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This is a well-written
epic text adventure -
or at least that's the
author's modest claim,
though quite how it
can be more epic than
any other game written with The
Quill I'm not sure. The opening
screen is a quote from T.S. Eliot,
"This is the way the world ends...
not with a bang but a whimper,"
from, it is claimed, The Waste Land published in 1925. Well The
Waste Land was published in 1922
and this quote is from The Hollow
Men, published 1925. Sorry for
nit-picking, but if you're going to
make literary references, you'd
better get them right!
The references continue almost from the start. Check your opening inventory and you discover you're carrying coins, a sandwich and a handkerchief. EXAMINE HANDKERCHIEF. "Are the Tigers of Wrath wiser than the Horses of Instruction? Kilroy was here. I think... therefore I am. And many writings in strange languages I cannot understand." Well, that's what I like, a sensible response. I assume this is meant to be what you get if you examine the graffiti if that's referred to in the location description. I won't go into the long preamble about the destruction of civilisation and your part in its rescue, but after starting the game in a city location you're pretty soon whisked through space to a hall where some aliens are about to do the dirty on you. I made a quick exit into what looked like a maze, and decided to see if I still had anything with with me. INVE produced the coins, sandwiches, handkerchief... and a location description. Then I was whisked away again and discovered I was a jackdaw locked in a parrot's cage, with seed, water and a door dosed with a strong spring. EAT SEED. OK, it said. DRINK WATER. OK, it said. EAT DOOR. OK, it said, though I still couldn't get out that way. I escaped by a different means and encountered a tramp who offered to tell me his story. As you make your way up to and hopefully across the Cara River, you'll encounter quaintly named creatures like the Urga-Mauls, Quargs and Cavezats, most of which will gladly attack you soon as look at you, so if you like a bit of a bash with your brain-scratching Kentilla will do the trick.
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| READERS NOTE: The original YS articles on this site were written many many years ago, and should provide no indication WHATSOEVER of the author's present writing style. Judge these people on their current work, not articles they wrote decades ago. | ||||||||||||||
| All original YS text is still copyright to their original owners, including BOTH publishers and authors. Permission has been granted to reproduce these articles by a few of these owners - if you see your work on here and would like it to be taken down, e-mail me and I'll do it straightaway. All other pages have similar restrictions - email me for more details. None of the pages on this website may be reproduced in any way, nor sold to the general public (i.e. put onto a CD-ROM) without the consent of Nick Humphries and the author of each article. If you want to include any of these articles on a site or a CD, contact me for more instructions. |
