The Dervish Stone

THE DERVISH STONE

Paul Struth

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Issue 1 of Warlock magazine ran a competition where readers were asked to submit a 200 paragraph FF adventure using the basic rules from The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, the prize for the lucky winner being £100 cash (quite a lot in 1984) and the publication of their adventure in the magazine. The winner was this submission by Paul Struth which would be the featured mini-adventure in Warlock number 4 and, in spite of some glaring plagiarism from the George Lucas back catalogue, it’s actually quite a decent way to pass an hour or so.

The premise itself is simple in the spirit of WOFM’s mercenary treasure hunting vein. A dervish called Shanhara once found a massive diamond and hid it in a secret, booby-trapped location that everyone then forgot how to find. YOU have stumbled across a parchment instructing you to go and find the diamond and YOU cannot resist, so off YOU go. The trip itself begins in yet another typical Titan town with the usual inn, chance to buy stuff, etc, followed by the bulk being a trek across the Twin Suns Desert to locate and negotiate the cave where the diamond is hidden.

The idea of a desert with “twin suns” brings to mind Tattooine in Star Wars and the sheer number of references (nay, blatant thefts) from not only Star Wars, but also Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Flash Gordon make up the bulk of the key moments in this adventure, which, whilst fun, can get repetitive and is frankly corny:

• ·         From Star Wars we get: Twin Suns on a desert wasteland, use of a Jedi mind trick to get past the authorities, a cantina bar moment where even the dialogue about “he doesn’t like you... neither do I” (which I paraphrase, unlike Struth!) is stolen, encountering a Sandcrawler (which is at least a creature this time, not the Jawas’ mobile robot emporium), and a lengthy (and fairly lethal) episode over a carnivorous pit in the desert which is clearly a Saarlak (stolen, for a bit of variety, from Return Of The Jedi rather than Star Wars!)
• ·         Lifted from Raiders is the entire final section’s trap network within the Lost Cave Of The Dervishes itself: a pedestal that needs weighting to avoid triggering traps, a crossbow bolt trap, a big stone door that slides down on you, and, most blatant of all, a big stone ball that chases you down a corridor
• ·         The Flash Gordon steals are only marginally more subtle (I emphasize the word ”marginally”), with a trial that involves sticking your hand in various holes and seeing if something nasty stings you (ie Prince Barin’s world) and a ride across the desert on Griffins that sort of echoes Prince Vultan’s Hawkmen

Given that most of the interesting moments are made up of the above, you might expect this to be dull beyond all possibility, but it is not and the atmosphere of oppressive and relentless sand and heat, along with a feeling that you really are just wandering aimlessly into a yellow abyss, are very well put across. The desert meanders in various directions (many of which lead to you dying of exposure) although the deeper into it you get, the easier it is to survive, as the instant death sections are the same two over and over (due to the limited number of paragraphs available) so you get used to recognising their numbers and going in the other direction when they are offered. It will take several attempts to make any real progress though, plus the showdown with Kuperan (a hitherto unseen Fire Giant creature type) is really pretty tough, both within his lair and then flying over the Saarlak equivalent whilst trying to stay on a Griffin, so there is much to encourage replay. Numerous nomads and another unique creature type (Laupers – a desert catperson) add variety along the way as some are hostile and some can help you, which all adds up to quite a bit being crammed into a small number of paragraphs and Struth has done well to get as much fun stuff in as he does.

The opening town (Alaysian) is not as involved or as well-designed as the desert, but it does give a prologue to the main event and adds colour (literally) and variety to what would otherwise just be a hot and dangerous slog in the desert. Plus, you can get to tackle a fairly scenery-chewing loony in Alaysian, should you feel inclined, although the town serves mainly to help you buy the items you will need later on.

In terms of difficulty, this adventure is very varied, being weighted neither in your favour nor against you. Instant failures are reserved for the desert and the two main set pieces (the two-part Kuperan episode and the final cave full of traps) which avoids any early disappointments and lets you get a decent handle on what is involved to help with subsequent attempts. Most of the combats (barring two in particular) are very easy and most of your foes are very weak, plus combat only happens in logically necessary situations ie with stupidly aggressive foes or in important moments where you would expect to fight for your life. In the later stages there are a lot of Luck and Skill tests (including a jumbled one where Skill and Stamina get mixed together, if you happen to spot this) so you will not complete the final part without a high Luck score, although this balances out against a lot of opportunities to gain Luck points, including one where you are awarded a Luck point when it’s not actually been possible to lose any Luck yet (ditto, two different Skill bonuses)! Likewise, you start with 20 Gold Pieces, are immediately given another 20 (if you interpret the text that way) and can get lots more, although only the starting 20/40 GPs are of any actual use to you as you need these to buy all the useful items in Alaysian. A further unusually generous move (especially for a 200 section short, although it does replicate the double dose in WOFM and is not unusual for Warlock magazine short FFs) is that your standard-issue Potion that you select at the start contains two doses, although you might need both to raise your Luck or Skill sufficiently.

Due to the A4 format of Warlock magazine, this adventure does suffer from a problem associated with all this magazine’s mini-FFs in that some sections offer moves to sections that are on the same page which does encourage cheating a bit. The only way to realistically avoid this would have been to position these paragraphs on different pages (and, conversely, some numerical distance apart), but this is just a minor criticism of the structure and it doesn’t detract from playability or enjoyment. I suspect there are also some inaccessible wasted sections that you can’t actually access due to your always having certain items otherwise you would not have survived that far but, again, you don’t notice this as long as you don’t read every paragraph or are curious to see what would happen in the other (impossible) scenario.

It is worth taking a moment to assess how successful this adventure was in satisfying the brief to win and to see whether this was chosen on its fun appeal or its meeting the criteria of the competition:

·         ”Using the same system as WOFM” – just about, other than the opening Gold

·         “Design a game of 200 references” – check

·         “An exciting and original background” – you are as greedy and self-satisfying as you are in WOFM so it’s not original, but it is interesting enough to make you want to play it

·         “perhaps a jungle or a desert wasteland” – taken literally, it’s a desert wasteland!

·         “A mission to find somebody or something” – check, you find somebody AND something

·         “make it sound believable” – the desert is very well executed

·         “present a real challenge” – it’s tough when it needs to be, but is not overly hard

All things considered then, the brief was met and this should have been a worthy contender, but the sheer amount of idea theft (especially at a time when Star Wars and Indiana Jones were still very recent) works against its originality, even if it does not detract from the overall enjoyment.

The cover of Warlock number 4 depicts the Griffin riding section of the mission and is lovely to look at with its colourful presentation. The incidental art in the text is by House Of Hell’s Tim Sell who has no distinct style as such, but his humanoids tend to look like they’re melting which is a bit odd to my eye. This is hardly an issue, though, as the images are often nowhere near their respective paragraphs so it’s hard to make the involving connection with the art that you would in a gamebook format anyway.

