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Your task in this adventure is to reach and penetrate the tomb of an ancient Egyptian Princess (cursed, of course!), steal some treasure and make your getaway. Although the decision to use disk access has permitted lengthier text to be used, don't expect an enormous game in the Enthar Seven mould. With the help of my wife, daughter and the Duckworth clue sheet (extensively and unashamedly used) I managed to play through the entire game in a couple of extended sessions. I don't think that there are more than about 100 locations, although some have fairly extensive descriptions.

By modern standards the parser is a limited two word affair, although this doesn't bother me too much. There are also far fewer, and less complex, puzzles than in a (memory only) Level 9 game and some are quite obscure. The game, however, gets better as it goes on and I really enjoyed the final section within the tomb itself.

I have commented before about the necessity and intricacy of Level 9's clue sheet, and Egyptian Adventure made me think some more about the use of this device. Duckworth's was designed to allow help with all significant problems in the game, with two levels of hint. I used it extensively because I wanted to get through the game quickly to meet the review deadline.

However, I could have regulated my progress to be slower and more satisfactory if I were playing purely for pleasure. I did feel though that some of the puzzles were highly arbitrary and would lead most players to grind to a frustrated halt if the clue sheet were not available.

Since one of the great difficulties of adventure game design is to make puzzles hard enough to prevent rapid progress, but not so obscure as to cause a permanent halt, the well designed clue sheet is really a very good idea.

I understand that Robico are at least starting to issue them, if only for the practical reason that they sell too many games these days to deal with individual enquiries!