seems to
    be in effect in Spellbreaker, in fact)...and Meretzky's goofball side
    is evident in the responses when you drink one potion while the
    effects of another are still ongoing--e.g., "Uh oh. Your left ear
    turned into a poisonous toad and ate your brain." Still, even if not
    especially innovative, the addition of magic potions give the magic
    another dimension.

    Meretzky's forte as a writer is humor, and Sorcerer's genre is
    wizardry/fantasy, not humor--and though the writing is far from
    disappointing, the atmosphere hardly approaches that of Dave Lebling's
    or Brian Moriarty's games. Too often, Meretzky is content to tell
    rather than show the player what to think--for example, in reading
    Belboz's journal at the beginning of the game:

    "The last three entries are strange and frightening, written in a hand
    quite different from that of Belboz, and in a language totally
    unfamiliar to you."

    Yes, fine, we can understand what has happened--but how more
    skillfully might the sense of unease have been heightened by dropping
    the "unfamiliar" part and actually reading bits from the journal, bits
    that imply something sinister! Compare the discovery of the
    alterations to your paper at the beginning of Lurking Horror; Lebling
    gives us all sorts of suggestive little tidbits ("there is something
    about a 'summoning,' or a 'visitor'...") in order to let our
    imagination roam. On the whole, there is little mood to Sorcerer; the
    dangers are so often vaguely ludicrous that it is hard to generate
    much in the way of tension. (Killer vines? A slot machine that crushes
    you with coins?) There are many, many locations like this:

        Highway

        This is a wide road winding away to the east and west, perhaps a
        relic of the Great Underground Empire you read about in history
        class. A passage leads up to the north.

    This could be in any game; the "history class" reference is typical of
    Meretzky in the way it shatters the description. That approach works
    brilliantly in Leather Goddesses and in other humorous games, but
    Sorcerer is not as free for humor in that respect, and contrasted with
    the skillful atmosphere in the rest of the series, the writing in
    Sorcerer feels a bit flat. (The lack of atmosphere is illustrated by
    the inclusion of the amusement park--how strange and inappropriate
    would that have felt in Enchanter or Spellbreaker?) Though the
    abandoned equipment and empty rooms in Planetfall became wearying,
    they did create a world of sorts; the world of Sorcerer feels
    thoroughly incoherent.

    All that said, though, there is much in Sorcerer to enjoy, including
    two of the better puzzles in the Infocom library. I enjoyed the glass
    maze immensely, even if it required considerable trial and error (and
    I never thought to take the easier solution); the idea felt so
    innovative that I was willing to put up with the aggravation. And the
    coal mine/time paradox puzzle is justly famous, and well worth the
    effort required to reach it; though I've knocked Meretzky's writing, I
    must admit that the tension I felt when trying to get through the mine
    in time was considerable. I don't particularly approve of the
    inclusion of the maze in the coal mine--it felt like an artificial way
    to make the puzzle more difficult--but the nature of the puzzle itself
    was so absorbing that I could forgive that.  (And there's something
    vastly entertaining about being told "You cease to exist!...If you had
    continued to exist, your score would have been..."  when you violate
    the confines of the loop.) As a mind-bender, the coal mine puzzle is
    one of the best--consider sometime where the knowledge of the
    combination originated--and the feel of ultimately getting through is
    indeed rewarding. (I always felt like the character's need for sleep
    once that puzzle is completed is intended to mirror one's own relief
    at being out of danger at last.) Minor annoyances--the maze,
    Meretzky's insistence on "Wheeeee!" in the coal chute--aside, this
    puzzle is clearly the highlight of the game (it makes the final few
    puzzles--fairly "duh"-worthy puzzles--feel wildly anticlimactic,
    though). Sorcerer is not especially hard--it was rated "advanced"
    under the rating system at the time, but there are few if any
    genuinely difficult puzzles (though figuring out what to solve takes a
    good deal of energy, of course).

    For fans of Enchanter, Sorcerer is worth playing; it continues the
    inventive use of magic to solve puzzles, and there is a genuine sense
    of accomplishment at the end. Though, particularly in the writing, it
    doesn't quite equal the standard set by Enchanter, it is well worth
    the time of any fantasy-game enthusiast.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: Second April

    NAME: Spellbreaker
    AUTHOR: Dave Lebling
    E-MAIL: I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you
    DATE: 1985
    PARSER: Infocom standard
    SUPPORTS: Infocom ports
    AVAILABILITY: Commerical
    URL: N/A
    VERSION: Release 87

    RATING:
    ATMOSPHERE: Rich, surreal (1.8)	 GAMEPLAY: Outstanding (1.8)
    WRITING: Excellent (1.9)		PLOT: Absorbing (1.9)
    CHARACTERS: Few, strange (1.6)	  PUZZLES: Good, but very hard (1.9)
    MISC: Absorbing in way that belies plot, humorous, diverse settings,
    slightly disappointing ending (1.8)
    OVERALL: 9.2

