Commodore User


Transylvania
By Penguin
Commodore 64

 
Published in Commodore User #36

Transylvania

The first notable thing about this game is the quality of the graphics - they are really pretty basic. Even the now antique Hobbit had superior piccies to this offering. The plot is also fairly corny - rescue the princess Sabrina from a pseudo-Gothic Horror environment.

"Atmosphere" is created by randomly printed messages, such as a witch cackling or a deep chuckle, which are very unconvincing. The overall impression I got was that this is a very old game which somehow missed its release date by about two years.

The parser is barely adequate with simple two-word commands being the order of the day. The "puzzles" are laughable. Having encountered a bullfrog who seems "rather pekish" (sic) you soon discover a swarm of buzzing flies. At a loss as to how to catch them, you wander around until - in the musty chambers of a vast and spooky castle - you find a piece of flypaper. There is no opportunity to be clever or use lateral thinking in Transylvania - it is merely a case of finding the right object.

Presentation is crummy. When a room is described, the objects present are listed in this way: "There is a garlic clove," or "There is a ferocious werewolf." (How about "HERE there is..."?) Such additional "frills" as a bird that picks you up and dumps you in a random place, and having to input your name at the beginning of the adventure (later you find it on a gravestone... gosh, how scary...) make this game ideally suited to the beginner or the younger player, but a complete no-no for more experienced adventurers.

Keith Campbell

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