Three thousand years ago. the land of Mandoria was a peaceful happy place, but since that time it has declined into a evil state. You are Caldor Holford, of noble blood, and the last heir to the kingdom of Mandoria. It has been revealed to you that if you can seek the Great Orb of the Old Kings then you can destroy the evil Dark Lord.

Orb Quest is a four-part "Quill"ed game comprising four different scenarios. In Part 1 you have to find your way out of the village of Mirekemp to Questor's pit. Part 2 has you battling through said pits. In part three you must escape from a dwarven fortress in which you have been imprisoned and the final part involves searching a hidden village for the orb.

Programmed by two brothers, Paul and Timothy Stitt (both Lords of Adventure), the game has been mostly well thought out. It has logical puzzles, some very good graphics (in places) and atmospheric descriptions - it even has the Balrog making a star appearance in the dwarvish sewers of part three - all the ingredients to make a good adventure... except the parser is lousy.

The best example of the poor parser is at the start of Part Two. You have to cross a chasm with a rope and there is a large rock on your side and a tree stump on the other. Obviously, you must make some sort of bridge by lassoing the tree stump and then tying the rope to the rock, but if you type TIE ROPE TO ROCK the program responds "You're not serious".

THROW ROPE TO TREE STUMP gives "Nothing would be gained by doing that!" (misleading) and LASSO TREE STUMP gives "Impossible!" (Very misleading!).

You must first MAKE LASSO, THROW LASSO (THROW LASSO TO TREE STUMP isn't accepted!). DRAW LINE (to tighten lasso - PULL ROPE or PULL LASSO isn't accepted!). TIE END (to rock - again TIE ROPE is not accepted) and then CROSS CHASM.

This lack of user-friendliness pervades the whole program and makes the game very frustrating to play at times.

Another example is that of a drainpipe in Part One which you must descend; the only input accepted as far as the Balg could see was SLIDE DOWN DRAINPIPE - the program didn't like the verbs SHIN and CLIMB.

A lot of thought, time and effort has been put into this game and it is a shame to see it falter due to its poor parser. If you're one of those adventurers who enjoy guessing the parser or enjoyed games with difficult parsers (such as Souls Of Darkon), you'll love it. If you're not, give it a try anyway - the Stitt's have put a lot of imagination into their world and the game can be still be enjoyable, if difficult.