For a first non-SJ/IL magazine offering this is certainly no masterpiece, but it’s still fun and atmospheric to play. Credit has to be given for such effective use of a limited number of sections and there’s plenty of material to keep you interested. As it’s short it can be played through quickly and is far from dull. If only the best moments had any shred of originality to them...

#55: Deathmoor

DEATHMOOR

Robin Waterfield

Reviewed by Mark Lain

On first picking it up, four things immediately strike me about this book: 1) It is suspiciously thin; 2) The cover is appalling; 3) Paragraph 400 is an instant death; 4) Promisingly, it is by one of the most consistently good FF writers. On playing it, the reality of these four first impressions can be summarised as: 1) It’s relative brevity is surely an act of mercy on the player; 2) The cover is worse than the contents; 3) This is an indication that you can expect to fail umpteen times; 4) Yes, RW’s first three FFs were all good (he wrote the only genuinely great Sci-Fi FF for a start), but his fourth (this one) is the exception.

Given the status accorded to the FF books from number 51 onwards as highly sought-after (and often expensive) collectors’ items that also in playing terms are very rewarding, #55 Deathmoor, whilst still not cheap to get your hands on, has none of the elements that make the last few books generally so rewarding:

• ·         The extended adventure concept – missing, Deathmoor is surprisingly short
• ·         The plethora of extra rules to get your head around – missing, the very basic FF rules are used here (Skill, Stamina, Luck, Provisions, Potion, Gold)
• ·         Lengthy, descriptive paragraphs that add depth – missing, RW actually seems as bored as the player (only #4 Starship Traveller shows the same level of author disinterest in the project) and appears to be desperate to get this over with
• ·         Rich conceptual design and depth of setting to give a more “adult” or “advanced FF” feel – missing, this is the kind of facile effort that would be unsatisfactory to even the youngest and most undemanding/inexperienced adventure gamer
• ·         No evidence of play-testing to iron out numerous bugs and continuity errors – missing, this one actually flows properly (that’s a plus, by the way)

So, other than the last point, it is not really surprising that this book gets over-looked and that so few people ever mention it much. Coming as it did between the high concept boardgame tie-in of Legend Of Zagor and the historically-rich Chaos epic that is Knights Of Doom, Deathmoor must have seemed very tired. Had it been released early on in the series, it might be easier to have a more favourable opinion of this book, but it just doesn’t offer enough to be relevant as a later entry.

Easily the laziest part of this book’s conception is your mission. You are an adventurer who is currently living it up diving for scarlet pearls off the Isles Of Dawn when you are called to the court of King Jonthane of Arion as his daughter has been kidnapped and the villain of the piece is demanding a huge amount of gold as a ransom. Granted, FF rarely uses the “fighting through perils to save a Princess” plot idea, but that’s because it’s a hackneyed concept that’s better suited to Disney than to role-playing. To add insult to injury, however, it’s not long before you meet two plumbers called Oiram and Igiul (read them backwards) at which point you realise you are playing Super Mario Brothers (there are different coloured mushrooms to contend with later in the book, as well) and that Waterfield really was on auto-pilot with this one. The opening section actually tells you that you are too late to get the commission because your rival (Fang-zen) got there first which means the first part of the adventure proper involves catching up with him and nicking an all-important document from him that is basically the contract to do the rescue job – perhaps it would have been easier just to say “Oh well, never mind then” to the King and have gone off and found a better adventure to get involved in. Once you’ve got the document you then have to chase an Ogre called Otus who is the connection between the King/YOU and the kidnapper himself (Bowser, presumably?) Bowser turns out to be called Arachnos and is an agent of Chaos, but is not anything like as genocidal as most agents of Chaos, given that he is (on the surface at least) just in it for the money (rather like RW was when he wrote this book, I fear!)

And that’s the plot, crappy but workable, assuming the adventure environment is full of surprises and intrigue... which it is not, instead it’s full of often inexplicable instant deaths, illogically looping paths that lead to parts of the moor that would otherwise be miles from each other if you map it, and lots of new creature types that don’t seem to exist anywhere else. The final item is not a bad point in itself (innovation is always welcome) but several of the new creatures just seem to be other creatures with new names - surely the Pterolins are just Rocs and Pelagines are Fishmen? Conversely, the Blackhearts (crosses between Dark Elves and Orcs), the hideous (and wonderfully-named) Tantaflex, and the Semerle (a missing link fish-reptile thing) are all imaginative inclusions. In most cases, any unfamiliar creatures are well described, even if those without illustrations can be a bit hard to visualise, and I really don’t want to imagine the bizarre and disturbing sex act that spawned the first Troll-Orc! Mention must also go to the Flintskins, a primitive and wary tribe that you need to be careful when dealing with (and are they corruptions of Flintstones or Skinflints?)

As is often the case with later FFs, there are three distinct stages to the adventure, starting with a look around Arion, then negotiating Deathmoor itself, and finally a short dungeon that forms Arachnos’ lair. Arion is quite fun (you can play Pinfinger in an inn) but has nothing that you can’t see in every other largish Titan conurbation (inns, docks, market, rich megalomaniac’s house), whilst Arachnos’ lair is a bizarre downwards tunnel tumble offering side passages and an inordinate number of ways to die. As for the main event, Deathmoor itself is tedious, has little of interest, and is not inherently all that deadly. Instead the apparent profound stupidity of your character is a major obstacle whilst on the moor – amongst other idiotic acts you can sleep-walk over a cliff and/or lose key items in two separate combats without there being any logical reason for dropping them, other than that the book wants you to. Sadly, RW’s apparent vindictiveness towards the player is where this book really becomes overly harsh to play and he seems to be taking his frustration with the project out on YOU:

• ·         Instant deaths, many of which are off-hand in their handling, are very common and often make little sense and can come as a real surprise and seem out of context
• ·         Also, some of the instant deaths could surely be avoided by combat but the book decides far too often that you are dangerously out-numbered
• ·         It is possible to fail as soon as you start by making the wrong choice at paragraph 1
• ·         Failing to get the document in Arion means you can’t progress beyond that stage and, even if you do, there’s another 50/50 progress/instantly fail decision to make as soon as you leave Arion and catch up with Otus
• ·         The encounter with the Cradoc involves yet another 50/50 life/death decision about which of its heads you need to cut off
• ·         Luck tests are in abundance
• ·         Arbitrary dice rolling to determine your fate is in even greater abundance
• ·         In the style of Steve Jackson’s tougher books, there are certain points where you need to make a judgment call on whether to go to a section you learned about earlier in the book. Unfortunately, the hints that you need to do this are so subtle and are almost off-hand remarks in the text which means you are fairly unlikely to pick up on them
• ·         Some “important” information is of little relevance and can be substituted with guessing which takes away the feeling of success you should get from what ought to be moments of achievement
• ·         It is possible to find a code-breaking document that is incomprehensible and seems to serve no purpose (or did this get forgotten?)
• ·         Worst of all, the final showdown with Arachnos can only be won by solving a maths problem that is so ridiculously difficult that it makes any other FF puzzle seem like simplicity itself