    The culmination of Infocom's Enchanter trilogy came in 1985 with
    Spellbreaker, and quite a culmination it was; the final installment in
    the trilogy was far harder than the previous two, and far more
    satisfying as a game. Authored by Dave Lebling (who chose to leave his
    personal insignia in a thoroughly unlikely -- and slightly macabre --
    place in the game), Spellbreaker puts the player at the head of the
    Circle of Enchanters at a moment when magic itself appears to be on
    the wane -- a plot borrowed from Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea Trilogy, to
    be sure, but no less compelling for that. Gone is the semi-slapstick
    feel of Sorcerer -- the humor is subtler here -- but the mood here is
    also darker and lonelier; you encounter some humans along the way, but
    many sections of the game feel deserted -- at least, no longer
    populated by humans -- and Lebling's talent for atmosphere is
    evident. One room description begins this way:

        This is a ruined temple to a forgotten god. Black basalt
        pillars reach to the ceiling, but some are broken and lie in
        huge fragments on the ground.  The air is stale and filled
        with the odor of decay. Bats roost in the rafters, the only
        remaining worshippers.

    Though the plot of the game amounts to, as with the first two entries,
    "save the world from an evil force through your use of magic", there
    is far more going on here -- and the plot is much more integrated into
    the game as a whole. The initial development/hook, though very
    different from the device in Sorcerer, has considerable shock value --
    and, incidentally, serves to draw the player into the story rather
    than sounding a false alarm. Learning the "rules" of the game takes
    some time, and there are numerous opportunities to make the game
    unwinnable, many more than in Enchanter or Sorcerer (including one
    juxtaposition early in the game that seems like a "pull-my-finger"
    joke of sorts) -- but the unconventional nature of the story makes
    every new development a new discovery in a way that cannot be said of
    your average collect-the-treasure cave quest.

    Spellbreaker was given an "Expert" difficulty rating under the system
    at the time, a label only somewhat accurate. The bulk of the game's
    puzzles are fairly standard use-the-proper-spell affairs, though some,
    naturally, rely on wits rather than magic -- but up until nearly the
    end, Spellbreaker could just as well be an "Advanced" game. The last
    few puzzles, though -- certainly two of the last three, and a few
    others from near the end as well -- are vastly more difficult; I will
    candidly admit that I needed a substantial push. (In fact, I didn't
    even get the premise of one of them without assistance -- one that
    amounts to a variation on a mathematical problem -- and I suspect I
    was not alone in that respect.) That factor increases the frustration
    level of Spellbreaker considerably; intuitive leaps are needed at the
    end that were simply not necessary earlier, and the unwary player
    might well assume he or she has missed something that would make the
    last few puzzles less baffling.

    It should also be said that, considering the intricacy of the
    puzzle-solving required to get there, the great climactic ending is
    something of a letdown -- one short paragraph, in effect, hardly
    longer or more resounding than any of the many deaths one can die. The
    nature of the ultimate ending does, in a way, explain that -- but it
    still feels like a letdown (I wondered for a while whether there was
    another, "better" ending).Despite frustration, though, there is an
    elegance to many of Spellbreaker's puzzles that the player can only
    admire; Lebling manages to shake the feel of "put the octagonal key in
    the octagonal hole" or "give the food to the animal blocking the door"
    that plagues many games. (The implications of one puzzle in particular
    are either completely absurd or supremely logical -- either way, they
    might give you a headache trying to sort it out.)

    In a sense, the puzzles reflect the plot -- on occasions, magic ceases
    to help the player at all; there are areas and situations where no
    amount of spellcasting will set things right, a subversion of the
    "spell for every occasion" feel of the first two games. In other
    instances, though, the player's magical powers circumvent the rules of
    the game's universe in ways that the first two games (in the temple
    and the coal mine, respectively) had only hinted at. The effect is
    occasionally a bit dizzying -- in that the geography is largely
    non-contiguous, the player jumps between realms and situations, and
    types of dilemmas, rather abruptly -- but the final confrontation ties
    things together, for the most part.

    Spellbreaker's plot has been described, and criticized, as "narrow"
    and "linear," which usually means that the amount of exploration
    possible before the player is confronted with another puzzle is small
    -- and hence that only one or two puzzles are available at a given
    time. Critics of such an approach claim that it makes a game too easy
    -- but Spellbreaker should give the lie to that; even though the
    difficulty increases toward the end, as noted, there are few puzzles
    that could be considered obvious.  Moreover, after the first few
    puzzles are solved, the game opens up considerably, to the extent that
    it is often possible to have five or six unsolved puzzles at
    hand. (And there are also a few dummy puzzles, or what seemed so to
    me, and a few that require specific tools that don't come until well
    after the problems are first encountered.)

