Previous Next

I have now seen the first Quilled adventures that I can recommend for the BBC Micro. They started off as Electron games, but are too good to be confined to that restricted market.

Three games have come to my attention. They are all top of Division Two in quality, and readers ought to add them to their collection. The author is Geoff Larsen, a long-standing contributor to Electron User.

Don't expect long textual descriptions as in Level 9 games - memory limitation prevents that. Even so, there are superb atmospheric descriptions of some locations.

There is great attention to detail, first rate puzzles, and all that a decent software house should offer.

I like the atmosphere, the descriptions, the puzzles (I haven't yet solved them all), the user-friendliness and the back-up help available. I consider that they fill a much needed gap in any adventurer's repertoire.

The Rising Of Salandra is a two-part adventure of the traditional sort where you are required to defeat the forces of the Dark Lord.

Wychwood is an entertaining romp involving a newly released prisoner (you) trying to lay hands on some hidden loot.

The Nine Dancers is less easy to describe - fantasy and reality have been cleverly woven together.

You will have to make frequent use of the verbs SEARCH and EXAMINE in order to make progress, because this is how many of the objects in the game are discovered.

A simple verb/object input is not always necessary, thanks to an ingenious approach taken by Geoff Larsen to the Quill parser. You can, for instance, enter CLIMB ONTO THE CHAIR in Wychwood, which to my mind is so much nicer than GO CHAIR.

Some lovely chaining puzzles are to be found. I can honestly say that I liked the games better than the Scott Adams ones I have seen so far.