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I have spent the last few evenings tramping through a fourteenth century village. This once happy place is now deserted with only dead bodies and a pack of thieving dogs to bear witness to the devil worshipping rites which have brought disaster to the inhabitants. From the crypt beneath the church to the top of the village windmill, over 140 objects and clues have been strewn to confound any seeker of the truth.

This large text game has a bewildering 200 locations which form a most confusing mapping exercise. To add to your problems a black crow periodically appears to snatch objects from your hands and fly off to its secret hiding place. It's an unusually strong bird as it managed to fly off with my plough! (Reminds me of another very large bird I met in a bar in Portsmouth, but that's another story!)

Each location contains the offputting phrase 'Some exits lead...' forcing you to try exits in every direction from each location in case there is a hidden route. This problem is compounded with the need to EXAMINE everything. Additional objects are quite often not revealed unless the location is completely searched. Taken together, these problems serve to make the game quite a test of perseverance. However, some of the problems have multiple solutions so all is not lost should you blunder past the first.

The game has a large vocabulary, but it has many glaring omissions. It is annoying to be told in detail about a room which is full of specific items (e.g. barrels, bell-ropes, planks, etc) to find the game then does not recognise these objects should you attempt to manipulate or examine them! Having found a saw, which the game assured me was great for cutting wood, and then found a room full of wood, I was bemused to find the game would not allow to cut the wood with the saw!

However, otherwise the game is a quality product and full of detail which will require an adventurer, with a large dose of determination, to crack it.