    Granted, the freedom of the player is limited; the amount of variation
    in a winning game of Spellbreaker is minimal (as in, there are only a
    few puzzles or tasks whose order of solving or accomplishment can move
    around -- and not very far, at that -- whereas very few of the puzzles
    in Sorcerer, say, were in sequence) -- but that is part of why the
    game was, in fact, rated "Expert"; of the several puzzles available
    for head-scratching over at any given moment in Spellbreaker, it is
    likely that only one will be solvable. The feel of the game lends to
    the sense of narrowness, true -- for the uninitiated, the player
    follows a trail of sorts of mysterious cubes that transport him/her
    between a series of apparently disconnected locations, and the surface
    area that each cube provides to explore is limited to one or two rooms
    in a few cases. But it is possible to have several cubes whose
    possibilities are not fully explored at any given time -- one cube, by
    my count, has six distinct puzzles associated with it. The point is
    that Spellbreaker avoids the usual problems associated with linearity
    (in a way that, say, the recent "Time: all things..." does not), and
    provides one important advantage inherent in narrow games -- the sense
    of a storyline that the player discovers/is drawn into, rather than a
    bunch of problems to solve. (The cubes, suffice it to say, have a
    significance beyond their ability to transport you hither and yon --
    and once you realize that significance, the plot of the game becomes
    much more intriguing.)

    The writing, as in most Lebling games, is controlled and skillful, all
    the more so considering the nature of the game's world -- the sheer
    surreality of your surroundings as the game progresses. (Try to
    picture this scene, for example:

        This place is odd indeed. Nothing that you look at is what it
        seems. If you look at something carefully enough it turns out to
        be something entirely different. The room is cluttered with
        objects and obviously hasn't been cleaned in a long time. The
        floor is overgrown with grass and weeds, and rabbits have chewed
        them. There are bird nests around the ceiling and droppings here
        and there. A very untidy and unsettling place.  Much of the walls,
        ceiling and floor is covered in mirrors. There are empty,
        mirrorless square areas at north and south and a round black
        emptiness to the east.

    If you can visualize that scene at all, your imagination is better
    than mine.) There are, of course, defensible reasons why Lebling chose
    to have that particular room appear that particular way -- but it is
    also true that the atmosphere is sometimes more baffling than
    evocative of anything in particular. But though the nature of your
    travels allows Lebling to give you scenes like this...

        Light Room

        This place is bright and glaring. The very materials of which it
        is made blaze with light so bright that their forms are
        obscured. There are glowing archways to the west and south.

    ...or this...

        No Place

        There is nothing here. You are here, but there is no here where
        you are.  You see nothing. Your senses are vainly trying to find
        something, anything to work on. You can know your body is there,
        but you can't truly sense it to confirm the suspicion. Your mind
        is alternately drawn in three "directions" (or at least what seem
        like directions): east, west and south. There is something
        slightly different about the nothing in those directions.

    ...the sense that the author is Telling You A Big Cosmic Important
    Tale is mostly absent, thankfully, and the game manages to take you
    into realms several degrees removed from the average landscape without
    losing the feel of the adventure-game romp, no small feat. Those who
    have finished the game might do well to consider the nature of what
    Spellbreaker was purporting to describe, and the restraint with which
    Lebling carries it out; that much of the game seems prosaic is, in a
    way, high praise. The humor in the game is essential to its
    enjoyability, in that respect -- in the plain scene, notably, in the
    merchant's patter, and in the very nature of the idol puzzle -- and
    the absurdities (and acknowledgment of same) help keep the game from
    becoming portentous.

    Spellbreaker and Trinity have been mentioned in the same breath, and
    for good reason -- their plots have much in common, and there is a
    deft interaction between puzzles and story in each game that makes
    them just as absorbing for the narrative as for the challenge of the
    puzzles. A resounding conclusion to a somewhat uneven series,
    Spellbreaker deserves to be considered one of Infocom's very best.

    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

    From: Robb Sherwin (robb_sherwin SP@G juno.com)

    NAME: Knight Orc
    AUTHOR: Level 9 Computing
    E-MAIL:
    DATE: 1987
    PARSER: name unknown, excellent
    SUPPORTS: DOS, , Amiga, ST, C64, Apple, Amstrad
    AVAILABILITY: Commercial
    URL: N/A (ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/wadster/level9art.htm)
    VERSION: IBM PC

    Level 9 released "Knight Orc" in July of 1987 and soon thereafter
    changed what I felt entertainment software could be. While Knight Orc
    falls short of becoming a classic on the merits of pure art through
    this medium (unlike, say, "Sentinel" or "The Space Under The Window")
    it nonetheless does hold up eleven years later due to the strength of
    its atmosphere, gameplay and sheer indifference it shows to the
    player.

    Knight Orc was one of the first games to give a voice to a "villain."
    The player assumes the role of an orc named Grindleguts, abandoned by
    his buddies after a night of hard drinking. The orcs, caught in an
    inebriated stupor by a pack of foppish human knights, arrange for a
    "Contest of Champions" to take place in the morning. Which is all well
    and good, as they have no plans on sticking around for it. The orcs
    tie Grindleguts (completely passed out and in no position to argue) to
    a horse and give him a lance. The knights, bound by their code can do
    nothing but watch as the roving evil horde skulks off into the
    darkness. Much like the Baltimore Colts leaving for Indianapolis,
    really.  The orcs then destroy the bridge and make good on their
    escape.