Oddly, one area that you would expect to see included in a book this unreasonable would be tough combats, but most of the foes in Deathmoor are actually very easy to beat (assuming you have a Skill of at least 9), very few have special attacks, and some even suffer Attack Strength penalties or can be weakened by surprise attacks (or dropping a house on them in the case of the Marsh Orcs, which is the only real injection of light relief anywhere in this adventure.) Even more out of context are certain scattered acts of unusual generosity which, whilst few and far between, seem at odds with the generally unbalanced nature of this book and do add to the feeling that this was thrown together in a few days with hardly any care. When you fight Fang-zen (your rival who, you would assume, can give a good account of himself against you), his Skill is two less than yours, ie he could have a Skill of 5 so he isn’t much of a hardy adventurer then really. It is also possible to increase your Initial Luck to 14, and to fully restore your Skill and Stamina by being blessed. Also, money is not difficult to come by, even if it has scant use once you leave Arion (and you start with 20 GP anyway.)

The subject of the Initial Luck increase gives me mixed feelings. If you also use the Potion of Fortune you could actually have an Initial Luck of 15 which is an unusually high allowance in a FF book, but you will certainly need it due to the number of Luck tests that this book throws at you. The location of the +2 Luck bonus (a temple that is a relic of the ancient civilisation that used to live where Deathmoor now is) exposes another example of the lazy construction of this adventure. We are told about the civilisation early on in the story, yet this is almost entirely ignored for most of the book bar a couple of isolated moments.

In some parts, there are moments of unpleasant grisliness, especially when we are told that the word “WAIT” has been spelled out in the severed limbs of the 15-year-old Princess’ friends, and Waterfield does seem slightly obsessed with getting you lost in misty marshes and/or burning people to death in his FFs. One of the real strengths, though, of his books is the lengths he goes to do describe environments/experiences/backgrounds to create a real sense of place, yet this is all but absent from Deathmoor. Only when you need a compass (or have to blunder aimlessly around without one) do you get the feeling of an oppressive moorland – compare his writing in this book with his background descriptions in #18 Rebel Planet or his dreamscapes in #28 Phantoms Of Fear and it’s hard to believe this is the same author. There are moments of player belittling that bring to mind Space Assassin, “That was stupid” being probably the worst example here of giving you little motivation to stay interested. Even the winning paragraph can only be bothered to stretch to a few sentences and there is hardly any feeling of victory to be had from it.

One of the new creatures offered here is a Cradoc (half Dragon-half Ogre) and it is this that graces the cover in what is amongst the worst FF cover images ever. The Cradoc just looks ridiculous – what was Terry Oakes thinking? Furthermore, this is another example of a FF cover that shows a far from important moment from the book, but it does at least reflect the lackadaisical nature of the package as a whole. If there is one person who has made an effort, it’s Russ Nicholson, whose internal art is as effective as always, even if most of the new creatures are quite manically drawn, whereas the more familiar moments are more controlled in their rendering.

Overall, Deathmoor is a fairly minor entry to the series which is blighted by harshness and just generally not being very interesting. It is no surprise then that it has faded into relative obscurity and is surely of more interest to collectors than to gamers. Play it if you are curious and can get hold of it, but this is easily one of the least essential from an adventuring perspective (which is, after all, the real reason why FF exists.)

#50: Return To Firetop Mountain

 

RETURN TO FIRETOP MOUNTAIN

Ian Livingstone

Reviewed by Mark Lain

For anyone who originally discovered FF by way of The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, the prospect of a sequel is a very juicy one indeed. Cunningly released as a 10^th Anniversary book, set 10 years after the first and, originally, intended to be the series’ swansong, this book ended up being such a success that Puffin gave the series a stay of execution, if only for a further nine books. To further increase the appeal of this offering, the idea that the original’s writing team of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone would work together on it would surely be too much excitement for one FF fan to cope with. Could we even get art from Russ Nicholson to top all this off? In a word, no. However, the internal art is by the equally great Martin McKenna, so this was still looking promising at the conceptual stage. Things started to lose their attraction when SJ bailed out supposedly due to other commitments, leaving IL to put this book together all on his own. For me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, as I always preferred Ian’s initial half of the book to the rather more manic Jackson second part, but that’s just because there always seemed to be far more to see and do in Ian’s bit, and there’s no question that the original wouldn’t have been anything like as varied and surprising if it had just been a Livingstone dungeon trawl.

So, what common Livingstone-isms do we get as a result of IL writing it by himself?

• ·         Linearity – check
• ·         Cameo from irritating idiot wizard Yaztromo – check
• ·         Long shopping list of often dangerously well-hidden essential items – check
• ·         Sequel with so-so introductory prologue bit before we get to the bit we are really waiting for (like in #21 Trial Of Champions) – check
• ·         Theory that anyone can win no matter how low their initial stats being a complete lie and you having little hope unless you roll maximum Skill and Luck and damn high Stamina – check
• ·         Often very difficult trivia challenges with Inquisitor-type figures – check
• ·         Lots of instant deaths and/or life/death situations – check
• ·         Over-enthusiastic sidekick who instantly dies - check

It may seem, then, that this book is a typically harsh later series entry peppered with Livingstone’s oft-criticised combination of wandering down tunnels and deciding whether to open doors or not, interspersed with occasional traps along the way, mixed in with a large number of factors that are likely to make you die. Which it is, to an extent, but there is much more to it than just this as the construction and thought that has gone into making this really feel like a return to Firetop Mountain rather than a cheap cash-in follow-up are what really make it a winner.

