Five On A Treasure Island (Enigma Variations) Review

Zzap

1st April 1992

Five On A Treasure Island

Author: Ian Osborne
Publisher: Enigma Variations
Machine: Commodore 64/128

Published in Zzap #83

"I say," said Phil, "Wouldn't it be a spiffing wheeze if we reviewed Five On A Treasure Island?"

"Rather!" said Corky. "But I'm busy drinking ginger beer - can someone else do it?"

"I don't mind," said Ian Osborne. "And Phil, you're awfully grown up for your age."

"Woof!" said Lucy.

Famous Five 1: Five On A Treasure Island

Who could forget the Famous Five? All those parent-friendly books featuring kiddies who never got into trouble (even the baddies were cute), and the tacky TV series with actors so incompetent they should be in Neighbours. Sure they were corny and far fetched, but who cares? If nothing else, they paved the way for a brilliant Comic Strip spoof!

Five On A Treasure Island is the first book in the series, and the computer game closely follows its plot. Julian, Dick and Anne are off to spend their summer hols with their tomboy cousin Georgina (who insists on being called George) and her secret pet - Timmy the dog. Though initially hostile, they're soon the best of friends and going for picnics on Kirrian Island, drinking lashings of ginger beer, and introducing all the cliches that remained true for all 21 of the books.

When the five are together an adventure is never far away - in this case a violent storm throws up an old shipwreck, and the five find something very interesting inside...

Switching Characters

Five is an adaptation of Colin Jordan's Sam Coupe game, designed using his Worldscape adventure builder. The main advantage of this system is that it allows a high degree of character interaction - you can play any of the four human characters, swapping between them at will, and can even communicate with those you're not using! Non-player characters have an artificial intelligence of their own, though perhaps simulated cretinism would be a better description - they seem to spend half the adventure wandering around aimlessly. You can't become Timmy, missing a real opportunity for some imaginative puzzles.

The problems are interesting and make good use of the various characters' abilities, but occasionally a real stinker rears its ugly head - for example, in your aunt and uncle's room I found a battery-operated clock. All attempts at removing the batteries failed, and I concluded it was just part of the scenery. On finding a battery-less torch I returned to the room to try again, and the batteries were lying on the floor!

Shallow Responses

The overall standard of the parser is very good, accepting linked sentences using AND, THEN and commas. Group commands such as EVERYTHING and ALL are also recognised - unfortunately, the game's vocabulary doesn't make very good use of it.

When you've got the right idea it's comprehensive enough to accept a variety of inputs, but until you do you have to cope with endless standard responses such as "I can't do that", seriously detracting from the atmosphere. I know the game was originally designed for a machine with a much larger memory, but they could easily have got round this restriction by making it a two-parter. They could also have cut the map - at least half of the section I've drawn here could go without sacrificing any of the gameplay.

Irrelevant Options

Another memory-hogging irrelevance are the layout options. You can alter the colours of the input box, border, text, cursor, programmer's tie, Phil's shirt, etc - very entertaining, but do you really need it?

The graphics are very good and certainly add atmosphere, but they take ages to access from the disk. Thankfully, the last picture is stored in the memory, appearing instantly if you double back on yourself. If you can't stand games with graphics, there's an option to turn them off.

Five On A Treasure Island is a good game, but not a great one. On the plus side, the problems are interesting, imaginative, and set at the right level of difficulty, and it preserves the atmosphere of the original Enid Blyton books. The programmers have obviously put a great deal of effort into the design - had they tightened the gameplay with equal zeal, it would have been a world-beater. Will appeal to adventure freaks and Famous Five fans.

Availability

Because of the delay in releasing the C64 version. Five On A Treasure Island isn't yet available in the shops. To get hold of a copy, send a cheque or postal order made payable to Enigma Variations to 13 North Park Road, Harrogate HG1 5PD.