    (The backstory is related in a novella that accompanies the game
    entitled _The Sign of the Orc_ by Peter McBride. Having purchased
    hundreds of computer games throughout my life I maintain to this day
    that the story is the finest ever to accompany a piece of computer
    software. It's very clever and funny and somehow manages to convey
    warmth and stunning brutality all within paragraphs of one another.)

    The interface to Knight Orc is much like that of the typical Magnetic
    Scrolls wares. Text dominates the bottom of the display, while painted
    visuals (that unfortunately lost quite a bit in digitization on my IBM
    version) are displayed on top. While the PC version did not allow
    manipulation of the image size, much more text is present than on the
    default settings for the Magnetic Scrolls games. Knight Orc's parser
    is excellent -- objects can be located using a FIND command --
    regardless of whether or not you have seen them (this does not work
    for special items you will learn about, and the command will not do
    any problem solving for you). It will understand virtually anything
    you throw at it, or give you helpful reasons why it doesn't.

    So, then. You're an orc trapped in human country. While attempting to
    apick up some rope to cross the river you will encounter the first bit
    of magic the game has to offer: the characters. I have never witnessed
    a greater collection of thugs, losers, egomaniacs and self-important
    motos than I have in this game.  The descriptions offered by the
    parser as to the wandering characters are cruel --

    The gripper: "he is a squinty, rat-like youth, with an orcish squint."

    Kris the ant-warrior: "she is a muscle-bound champion, armoured with
    plates of giant ant cuticle and wearing a strange ant-head helm. She
    looks a lot like an ogre-sized fried roach."

    Denzyl: "he is a right gullible and stupid-looking person."

    Fungus the boggit-man: "he is a lanky, twitchy-fingered,
    nicotine-addict."

    -- but a riot. Efffing genius.

    Furthermore, there are plenty of hapless denizens just waiting to have
    horrible things happen to them. I offer the following story as to why
    this game works so well: During one stretch on the first episode I was
    being identified as an orc rather easily. When a character recognizes
    an orc, her or she will attack. While getting thumped by the Green
    Knight (arguably the most powerful character in the episode till you
    solve his puzzle), a do-nothing slacker named "Sam the Grey Earl"
    jumps into the fray for a bit. After dying, I restored the game. I
    take a different route around, and Sam follows me for a little bit
    when I happen upon a cemetery. For whatever reason, Sam is lapping
    along like a puppy. I find the vampire for the first time, who offers
    me a spell in return for a victim. And guess who just happens to walk
    into the tomb?  Sam is sucked down just for being in the wrong place
    at the wrong time and because the little bastard couldn't leave me
    alone he is slain. And I get the spell.  Justice. Absolute justice.

    (Such an event is completely impossible to reproduce. The denizens in
    the game seem to have some "goals," like picking up treasure and
    killing orcs, but while Sam never followed me again I can not say that
    the characters in the game really move in completely random patterns.
    Somehow, Level 9 were able to create an environment filled with rich
    characters leading their own lives all while not creating an
    impression of headless chickens running around in a maze. )

    The last two episodes of Knight Orc are interchangeable -- without
    giving away too much, the end game involves a story of revenge and
    escape against those that tormented you -- and yet, reading the
    novella and playing the first episode does not begin to prepare
    you. (I should note that it ties into Level 9's earlier "Silicon
    Dreams" trilogy. Very, very nice.)

    The puzzles, jokes, characters and parser are all up to par with the
    best that Infocom had to offer. I suspect that this game did not
    receive the props that it should have due to its subject manner --
    playing the "bad guy" didn't really become in style until "Syndicate."
    While Grindleguts is a greedy, violent, angry little pit he is also a
    character worthy of our respect. Especially among the piles of spods
    he's running around with. I suspect that the background characters in
    Knight Orc are set to mirror the kind of individuals we (the gaming
    community) can't -- in theory -- stand or relate to in real
    life. Jocks, Girls, urchins, soldiers... one can make the argument
    that when they are in our world (a game) they should be the
    outsiders. Knight Orc describes them with as much distaste as we
    normally get in "their" environments. Bloody fabulous.

    If you take the time to enjoy this game -- to smell the roses --
    Knight Orc will return your attention with an incredible amount of
    pleasure. If Knight Orc were a woman, it would be the very cute, very
    sarcastic, yet seemingly shallow girl who melts like butter for you
    when you steer the pillow talk completely in her direction... and you
    then fall in love with her depth.