The initial pre-mountain section is much of a much-ness. There are two choices of route, one much longer and more dangerous than the other, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out which is the correct one that yields what you are going to need later in the book. The longer route is basically a series of cameo sequences involving a boring boat ride, Yaztromo, a fake Yaztromo Doppelganger (in a nightmare encounter that can go on forever), a little town with various quirky people/locations in it, and then a potentially fatal lift you hitch on a bird that takes you to the entrance to the mountain itself. The shorter route is duller, but does get you to the mountain a) a lot faster, and b) much more likely to be alive and actually get there at all! Indeed, getting to the mountain and re-living what made the original book such a seminal experience for us all is probably what we started playing this book for in the first place... and we are not disappointed at what we find. The map of the first (Livingstone) half of the original has been re-used here and it makes for a real trip down memory lane, although you are explicitly told that YOU are NOT the adventurer who killed Zagor the first time around which does slightly distance you from the point of the exercise here. However, the overlaying of the new version onto the old is so vivid and well-written that this alone makes this book essential to any FF fan. You do find yourself having to pretend to be surprised here and there, but seeing what various moments from the first book look like 10 years later really is a wonderfully nostalgic experience, amongst which are:

• ·         The Giver Of Sleep’s case is still there, dusty but empty
• ·         The skeleton of the (now dead) sleeping Orc guard is in its recess in the tunnel wall
• ·         There are marks on the wall where the paintings were hung in the painting room
• ·         The health-restoring “Rest ye here, weary traveller” seat is still in its position, but the lettering has worn off making it a bigger risk to sit on (although it still works)
• ·         The remains of the dummy-levered iron portcullis trap can be found
• ·         The ferry boatman still works the river (and is still prone to lycanthropic episodes if provoked)
• ·         Some corridors have caved in and several doors are now padlocked or barred shut

This first half of the mountain isn’t just a re-tread of familiar territory, however, as other dangers and inhabitants have moved in which add variety and mystery to the proceedings. Once you have negotiated the river, you are faced with a complete re-design of the dungeon. Gone is the frustrating Maze Of Zagor (thankfully) and in its place is an extended dungeon section which is less original than Jackson’s part in the original, but seems more fitting to the idea of this just being basically a dungeon trawl. The second section is far tougher than the first (which in itself is not without its fair share of perils) and opens with a choice of two different “tests” rather akin to the series’ two Trial Of Champions outings. You can choose either (very tough) combats or a pair of mental tests, one of which is so difficult that you’ll wish you’d risked the Stamina on the combats instead. From there on in, you find yourself in a typically Livingstone-y dungeon cycle of items/combats/traps/death-avoidances until you eventually (if you ever get there) get to take on Zagor himself.

The Zagor character is an interesting one for many reasons. For a start, he was named retrospectively and is never referred to as anything other than “The Warlock” in the first book, but we would no doubt have known him as Zagor by the time the second book came out, given his appearance in The Trolltooth Wars novel and his write-up as one of the key evil wizards of Allansia in Titan – The Fighting Fantasy World. The way he is handled in the two Firetop Mountain books is dramatically different, and this second book’s Zagor is a far cry from the reclusive, treasure-coveter of the first. For a start, he is now undead, given that “somebody” killed him in the first book and he has used magic to resurrect himself and is now slowly re-building himself from body parts that he is plundering from the locals in Anvil (although he is still missing an arm and he quite fancies nicking yours, as it turns out) making him into a super-intelligent Frankenstein’s monster affair. He has also become something of a megalomaniac in the Balthus Dire vein – his throne room has a huge Z on the door and he has started minting his own coinage (called “Zagors”) so he is not quite as subtle as he used to be either. Neither does he disguise himself as an old man, nor does he feel the need to store his power in a deck of cards anymore. Indeed, when you finally locate him, he wants to fight you half-naked and with big knives, so you do get the feeling that he’s perhaps become a bit of a pompous tosser over the last 10 years. It’s good in a way that Zagor is rather more sinister and imposing than he was in the first book, and the build-up that other NPCs give him is certainly justified this time around, plus we are surprised to see just what the re-animated Zagor is all about, but you do get the feeling that this is Zagor to the power of 10 and that he has been souped-up for an early 90s audience. The surprise of what he now is is welcome, but the disparity from the original Zagor is a little awkward. One thing he has in common with the first incarnation is the fact that his Achilles heel(s) can be found inside the mountain. In the first book, his decision to scatter his treasure keys all over the dungeon made no sense at all (although it is eventually explained away in The Trolltooth Wars), whereas this time we get the explanation that he has to balance out his use of a regeneration spell with the requirement to leave the objects of his destruction around the dungeon to allow potential vanquishers to make him pay the price for his sorcery. A little far-fetched, but at least it is logical this time around. The objects that you need to find to give him his just desserts are six teeth made from various substances (you are initially told it’s four that you need, but it turns out to be six), including one that seems to have element-changing properties in that it starts out as silver and later is referred to as bronze, although continuity was never a strong point of FF books, especially the later ones. These teeth have (in five cases, continuity out the window again then) numbers on them which are, and remember this is a Livingstone adventure, the references you eventually need to turn to to use them. In an unusually helpful move, there are also pages from books strewn throughout the dungeon that have the numbers written on them (including the missing one) and tell you what beats what (in a scissors-paper-stone stylie) which does make the pre-Zagor Elemental battle a little fairer than it would have been if you had to guess what to use and when. The Elemental battle itself is more climactic than the final showdown with Zagor and does add an extra element of challenge and interest and makes the tracking down of all the teeth seem all the more valid and essential to your victory (which it is, as you can’t get to Zagor without completing the Elemental fight.)

...And that’s pretty much the plot. Zagor is back from the dead, needs body parts from Anvil’s people to re-build himself and Anvil’s people need someone to kill him again, YOU are that someone and you have to find the tools you need to complete the job. Simple in the style of the early FFs, but it does at least make sense this time around, which is more than can be said for the original book! However, as this is book number 50, this is far harder than the first Zagor outing. We’ve already covered the list of standard Livingstone FF features that are included and, whilst this is far from impossible like some of his books, it is certainly very tough given how many items you need and the fact that it is very seldom that you can recover any lost Stamina (you set out with no Provisions, for a start.) Skill bonuses are more plentiful and you can carry two swords and acquire armour to make Skill penalties less likely. Also, only a few select special encounters are particularly hard, but those that are are VERY hard. Zagor himself is not as strong as you would maybe expect (Sk 11 St 18) but there is no way to weaken him so you have to face him with these stats and chances are that yours (Stamina especially) will be pretty low by this point. In typical IL style, there are lots of instant deaths (30 count), although Luck tests are less common than was the norm by this stage in the series.

A big plus of this book is how much Livingstone’s writing has progressed from the first FF. Descriptions are far longer and immersive and there is a great feeling of re-visiting somewhere you haven’t been for 10 years when you find the mountain entrance (even if your character has never actually been there at all!) There are some seemingly cramped moments where many rooms are crushed into a small space, but the urgency of the prose and the many and varied situations/encounters make up for this.

McKenna’s art works well in the context that this is a whole new Zagor we are dealing with, so the cosy familiarity that would have been present had Russ Nicholson drawn the art for this book is replaced with McKenna’s more gothic and “real” looking drawings. As for the cover, it is stunning with its royal purple border, huge “50” proudly presented at the bottom, and quite frightening-looking undead Zagor looming over Firetop Mountain and a teeming horde of baddies. The difference between the two concepts and Zagors is reflected well through the contrast between this cover and the first book’s (at least in its first form) “old man” cover. As usual, Wizard’s reissue covers dumb down the effect too much to be of any interest.

