The Game

An action adventure game by Radoslav Marusa and the Balara Brothers.

Many years ago, three vile, devil-worshipping criminals stalked the land. The people feared for their lives and many who travelled dark roads or through deep forests did not return. Monasteries were ransacked and burned. King Michael decided enough was enough and had the felons hunted down and executed.

However, this was not the end for, with their last breaths, the three cursed the king and the land he ruled over.

That was when the pestilence fell, and now even the king has fallen foul of this black and fatal curse.

All of the other inhabitants have fallen to the curse, patrolling the grounds and castle as undead beasts.

Your only chance to awaken the princess is to end the curse and brew a potion that will bring her back to the land of the living in this exciting action adventure for the ZX Spectrum, presented here on cassette in English for the first time.

Instructions

The three felons lay dead and King Michael swore to the people that their reign of murderous terror was finally at an end. He was wrong. It was only just beginning. As the three were executed, they had cursed the King and his subjects, vowing to draw a blanket of darkness over the land from beyond the grave and condemning them to unlife in the bleak hinterlands between the lands of the living and the dead.

Then, sure enough, one by one, the people of the kingdom began disappearing. Tales arose of skeletons and other nefarious night ghouls being seen wandering in dark and abandoned places. Everyone lived in fear of what stalked the black night. Eventually, people within the King's own castle started to go missing, returning to their posts as desecrations of humanity. Skeletons, foul, hooded beasts and undead soldiers, all returning to claim more victims for the ever-powerful ungod and to fulfil the curse, as spoken by three evil men on that dark night.

Their corpses still rest within the castle walls, looking down on all that they have wrought, mockingly. Eyes long since pecked away by birds, their sockets stripped clean by maggots, see all.

The final person to fall to the curse is the King's daughter, now languishing in a state of near undeath, locked away from further harm in the castle's highest tower.

You have come from a far off land as the husband-to-be of the beautiful Princess. Can you rescue her before the sun sets forever and banish their fiends back to the netherworld?

To finish the game successfully, you must remove the evil presence from the castle and banish the evil felons finally from this plane of existence. Their three possessed forms still lurk somewhere within the castle, and you must dispose of them all.

To awaken the princess, you must use the alchemical lab located in the castle dungeon to produce a potion powerful enough to wake her from her slumber. With the evil banished, she should return to her fully mortal state, and you can return hope and light to the kingdom, rebuilding it together as husband and wife.

You will find many items around the castle to aid you in your quest. Every item has its own purpose.

You can carry two objects at any one time. Some objects have multiple uses, whereas others will disappear after one use. Experiment and explore, the castle will not give up its secrets easily and the forces of evil will not willingly loosen their grip. Good luck.

Game Controls

Left/Right - Walk left/right, Up - Jump, Down - Kneel, Action - Punch/Kick/Slash/Defend
Down + Action - Use object, Down + Direction - Select object

CAPS SHIFT + ENTER - Toggle pause, SYMBOL SHIFT + ENTER - Quit

Loading

LOAD"" (ENTER)

On 128k machines, choose 'Loader' from the options menu.

Game Credits

Authors: Microtech Systems (Radoslav Marusa), DSA Computer Graphics (Balara Brothers)
Translated by: Pavero, TomasCZ, Bandit, Romborsoft
Released in association with scifi4ever.com and cyberdreamsstudios.com