    REVIEWS 3: RISQUE GAMES --------------------------------------------------

    { Editor's note: The following review is of a game which will possibly
    be rather offensive to many people. As with all SPAG reviews, the views
    expressed in the review are those of the reviewer. }

    From: Joe DeRouen (jderouen SP@G sparkynet.com)

    Name: Blow Job Drifter
    Author: Big Al
    Email: al_biggone SP@G hotmail.com
    Date: 1998
    Parser: Inform
    Availability: Freeware (GMD)
    URL: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/bj.z5
    Version: Release 3.0

    Plot: Who needs plot?  (1.0)
    Atmosphere:  Cinemax soft porn  (1.0)
    Writing: Better than most in the genre  (1.2)
    Game play: Way too much "guess the verb"  (0.6)
    Characters: Typical Penthouse Forum fare  (1.0)
    Puzzles: A good mix  (1.2)
    Overall: Cheesy, but fun nevertheless  (1.1)

    Blow Job Drifter.  The name doesn't automatically conjure up great
    images of Interactive Fiction, does it?  This is definitely an "adult"
    text adventure, but just because it falls into that category doesn't
    necessarily make it a bad or sloppily done game.

    The object of the game, if you haven't already guessed, is to "score"
    orally (and we're not talking about giving speeches here, buddy) with
    as many different women as you can.

    The game starts out in your apartment.  You're naked and, for some
    reason that I've yet to fathom, you have absolutely nothing in your
    home to wear.  Your first mission, then, is to find some clothes.
    After you've managed that fairly simple task, the whole city (and
    beyond) awaits your lecherous advances. There are over a dozen
    different female targets in BJ Drifter.  Because the game is fairly
    linear, however, you'll have to go through most of them one by one.

    Despite way, way, way too many instances of "guess the verb", the game
    is a fun play.  BJ Drifter doesn't take itself too seriously and thus
    serves as a parody of sorts to the more "serious" adult IF out there.
    The writing is surprisingly well done, the puzzles clever if a bit
    off- the-wall (when you get to the fish stuck in the woman's mouth,
    you'll know what I mean,) and the sex scenes . . . well, those you'll
    have to judge for yourself.  But aside from being obviously misogynist
    (the game is from a male point of view, after all) they're pretty
    darned good.

    This is the first adult IF game I've played in years.  In fact, I
    think my last such game was something called "Farmer's Daughter",
    which I played on the Commodore 128 way back in the mid-eighties.  BJ
    Drifter is heads (and, dare I say it, tails) above that one, and
    manages to be fun and "adult" without being too offensive.  Of course,
    if you're easily offended, you're probably better off staying away
    from BJ Drifter.  For the rest of us, though, it's a great Sunday
    afternoon diversion that just may (bad pun alert!) keep you up all
    night.

    READER'S SCOREBOARD ---------------------------------------------------------

    As mentioned before, the scoreboard is now up to date! More ratings
    are welcome, especially for the games with a small number in the
    "#Sc." column.

       Notes:

    	A   - Runs on Amigas.
    	AP  - Runs on Apple IIs.
    	GS  - Runs on Apple IIGS.
    	AR  - Runs on Acorn Archimedes.
    	C   - Commercial, no fixed price.
    	C30 - Commercial, with a fixed price of $30.
    	F   - Freeware.
    	GMD - Available on ftp.gmd.de
    	I   - Runs on IBM compatibles.
    	M   - Runs on Macs.
    	S20 - Shareware, registration costs $20.
    	64  - Runs on Commodore 64s.
    	ST  - Runs on Atari STs.
    	TAD - Written with TADS.  This means it can run on:
    		AmigaDOS, NeXT and PC, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, DECstation
    		(MIPS) Unix Patchlevel 1 and 2, IBM, IBM RT, Linux, Apple
    		Macintosh, SGI Iris/Indigo running Irix, Sun 4 (Sparc)
    		running SunOS or Solaris 2, Sun 3, OS/2, and even a 386+
    		protected mode version.
    	AGT - Available for IBM, Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST.  This does not
    		include games made with the Master's edition.
    	ADVSYS - Available for PC and Macintosh only, or so my sources tell
    		 me.  (Source code available as well.  So it can be ported
    		 to other computers.)
    	HUG - Written with Hugo.  Runs on MS-DOS, Linux, and Amigas.
    	INF - Infocom or Inform game.  These games will run on:
    		Atari ST, Amiga, Apple Macintosh, IBM, Unix, VMS, Apple II,
    		Apple IIGS, C64, TSR-80, and Acorn Archimedes.  There may be
    		other computers on which it runs as well.

