Previous Next

Magic Mountain has been played on the ZX81 for two years and has been restyled with new graphics for the Spectrum.

A sort of alter-ego introduces himself as your eyes and limbs, but you've got all the initiative. Your task is to direct your nameless chum to the Scroll of Wisdom secreted in the mountain. This journey is fraught, of course, with hidden traps and perils and your progress in overcoming these challenges scores you points out of 1,600.

While the program finishes loading, an impressively impregnable-looking mountain looms on the screen. During the game the colour graphics are very neat, with split-screen pictures used for many locations.

The first screen draws you a tunnel at the foot of the mountain in one half, while the other is used for you to conduct fast and fulsome conversations with the nameless chum. A wealth of caves of the hidden, musty and cold variety await you, along with all the other trappings of magic.

A couple of pages on instructions and then you set off along what can become a weary, frustrating, baffling and very enjoyable trail.

The exasperation was exacerbated when I'd got him through a door and was trying very, very hard to cut a bamboo cane. Whereupon, after much fruitless effort, he inquired kindly, but thoughtlessly, if I were trying to open the door!

But then my short temper did get him killed by a dwarf. And my incorrect command to a genie saw the genie disappear, leaving behind a familiar and unpleasant smell. Death lies around many corners, and not usually as well deserved as in the dwarf incident.

The red and black maze took much patience and ingenuity, while the nameless chum stayed cool as a cucumber and refused to understand 'panic'.

After much more of this sort of thing you'll find the way around and you'll learn what to collect when, and when to wear it. You'll find some clues obvious and others non-existent.

The graphics in Magic Mountain are neat and distinct, the responses reasonably fast and the challenge is well, but not too well, within the bounds of possibility. Baffled from early on you may be, but not bored.