For fans of the first book, this is essential playing material. There is much fun to be had from revisiting the dungeon, from seeing what has changed and what has stayed the same, and from seeing what Firetop Mountain is like without Steve Jackson’s input. For fans of the more “out there” FF books (particularly those in the 20s and 40s parts of the series) this may seem a bit old hat in that it is basically just a traditional dungeon walk-through, but for anyone to whom The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain will always have a special significance, then this is a great book despite its continuity problems and the lack of anything remotely ground-breaking being included. Would this have been the best ever FF if SJ hadn’t backed out? Would it have been blighted by out-of-place (for the idiom) hidden paragraphs accessed by doing maths whenever it seemed appropriate? Or would we have been bored by another visit to the Maze Of Zagor? Who knows, but for me Ian has made a really good fist of going it alone with this and this book is certainly a worthy sequel rather than a bigger-budget, louder, and showier, but otherwise pointless sequel, which would have been a great shame. Plus, for anyone for whom this still isn't enough Zagor, it has an open ending suggesting he might be back for another sequel...

#34: Stealer Of Souls

STEALER OF SOULS

Keith Martin

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Keith Martin’s later efforts would be amongst some of the better and more imaginative FF books in the latter part of the series (#38 Vault Of The Vampire, #46 Tower Of Destruction and #52 Night Dragon in particular), but his debut effort is on a far less ambitious scale. Stealer Of Souls is, for the most part, a fairly conventional back-to-basics adventure scenario that brings to mind #7 Island Of The Lizard King in its initial structure (boat trip to luridly-named island, followed by trek through primitive environment, then a dungeon trawl) and then any of a number of entries in the 30s part of the series as you pass into another “dimension” of some kind (in this case, the Empire Of Illusions) to face off with this particular book’s baddie of the week, this time an arch-mage who is stealing souls as part of his world-destroying evil plot (ho hum, were we not getting a little bit fed up with world-ending lunatics by this stage in the series?)

The combination of grass-roots plotting combined with “seen-it-a-hundred-times-before” structure makes this book something of a forgotten series entry and it rarely gets much attention in the context of the FF cannon, but I find it hard not to like it, if only for its sheer straightforward-ness. The actual nature of your mission is probably one of the least inspiring of the whole series – you are engaged by the wizard Vanestin to go to the fun-sounding (and otherwise unexplored in the series) Isles Of Despair and rescue another wizard (Alsander) who has been kidnapped by the titular Stealer Of Souls (aka Mordraneth) and is imprisoned in the Iron Chasms on the island. Needless to say, once you find him, he convinces you that you need to track down Mordraneth and despatch him before things get out of control at which point you switch from playing the liberator to becoming an assassin and immediately feel that your goal is now going to be rather more satisfying.

As with many of the books in the 30s section of the series, there are three distinct stages to negotiate here: a boat ride and item-riddled island trudge, followed by the dungeon that is the Iron Chasms, and finally the trippy Empire Of Illusions itself. It is possible to get into three combats in the first handful of paragraphs if you are trigger-happy, but these can be avoided and most of the initial encounters can be friendly and helpful if you don’t try to kill them. The Iron Chasms take up a large proportion of the book and can take ages to get through, plus there is more than one “correct” route, so you do get a feeling that these are as massive and labyrinthine as they are made out to be which is a bonus especially as so many FF environments that should be huge are sold short and don’t take too long to get through. The inhabitants of the Chasms are much less varied and colourful than those in the first section (limited mainly to Orcs acting as guards), but this seems sensible as the Chasms are essentially the barrier to stop people getting at Mordraneth’s evil realm so chances are there wouldn’t be much there other than guards and prisoners (ie fresh souls to steal.) The Empire Of Illusions is the best part by far and is, literally, colourful as each corridor has its own distinct hue to it. An added peril exists in this part as you need to use your judgement to decide if what you are faced with is real or just an illusion and it can be quite tricky to make the right choice. Having already saved Alsander, you are now armed with a small number of spells to help you defend yourself against the illusions in the Empire, but it is equally easy to make the wrong choice and waste a valuable spell as it is to get it right, so there is a lot to think about here, which is in stark contrast to the very basic “adventurer wandering around” of the first two sections of the book and makes for quite an unexpected final part. Once you locate Mordraneth you have to survive an initial spell-exchange (so you need to actually still have some spells with you, meaning you need to have been very sparing with their use thus far), followed by a final straightforward combat to complete the book. The sheer imagination that has gone into the illusory section is a sign of what would come in Martin’s later books and is the part that really makes this book worth playing. Yes, the Iron Chasms go on forever, but there is a logical point to that and your reward is making it to the Empire Of Illusions and experiencing a brief but still really interesting gamebook coda.

As the Chasms are such a huge part of this book and as they are filled with generally pretty run-of-the-mill creature encounters you could be mistakenly made to think that this book has the dullest encounters of any FF ever, but there are nonetheless one or two sparingly-used and very unusual creatures to meet. The second encounter in the book is with a rarely-seen Sea Giant (they get a write-up in Out Of The Pit, but you scarcely ever actually see them in FF books) and the penultimate creature you can come up against (if you take a certain turning) is an equally rarely-seen Blue Dragon that breathes lightning rather than fire (although it is played-down considerably when it turns out to be an illusion), plus one of the bizarrest FF creatures I’ve ever seen appears in the form of a Diadrone (even if the illustration looks like an evil balloon with overly-thin legs), so there is definitely pleasingly subtle use of “specials” in evidence here. Only the strongest encounters are particularly tough to beat, so, again, the real killers are few-and-far-between, which makes this book (unusually) not weighted against you and it is one of the rare books that actually holds up to the claim that you can complete a FF book even with rock-bottom starting stats, although decent Skill and Luck will definitely make the job a lot easier. Of less advantage would be a high Stamina score (as most combats are pretty easy), but this is one of those FF books that regularly penalises you for not eating (or at least it does in the first section where you seem to be eating constantly) so you could find yourself very weak by the time you reach the Iron Chasms, although it then comes as something of a relief when the book completely forgets about the eating need from there on in, and focuses instead on being an adventure rather than a multi-course meal.

Considering how generally conventional this book is, the challenge level is anything but the normal FF fare and this book is unusually easy, especially if you pass an early Skill test to get a weapon that pretty much guarantees you will win unless you are terminally useless at adventures! A really remarkable feature is that there only seem to be eight instant failure paragraphs, which has to be an all-time low, and the majority of them are reserved for the final section (and, again, this makes sense.) Equally unusual is the sheer number of paragraphs that you need to turn to to complete the book (you can go almost everywhere just in one playthrough), but this is handled well here as it is not that noticeable thanks to the logical construction of the three parts of the story, unlike KM’s later FF #51 Island Of The Undead where you are genuinely exhausted after ploughing through about 250 arduous sections to get to the end.