    Name		  Avg Sc     Chr     Puz    # Sc   Issue Notes:
    ====		  ======     ===     ===    ====   ==============
    Aayela		   8.6     1.6     1.7       1	F_TAD_GMD
    Adventure (all variants) 6.6     0.7     1.0       7      8 F_INF_TAD_ETC_GMD
    Adventureland	    4.0     0.5     1.5       1	F_GMD
    Adv. of Elizabeth Highe  3.1     0.5     0.3       2      5 F_AGT
    Afternoon Visit	  4.1     1.0     0.8       1
    Alien Abduction?	 7.9     1.7     1.7       1
    All Quiet...Library      4.7     0.8     0.7       4      7 F_INF_GMD
    Amnesia		  7.8     1.5     1.7       2      9 C_AP_I_64
    Another...No Beer	2.4     0.2     0.8       2      4 S10_IBM_GMD
    Arthur: Excalibur	8.0     1.3     1.6       4    4,14C_INF
    Awakened		 7.7     1.7     1.6       1
    Awe-Chasm		2.4     0.3     0.6       1      8 S?_IBM_ST
    Babel		    8.2     1.8     1.6       1
    Balances		 6.5     0.9     1.4       4      6 F_INF_GMD
    Ballyhoo		 7.7     1.8     1.5       4      4 C_INF
    Beyond the Tesseract     3.7     0.1     0.6       1      6 F_I_GMD
    Beyond Zork	      8.1     1.6     1.9       4      5 C_INF
    BJ Drifter	       7.3     1.5     1.5       1
    Border Zone	      7.3     1.4     1.4       6      4 C_INF
    Broken String	    3.1     0.5     0.6       1      x F_TADS_GMD
    BSE		      6.6     1.0     1.0       1
    Bunny		    6.6     1.0     1.4       1
    Bureaucracy	      7.5     1.6     1.3       6      5 C_INF
    Busted		   5.2     1.0     1.1       1	F_INF_GMD
    Castaway		 1.1     0.0     0.4       1      5 F_IBM_GMD
    Castle Elsinore	  5.3     1.0     1.2       1
    Change in the Weather    7.2     0.9     1.4       6  7, 14 F_INF_GMD
    Chicken under Window     6.9     0.0     0.0       1
    Christminster	    8.4     1.7     1.6       5	F_INF_GMD
    Corruption	       7.8     1.6     1.1       3      x C_I
    Cosmoserve	       8.7     1.3     1.4       2      5 F_AGT_GMD
    Crypt v2.0	       5.0     1.0     1.5       1      3 S12_IBM_GMD
    Curses		   8.4     1.3     1.7       9      2 F_INF_GMD
    Cutthroats	       6.4     1.4     1.2       5      1 C_INF
    Dampcamp		 6.0     1.0     1.4       1
    Deadline		 6.9     1.2     1.3       6      x C_INF
    Delusions		8.4     1.8     1.6       1
    Deep Space Drifter       5.5	     1.4       1      3 S15_TAD_GMD
    Delusions		7.4     1.3     1.5       2      14F_INF_GMD
    Demon's Tomb	     7.4     1.2     1.1       2      9 C_I
    Detective		1.0     0.0     0.0       5    4,5 F_AGT_GMD
    Detective-MST3K	  6.1     0.8     0.1       4    7,8 F_INF_GMD
    Ditch Day Drifter	7.1     1.2     1.6       1      2 F_TAD_GMD
    Dungeon		  7.4     1.5     1.6       1	F_GMD
    Dungeon Adventure	6.8     1.3     1.6       1      4 F_SEE REVIEW
    Dungeon of Dunjin	5.8     0.7     1.4       3  3, 14 S20_IBM_MAC_GMD
    Edifice		  7.7     1.6     1.7       2
    Electrabot	       0.7     0.0     0.0       1      5 F_AGT_GMD
    Emy Discovers Life       4.1     1.0     1.0       1
    Enchanter		7.1     0.9     1.4       6      2 C_INF
    Enhanced		 5.0     1.3     1.3       1      2 S10_TAD_GMD
    Eric the Unready	 6.9     1.5     1.5       2      x C_I
    Everybody Loves a Parade 7.3     1.2     1.3       1
    Fable		    2.0     0.2     0.1       1      6 F_AGT_GMD
    Fear		     7.6     1.5     1.6       1	F_GMD
    Firebird		 8.1     1.7     1.6       1
    Fish		     7.6     1.2     1.7       3      x C_I
    Foggywood Hijinx	 7.6     1.7     1.7       1
    Forbidden Castle	 4.8     0.6     0.5       1      x C_AP
    Frenetic Five	    5.1     1.2     0.2       1
    Friday Afternoon	 6.3     1.4     1.2       1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Frobozz Magic Support    8.0     1.6     1.7       1
    Gateway		  7.5     1.6     1.5       1      x C_I
    Glowgrass		7.4     1.6     1.5       2     13 F_INF_GMD
    Great Archaelog. Race    6.5     1.0     1.5       1      3 S20_TAD_GMD
    Guardians of Infinity    8.5	     1.3       1      9 C_I
    Guild of Thieves	 7.3     1.2     1.6       3      x C_I
    Gumshoe		  6.3     1.3     1.1       2      9 F_INF_GMD
    Hitchhiker's Guide       7.6     1.4     1.5       8      5 C_INF
    Hollywood Hijinx	 6.4     0.9     1.6       7      x C_INF
    Horror30.zip	     3.7     0.3     0.7       2      3 S20_IBM_GMD
