A&B Computing
1st August 1984The blurb of the inlay card sets the scene: You were sailing in the South seas when your catamaran was holed by Killer Whales. You manage to launch a life-boat and are now adrift somewhere at sea. Your task is to return home to England. Your journey back to England will take you to strange islands, pirate ships, ghost ships, storms, sea creatures and a whole lot more.
It also says that this unusual game is an adventure with a difference. It combines both graphics and text. Graphical adventures aren't new but for the Beeb the choice is rather limited and they are always welcome.
This particular adventure has a vocabularly of only 10 words which can be entered by the function keys. You might already be thinking that this is a simple adventure but you'd be wrong. Experienced adventurers will instinctively bash away at the keyboard to input various commands but to no avail. The ten commands assigned to the function keys - North, South, East, West, Up, Down, Pick up object, Inventory, Drop object, Use object - are the only words that can be used.
In many places I knew what I would have done in a normal adventure but couldn't because the word wasn't available! It was a totally new challenge. Even if you're not an adventure fan, you will find the Mode 7 pictures fun to watch. Some of them are even animated! Now that's something new.
I think that this will appeal to all but the most hardened adventure nuts and the arcade only freaks.