In retrospect, a FF written by Keith Martin and with illustrations by Russ Nicholson is a mouth-watering prospect, but this is not typical Martin fare and Nicholson’s art, whilst always very good, also seems a little lacking in this book. The usual comic book fantasy look of RN’s work is played-down here and many of the images look a bit half-arsed and either rushed or incomplete. Admittedly, the art is still far better than some other FF artists’ efforts, but, in the context of Nicholson’s FF-defining images in books such as #1 The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain or #2 The Citadel Of Chaos, Stealer Of Souls’ art just doesn’t quite have enough impact for my liking. David Gallagher’s cover, on the other hand, is stunning. It is very economical rather than unnecessarily busy like some FF covers and the blue-white colours work very well with the central image of Mordraneth. In many ways, this cover reminds me of my favourite Iron Maiden LP cover image, Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son, and it is easily one of my favourite FF covers.

All things considered, this is far from essential, but it does have a real charm to it and is a genuinely likeable book that is nice to play as a respite from the more elaborate FFs. The final section is the book’s real saving grace, but this one does not deserve to be as over-looked as it seems to be. OK, it’s very easy and it’s pretty long in places, but it is certainly worth giving a chance. The Curate’s Egg of the series without a doubt, but there are far worse FFs than this, especially in the 30s part of the series.

#37: Portal Of Evil

PORTAL OF EVIL

Peter Darvill-Evans

Reviewed by Mark Lain

Darvill-Evans’ second FF sees a return to the same region of Khul where his first (#25 Beneath Nightmare Castle) was set, with its Germanic-sounding naming conventions, but names and locale apart, this is otherwise a very different-feeling and less successful book than BNC. There is no sign of the eerie gothic atmosphere that pervaded BNC, instead PoE is far lighter material. The inclusion of large numbers of dinosaurs and very little creature diversity beyond the basics of elves, goblins, and dwarves, almost make this feel like an entry-level adventure.

The idea of a dinosaur-themed FF is something of a rarity in the series. The only other book that really has this feel is #7 Island Of The Lizard King (which is more akin to the Raquel Welch sun-drenched One Million Years BC version of prehistory) and the parallels are made more evident as both books also feature Alan Langford’s very appropriate-looking internal art. But there is a twist with PoE inasmuch as Lizard King’s Fire Island is a very primitive environment, whereas the area surrounding the Cloudhigh Mountains where PoE takes place is the equivalent of 19^th Century America with its themes of gold rush fever and proto-capitalism so, on initially starting this adventure, you do find yourself wondering quite where the dinosaurs are going to fit in. This is not Valley Of Gwangi or 2000AD’s Flesh so do not expect cowboys farming dinos. Instead, dependant on your level of realisation (and the secret is hardly much of a secret for anyone who can read between the far from subtle lines here), it turns out that the dinosaurs that are roaming around wreaking havoc are actually people who have been turned into dinos as part of the arch-baddie Horfak’s evil plans. Opinion is that the dinos are passing through the titular Portal from another world (which is true) but they are seemingly just ex-people who fell foul of Horfak’s machinations. The Portal itself was accidentally uncovered by Horfak whilst digging mineshafts and it has gradually warped him into a hideous mutation (which is why he’s banned mirrors, incidentally) and this is where YOU come in, as a warrior who has been commissioned to try to establish what’s going on and stop it from going on anymore.

There is an interesting take on linearity in this book and, whilst it is definitely pretty linear, it seems (I emphasise “seems”) to be possible to visit certain key locations out of order, especially on initial playthroughs given how areas that are presumably miles apart link very closely into one-another, and working out the correct order is as surprising as it is frustrating. On starting out, you can go directly to a key town or the forest/mountains – should you do this, you can get the feeling that there is hardly anything to this adventure as you will quickly a) get close to the Portal, and b) fail completely. Once you find the correct route, it becomes clear that this is actually a pretty long slog involving a seemingly endless and pretty uneventful ride down a river (a good excuse to get a Plesiosaur into the proceedings though), interspersed with constantly being forced to either eat or lose Stamina due to hunger. And this part is the book’s biggest problem as it is boring and repetitive – ride along, do nothing, have something to eat (repeat ad nauseum) – but yields essential items and information that you can’t win without. There are some slightly baffling moments in this part’s latter hill climb section (especially involving an existentialist ex-person Ape that just accepts your suggestion that it bugger off somewhere else rather than killing you, as it will no doubt be far happier that way) and an initially intriguing but actually pointless run-in with some Goblins on a jetty. Get through the tedium of all this and you reach the first real tour-de-force in this book where you need to negotiate a brilliant and almost Arthurian trial lake to get to a Wizard who holds a key piece of information, not to mention his aiding you in going to the next key stage – handy given the fact that you will by now feel that you are about to fall off the edge of the World considering how far you have travelled to get to this point. From here on, the pace of the book increases noticeably as you go to the town of Kleinkastel to undertake a really well designed and fun series of trials to ensure you are good enough to be the champion who can sort out the region’s problems, followed by a trek through a forest to try to find various contacts and get important facts from them, and then on into the Cloudhighs themselves.

It is this interim stage between the never-ending river ride/eating and the actual Portal sections where the real depth of thought that has gone into this book becomes apparent. All the different races you can meet have very distinct behaviours and cultural idiosyncrasies that you need to figure out and navigate your way through. These are interspersed with increasingly frequent “dinosaur” encounters along with similarly growing numbers of mindless zombies roaming around the place that are also a product of the Portal. There are moments where you need to decide if the beings you meet are what they seem or if they are just more zombies and you will need to use a modicum of mental wit to survive this part and manage to get your hands on the items you need.

The final section involving getting through the Portal and passing into another dimension is fairly brief and maybe a little rushed considering the unnecessary length of the first section, but it also allows you to get to Horfak quickly and try to win. Surviving the Portal section itself does involve needing several items that can take some finding (as well as remembering to leave some explosives at the door – are you really likely to think this is a good idea given the likelihood of someone else blowing it up and trapping you in another World?), but the other dimension itself is quite easy to get through, plus Horfak doesn’t take much beating once you realise that/why he hates mirrors. The cultural aspect from the forest/hills episodes is continued here and there is nice fleshing-out of the primitive peoples who live in the other dimension so you can put them into some kind of context as you meet them.

So, as hit-and-miss as the plotting is, swinging as it does from tedium all the way through to highly innovative ideas and good contextualising of the region this is set in, there is certainly a lot to recommend and, once you’ve figured out what’s going on (which is hardly difficult given the relative simplicity of the overall idea here), this has a lot going for it if you can bare with it through the really dull first third.