    Horror of Rylvania       7.7		       1      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Humbug		   7.0     1.7     1.5       2      x F_GMD
    Ice Princess	     6.2     1.1     1.6       1
    Infidel		  6.9     0.0     1.4       9    1,2 C_INF
    Inhumane		 3.6     0.2     0.7       1      9 F_INF_GMD
    I-0: Jailbait...	 8.0     1.7     1.3       4	F_INF_GMD
    Jacaranda Jim	    7.0		       1      x F_GMD
    Jeweled Arena	    8.0     1.5     1.5       1      x ?
    Jigsaw		   7.7     1.3     1.4       6    8,9 F_INF_GMD
    Jinxter		  6.4     1.1     1.3       2      x C_I
    John's Fire Witch	7.1     1.1     1.6       6      4 S6_TADS_GMD
    Journey		  7.8     1.6     1.3       3      5 C_INF
    Jouney Into Xanth	5.0     1.3     1.2       1      8 F_AGT_GMD
    Kissing the Buddha's...  8.1     2.0     1.2       1
    Klaustrophobia	   6.7     1.2     1.3       5      1 S15_AGT_GMD
    Leather Goddesses	7.1     1.3     1.5       8      4 C_INF
    Legend Lives!	    8.9     0.9     1.6       2      5 F_TADS_GMD
    Lessen of the Tortoise   8.1     1.6     1.6       1	F_TADS_GMD
    Lethe Flow Phoenix       6.8     1.4     1.5       3      9 F_TADS_GMD
    Light: Shelby's Addendum 8.3     1.8     0.9       2      9 S?_TADS_GMD
    Lists and Lists	  7.5     1.5     1.8       1
    Losing Your Grip	 8.2     1.3     1.4       2      14S_TADS_GMD
    Lost New York	    8.2     1.6     1.6       1
    Lurking Horror	   7.3     1.4     1.4      10    1,3 C_INF
    MacWesleyan / PC Univ    5.6     0.7     1.0       1      x F_TADS_GMD
    Magic.zip		4.5     0.5     0.5       1      3 S20_IBM_GMD
    Magic Toyshop	    4.3     0.7     1.1       2	F_INF_GMD
    Matter of Time	   1.4     0.3     1.4       1      14F_ALAN_GMD
    Meteor...Sherbet	 8.5     1.6     1.9       1	F_INF_GMD
    Mind Electric	    5.1     0.6     0.8       3    7,8 F_INF_GMD
    Mind Forever Voyaging    8.4     1.3     0.8       7      5 C_INF
    Moist		    8.4     1.7     1.6       1
    Moonmist		 5.7     1.2     1.0      10      1 C_INF
    Mop & Murder	     5.0     0.9     1.0       2    4,5 F_AGT_GMD
    Multidimen. Thief	5.6     0.4     1.0       3    2,9 S15_AGT_GMD
    Mystery House	    4.1     0.3     0.7       1      x F_AP_GMD
    New Day		  5.5     1.3     0.9       1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Night at Museum Forev    4.2     0.3     1.0       4    7,8 F_TAD_GMD
    Nord and Bert	    6.1     0.8     1.3       4      4 C_INF
    Odieus...Flingshot       3.3     0.4     0.7       2      5 F_INF_GMD
    One Hand Clapping	6.9     1.2     1.4       3      5 F_ADVSYS_GMD
    One That Got Away	6.7     1.3     1.2       3    7,8 F_TAD_GMD
    Oo-Topos		 5.7     0.2     1.0       1      x C_AP_I_64
    Path to Fortune	  6.8     1.4     0.8       1      9 S_INF_GMD
    Pawn		     6.5     1.0     1.2       1      x C_I_AP_64
    PC University: See MacWesleyan
    Perseus & Andromeda      3.4     0.3     1.0       1      x ?
    Phred Phontious...Pizza  5.2     0.8     1.3       1     19 F_INF_GMD
    Planetfall	       7.4     1.6     1.5       9      4 C_INF
    Plundered Hearts	 7.2     1.3     1.1       5      4 C_INF
    Pyramids of Mars	 6.0     1.2     1.2       1
    Quarterstaff	     6.1     1.3     0.6       1      9 C_M
    Ralph		    7.3     1.7     1.5       1
    Reruns		   5.2     1.2     1.2       1
    Sanity Claus	     9.0		       1      1 S10_AGT_GMD
    Save Princeton	   5.8     1.2     1.3       2      8 S10_TAD_GMD
    Seastalker	       5.5     1.2     0.9       6      4 C_INF
    Shades of Grey	   8.0     1.3     1.4       4    1,2 F_AGT_GMD
    Sherlock		 7.3     1.4     1.4       3      4 C_INF
    She's Got a Thing...     7.8     1.8     1.8       2     13 F_INF
    Shogun		   7.1     1.5     0.5       1      4 C_INF
    Sins against Mimesis     7.7     1.7     1.6       1
    Sir Ramic Hobbs	  5.0     1.0     1.5       1      6 F_AGT_GMD
    Small World	      5.9     1.4     0.9       1
    So Far		   8.6     1.5     1.8       2	F_INF_GMD
    Sorcerer		 7.3     0.6     1.6       5      2 C_INF
    South American Trek      0.9     0.2     0.5       1      5 ?_IBM_GMD
    Space Aliens...Cardigan  1.6     0.4     0.3       5      3 S60_AGT_GMD
    Space under Window       7.3     0.0     0.0       1
    Spellbreaker	     8.3     1.2     1.8       5      2 C_INF
    Spellcasting 101	 7.0     1.0     1.2       1      x C_I
    Spellcasting 201	 7.8     1.5     1.6       1      x C_I
    Spellcasting 301	 7.5     1.4     1.5       1      x C_I
    Spider and Web	   8.3     1.7     1.6       2      14F_INF_GMD
    SpiritWrak	       6.7     1.3     1.1       2      9 F_INF_GMD
    Spur		     7.2     1.4     1.2       1      9 F_HUG_GMD
    Starcross		7.0     1.1     1.3       5      1 C_INF
    Stationfall	      7.6     1.6     1.6       5      5 C_INF
    Stiffy - MiSTing	 4.2     0.1     0.1       1
    Sunset Over Savannah     8.3     1.3     1.5       1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Suspect		  5.8     1.2     1.0       3      4 C_INF
    Suspended		7.2     1.3     1.3       5      8 C_INF
    Tapestry		 6.9     1.2     0.7       2      14F_INF_GMD
    Tempest		  5.6     1.0     0.6       1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Theatre		  7.0     1.1     1.3       5      6 F_INF_GMD
    TimeQuest		8.6     1.5     1.8       1      x C_I
    TimeSquared	      4.3     1.1     1.1       1      x F_AGT_GMD
    Toonesia		 6.4     1.2     1.3       4      7 F_TAD_GMD
    Tossed into Space	3.9     0.2     0.6       1      4 F_AGT_GMD
    Travels in Land of Erden 6.2     1.5     1.5       1
    Treasure.zip				       0      3 S20_IBM_GMD
    Trinity		  8.6     1.4     1.7      10    1,2 C_INF
    Tryst of Fate	    7.1     1.4     1.3       1
    Tube Trouble	     3.3     0.5     0.4       1	F_INF_GMD
    Uncle Zebulon's Will     7.0     0.8     1.3       7      7 F_TAD_GMD
    Undertow		 5.2     1.0     0.8       1	F_TAD_GMD
    Undo		     1.9     0.1     0.4       2      7 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian One-Half       7.0     1.2     1.6       7      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian Unventure 1    7.1     1.2     1.6       6    1,2 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian Unventure 2    7.2     1.4     1.5       4      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Unnkulian Zero	   9.0		       1      1 F_TAD_GMD
    Veritas		  7.9     1.6     1.7       1
    Waystation	       5.7     0.7     0.9       2      9 F_TAD_GMD
    Wearing the Claw	 6.8     1.1     1.1       2	F_INF_GMD
    Wedding		  8.0     1.7     1.6       1
    Wishbringer	      7.4     1.4     1.3       7    5,6 C_INF
    Witness		  6.9     1.6     1.2       7  1,3,9 C_INF
    Wonderland	       7.5     1.3     1.4       1      x C_I
    World		    6.5     0.6     1.3       2      4 F_SEE REVIEW
    Zanfar		   2.6     0.2     0.4       1      8 F_AGT_GMD
    Zero Sum Game	    7.5     1.7     1.2       1     13 F_INF_GMD
    Zork 0		   6.3     1.1     1.4       5      14C_INF
    Zork 1		   6.3     0.8     1.5      12    1,2 C_INF
    Zork 2		   6.5     0.8     1.5       8    1,2 C_INF
    Zork 3		   6.1     0.7     1.4       6    1,2 C_INF
    Zork Undisc. Undergr.    6.5     1.0     1.2       1      14F_INF

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    The Top Five:

    A game is not eligible for the Top Five unless it has received at
    least three ratings from different readers. This is to ensure a more
    democratic and accurate depiction of the best games.

    Since the last issue, "Trinity" has taken back its first place, and
    the previous number 1, "Christminster" has been passed by one more game: Graham Nelson's "Curses".

     1.   Trinity	     8.6    10 votes
     2.   Curses	      8.4     9 votes
     3.   Christminster       8.4     5 votes
     4.   Mind Fvr Voyaging   8.4     7 votes
     5.   Spellbreaker	8.3     5 votes

    CLOSING REMARKS -------------------------------------------------------------

    Following the tradition, I plan to devote an entire issue of SPAG to
    this year's Competition entries. So reviews of the Competition games
    are very welcome indeed!

    Another thing that would be welcome is game ratings for some of the
    games which I know are very popular, but which have only been rated
    once or twice (or not at all) on the Readers' Scoreboard. Please
    remember that a game is only eligible for a place on the Top Five if
    it's been rated by at least three persons...

    Until the next issue: happy adventuring!

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