I have to say I was left a little disappointed when I realised that this isn’t really a FF about dinosaurs, although a real plus-point for the book is the way the numerous dinosaur encounters are handled. Some have “handlers” (ie their non-transformed friends) who are using them to extort money from people by threatening menaces of dino-combat, whilst others are trying to defend themselves from hunters and/or just mind their own business for as long as they are stuck in their dino-bodies. The various dinosaurs’ combat stats are especially well thought-out in that they have low Skill scores (dinos should be essentially stupid and should react on instinct alone) and very high Staminas (anything as massive and leathery as them is clearly going to be hard to hurt.) Additionally, in some cases they will have special attacks that you also need to defend against (horns, big tongues, etc) so they are handled very realistically and also, importantly, very consistently. There is also a nice touch where some will lose interest in fighting you if they realise they can't get an easy meal and will just wander off. Another nice aspect of the dinosaurs’ inclusion is the balance of well-known famous species (Ankylosaurus, Pteranodon, Stegocephalian, Oviraptor, Triceratops, Plesiosaur) and some of the more obscure types (Dromaeosaurus, Noasaurus, Phororhacos, Struthiomimus) which, mixed with the fact that these are all real species that existed on Earth, gives the impression that these are not just thrown in for a laugh and that they are intended to fit in well with the plot. Of note is the fact that all these species are described as extinct on Khul. Khul must be distinctly different in its evolution from Allansia, as Triceratops and Pteranodons are alive and well there, but long gone on Khul. This is subtle but interesting in terms of the development and expansion of the FF universe and this book adds value in that respect. Plus, D-E avoids the obvious fall-back of using any Tyrannosaurs which I was pleased to see.

One of the best features of Darvill-Evans’ FFs is the atmospheric writing and the sheer depth of description in his long paragraphs. He uses the cultural aspects of each race to create vivid encounters/locations and Kleinkastel in particular is a hive of gold rush mania mixed in with determination to find a strong enough champion offset against the sheer megalomania of its Margrave leader who is one of the more satisfyingly arrogant yet also easily flattered NPCs in the FF series, making him a lot of fun to interact with. My only gripe with the excellence of Darvill-Evans’ writing in this book is that the lengthy descriptions do somewhat amplify the endless nature of the first section, but at least it’s boring in a thorough and expositional way and we certainly can’t complain about lack of depth or involving prose here.

The generally light nature of the material on offer here contradicts the dark, gloomy cover which, whilst suitably mysterious in its depiction of the Portal, is not an accurate reflection of the tone and feel of the book, and in this sense it is something of a surprise when you play through it and see just how un-claustrophobic and non-threatening the adventure is, hence my opening theory that this is intended as a Beginner’s book. There is none of the terror (not to mention the difficulty) of Beneath Nightmare Castle and, once you’ve found where the items you need are hidden, this is one of the easier books in the series.

To summarise, this is a decent (but not brilliant) offering that sums up the feeling of general “meh-ness” that many of the books in the 30s part of the series leave you with. It’s OK, but it’s hardly ground-breaking, and its intelligent second and third parts are let down by your having to drag yourself through the initial part. Give it a go for the dinosaurs and the elven/dwarvish/goblin culture and for Darvill-Evans’ writing, but I’d recommend playing it after you’ve attempted Beneath Nightmare Castle, if only to prove that D-E is a genuinely good game creator.

Temple Of Terror (ZX Spectrum/CBM64/BBC/Acorn)

TEMPLE OF TERROR

AdventureSoft (UK) Ltd

Reviewed by Mark Lain

The 6^th FF computer adaptation appeared in 1987. A 7^th (Sword Of The Samurai) was advertised but never materialised, making ToT the final FF-related release for 1980’s platforms.

In terms of its design, this game is very similar to AdventureSoft’s previous FF effort (Rebel Planet) with its half-image/half-text screen presentation (unless you have the BBC version which is text only and loses all of the visual appeal, or for some reason you choose to play Side 2 of the Spectrum version which offers a text-only version too which you won't want to do as Side 1 gives the full graphic version.) There is no combat system or character stats and these two adaptations are much more command-driven and the emphasis is on figuring out how to negotiate certain situations by finding the correct command whilst, in some cases, having to beat limitations on time and/or number of moves. Certain actions can have consequences later in the game and forward-planning plays an important part in some sequences. In this sense, this was easily the most sophisticated of the FF computer games up to this point and probably seemed quite advanced for the time as it is quite intuitive in how it responds to what you do. For example, not bowling cannonballs down a particular passageway before going down it will result in you dying under a hail of crossbow bolts fired by a trap in the wall, whilst not jumping over a particular pit with your eyes closed causes you to be killed by an eye stinger. Clever.

Clearly then, the fact that the game can “remember” what you have done to avoid/cause certain consequences does mean that it will take numerous failed attempts before you can make any worthwhile real progress through the game. Even the opening screen can be tough to get past as the first event the game throws at you is a beat the clock situation where you have to make your moves before an angry mob of pirates gets across the beach and kills you and I must have died about 20 times before I figured out what I needed to do. That said, once you have worked out how to beat the various traps along the way, this game is not especially difficult overall, even if some of the solutions are total guesswork, in particular how to get past the lizardine guard at the entrance to Vatos – what are the actual chances of eventually stumbling on the “kick sand at serpent guard” command? (even though you can just walk past him as well, it turns out!)

The commands, whilst they are the crux of the game mechanics, can be so specific in places that even one missed or wrong word is the difference between success and failure (eg: “kill harpy” needs to be “kill harpy with trident” to work.) Likewise, some of the pre-planning moves (to avoid failure further along) are obscure to the point that you may not ever think of them - the moment where the only way to beat the torture chamber cameo by thinking of throwing a scorpion in the room beforehand so it kills the torturer is the kind of abstract option that would seem like an imaginative solution when offered as an option by a FF book, but how long it would take to simply guess at this is anyone’s, er, guess, ditto, a moment where you need to “drop mongoose” so that it kills a serpent for you. A particularly clever moment comes when you have to throw a lodestone at a pair of slashing metal sword-arms to magnetically join them but, again, the book would suggest this, whereas you are fairly unlikely to hit upon this idea without prompting. Whilst this adds challenge to what is fundamentally not all that tough a game (once you’ve fathomed out all the peculiar commands and pre-empted various deadly situations), there is a bigger problem with the game’s reliance on commands to drive it – whilst it has an undeniably impressive and varied vocabulary (the specifics of the commands involving what to attack foes with etc certainly add realism and thoroughness to the game and give a RPG feel where you are free-er to roam and make more obscure moves), some of the commands that are listed in the instructions do not work, which is irritating and suggests lack of play-testing to match claim with practice:

• ·         “I” to access your item inventory does not work. You have to type “inventory” in full. This is mostly just an inconvenience, but it becomes an issue when pirates are tearing towards you and you are bumbling through your spell book to establish that you know the all-important Sleep spell that you need to cast on them
• ·        The seemingly very handy “drop all” does nothing, neither does the similarly useful “get all”. Instead you have to laboriously enter a “drop” or “get” command for each item, should you want to drop or pick up more than one thing

These are just glitches, rather than fun-killers, but why bother even making us think we can use these? In short, this is careless design, which amplifies itself when you start to notice the number of typos in, not just the on-screen text, but also the paper instruction insert that comes with the game! At least there is a modicum of consistency in that you have to spell the affected creature/object in the same incorrect way to allow your command to work (eg: “examine alter”), but this is just shoddy, especially when the alter (sic) and also a terodactyl (sic) episodes are key to survival.

Spelling and vocabulary issues aside, some of the moves you need to make to find the true path are actually quite fun and, in some cases, darkly humorous. You need to get some flesh from a freshly-killed goblin and pour some water on it (that you have previously filled a bottle with from what transpires to be a poisoned oasis) to later use it to feed a hungry attack dog – this kills the dog and avoids it killing you. Similarly, dropping a shiny bracelet into some water attracts the attention of a Tentacled Thing that intends to kill you and makes it dive after the bracelet instead. But, by far the most amusing pre-planned moment comes when you need to take the body of a glowing moth that you have killed so that you can use it as a lamp later on! There is also a suitably realistic bit of cause/effect programming included where whatever you drop will be listed as available where you dropped it (in other words you can go back and retrieve it later if you need to) and this even extends to seeing the bodies of any enemies you have killed (handy given that you need to collect some of these – see above), plus we are offered detail to the extent that a creature that is reduced to dust by an item will be listed as “dust” in the items you can see and, when you turn the Basilisk to stone with its own reflection, the screen lists “statue of a basilisk” as an item you can see (nice touch.)

The concept of some cameos being time/move-limited is another good inclusion as it adds a sense of urgency at key points in the game. The opening pirate sequence is a case in point, as is an encounter with a Giant Centipede where you only have one move before it kills you (firing a pre-loaded crossbow that HAS to be pre-loaded as you can’t load AND fire in the same move turns out to be the rather thoroughly-planned solution.) All the pre-planning and cause/effect scenarios add a noticeable RPG aspect to this game and you are totally free to roam backwards and forwards and re-visit previous locations at will so this game is far from linear and is certainly unusual and welcome within the FF cannon due to this. By the same token, the sheer amount of to-ing and fro-ing, along with a seemingly endless cycle of picking up, dropping, and retrieving items at the right times, can get fairly repetitive and it does seem that you are caught up in an endless Rubik’s puzzle where you are forever trying to make one move without ruining something else you have already managed to sort out and it does feel like you are going around in circles, especially in the Vatos dungeon itself.

Until you realise that you need to go back-and-forth so much (along with finding the convoluted solutions to various stages), it may seem that this game is impossible but, as we have said, it is relatively easy to beat once you’ve cracked it and is certainly the easiest computer-based text adventure I have played and it has to be said that it is ultimately fairly short on overall content, relying instead on solutions gradually discovered through multiple attempts at playing it. There is undeniable scope for re-play, but this is still quite a short adventure and is far shorter than the book, preferring to only include the most important moments and episodes from its source material (and, yes, the Messenger Of Death is included), to which it is generally, but not slavishly, faithful. There is enough puzzling to keep you interested, but this is not up to the high standard that the book version set.

An interesting (and useful) inclusion that I have not seen in other Spectrum/CBM64/BBC/etc FF adaptations is the “BOM” command. If you die, you can use “BOM” (ie “back one move”) to go back to the previous stage and try again. This is the computer’s version of using fingers to mark previous paragraphs in case you go wrong and can be handy (assuming you hadn’t already blown it at an earlier stage, of course), especially to avoid dull re-treads through all the sections you have already beaten before. The game can also be saved at any point as well, which is another useful and welcome feature that aids progression.

Very occasionally in FFs (and commoner in spin-off games than in the books themselves) you have restrictions on how many items you can carry. Again, this is a realistic RPG encumbrance idea and it does make you think about what items you will need to carry and when to have them with you. Granted, this only really holds value after a few plays where you can use the benefit of hindsight from past attempts, but it is certainly a plus point and is another neat programming touch. More traditionally for FF, your spells (taught to you by Yaztromo, just like in the book) can only be used once each and you only have four full-stop, with each having an optimum episode where they should be used. You can also carry more than one weapon and, interestingly, each one also has a corresponding foe that it is most effective against. It is worth giving credit where credit is due to the programmers for this, as this works in a very logical way – throw the trident at the flying harpy, kill close foes with your sword, etc. Furthermore, there are times when only a specific weapon will successfully kill an enemy, so this is a nice touch too.

A really winning feature of this game’s sister production, Rebel Planet, was the graphics that, whilst a bit garish and undeniably restricted by what could be achieved with 48 or 128K, were still effective. The graphics in ToT are not so good and are mostly blocks or outlines in black-on-yellow or blue-on-black. In some cases, the description mentions features that are not in the images and, whilst a screen full of text would certainly be uninteresting, I’m not convinced that ToT’s graphics add much, except in a few isolated cases (especially the rendering of the famous cover image of the lizardine creature at the entrance to Vatos, which is nice in a naive and simplistic way.)

A rummage through the internet will throw up numerous articles and letters in computing magazines from the late-80s where people have asked for help with the more bizarre solutions to some of the moments in this game. More worryingly, this will also reveal (assuming you haven’t already reached the end and found it yourself) a serious shortcoming of this game. Typos and commands that supposedly work but in fact don’t I can forgive, but ToT cannot be completed as there is a bug at the final stage. When you insert the four stone shapes into the wall key puzzle thing at the game’s climax, you are bafflingly told that the pirates that you will have caused to fall in the river and be eaten by crocodiles at the start of the game are falling into the river again and being re-devoured by the same crocodiles. This will just go on forever until you grow confused and think you’ve lost or you realise the game is irretrievably buggered and you’ve wasted your time trying to get this far.

In terms of playability and learning as you go, this has a lot to offer and it will certainly keep you guessing. There are some cleverly thorough programming touches along the way, but the game is all but ruined once you discover that it simply does not work properly. From what I can determine, US Gold did offer refunds once people started sounding-off in the gaming press that this could not be completed due to its ending bug (and at three times the price of the book, they had a right to!), but that does not make up for the ultimate let-down in what is otherwise a generally worthwhile game to play. What a shame, as this could have been another Rebel Planet in the context of computer FFs.