Producer: Fridaysoft
Retail Price: £4.95 (£6.95 microdv)
Language: Quill

Fridaysoft was formed by six Spectrum adventure enthusiasts who felt it was time that adventures moved away from the usual fantasy settings with their demonic bunch of hobgoblins, dragons and other things which have adventurers for supper. This adventure has been designed to pertain somewhat to the real world as it tries to keep reasonably geographically consistent with its chosen theme London (you know, that place south of Milton Keynes.)

They say that a man who is tired of London is tired of life but who ever said this obviously never got out of the taxi. What better than to put your feet up and visit the sights via a computer. This game has over one hundred locations most of which will be familiar even to those who thought Middlesex was a mid-life crisis. The aim of the adventure is to find the combination of a safe deposit box. The numbers that make up this combination are hidden within locations and objects you find. Unless you complete the game within a certain number of turns, a shadowy figure will prevent you claiming the inheritance. What a meanie!

See if you can guess whereabouts in London this description relates to: 'I am on board the Cutty Sark. The well scrubbed deck reflects the sunlight. The smell of pitch fills my nostrils. I can here the sighing of the wind in the lofty rigging. I can see a naval tableau with figures clad in a costume of a bygone era. I can see a sword in a scabbard.'

London Adventure is a very long text only Quilled game. The fact that it is based on a real geography makes the game very interesting. The plot is commendably lucid and would keep any adventurer well absorbed.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: fairly easy
Graphics: none
Presentation: poor
Input facility: v/n
Response: instant

FAX BOX
Title: London Adventure
Publishers: Fridaysoft, Unit F, The Maltings, Station Road, Sawbridgeworth, Herts CM23 9JX
Price: £4.95 tape, £6.75 microdrive, mail order only

Now that the Editor has seen the error of his ways (well, one of them) and given us adventurers more room, there's space to catch up on reviewing one or two titles that slipped through the net in the past. Such a one is London Adventure, a text-only game courtesy of The Quill and featuring 'over 100 locations.'

The story is that you eccentric rich uncle has died leaving you a fortune, if only you can find it. All his will tells you is that it's hidden in a safe deposit box somewhere in London, and so your journey begins. In fact it begins in Greenwich Park, inside the Observatory, where a puzzles astronomer walks away from a telescope. I wonder how you can tell someone's an astronomer? Maybe he had a sign hanging round his neck. Anyway, a glimpse through this telescope of undoubtedly magical powers shows in the distance a deposit box with an 8-figure combination. I'm not quite sure how this ties in with my clue-sheet, which reveals the box to be ultimately found in the depths of a vault.

In fact apart from the setting of London and its landmarks, reality doesn't really get a goo look-in on this adventure. In one location you find 'an aluminium tube'. Closer examination reveals it to have a bulb at one end. Well if the object's a torch why don't they say it's a torch?

The vocabulary is rather frustrating as well. Boarding the Cutty Sark reveals a tableau of characters, including a sword in a scabbard. GET SWORD? "I can't, it's in the scabbard." DRAW SWORD works, but what's the difference between drawing and getting. Travelling around is also made more difficult than it need be due to the author's dislike of conventional compass directions. BOARD SHIP to get on the Cutty Sark seems fair enough, but to get off again you can't LEAVE, OFF, OUT or a simple N, S, E or W, you have to DISEMBARK, and as well as using up more memory than a simple compass direction it seems to me to add pointless irritations to the game as you search round for the right words just to get you in and out of places.

There are plenty of places to get in and out of, however, and it's enjoyable to move around the capital and visit Harrod's, the Zoo, and the Tower of London - don't be dishonest, here, and don't be rude, either, as you the have the problem of getting the program back again.

All in all I was none too impressed by London Adventure, and there are much better and cheaper Quill'd games around. A shame, as it's the first production from six adventure enthusiasts, so let's hope the next one is an improvement.

IN THE DEEP MIDWINTER

Richard Price takes on an icy foe...

The software business seems to suffer as much from the silly season as your average daily newspaper. Everyone goes off to Ibiza, Crete or Terrormolinos for the whole of August, while the companies all tuck their software aces up their sleeves ready for the Christmas onslaught on your teetering bank balance.

Then, in late summer, when everyone has returned invigorated from their steamy holiday haunts, comes the time of the Great Gathering. Tribes of PR persons, hardware salesmen, ashen-faced advertising reps and regiments of over-tired journalists throng excitedly into the bars at Olympia for the mighty PCW Show. Such scenes may well convince you that there is such a thing as a free lunch.

This is the place, you might think, where new adventures will surface in all their glory to compete with the skimpily clad go-go dancers in their effect on four pulse-rate. Not so. This years show produced a dearth of adventure material and the vagaries of magazine print means that this famine works its way through to the reader round about now.

Publisher: Fridaysoft, Unit F, The Maltings, Station Road, Sawbridgesworth, Hertfordshire CM21 9JX
Price: £4.95 cassette, £6.75 m/drive
Memory: 48K

From the pleasures of rural life we return to the pressures of the big city with the London Adventure from Fridaysoft. Once again we have a Quilled game in text only. I could only find one very obscure reference to a 'quill pen' in the game and assume that to be the credit - perhaps it could have been a bit more prominent?

This game is very much like a computerised A to Z guide to London. There are over 100 locations, many of them well-known London features like Big Ben, Cleopatra's Needle, Madame Tussaud's and so on. The aim is to explore London, which is mapped more or less correctly, to discover the numbers which make up the combination of a safe deposit box. Opening the box will deliver your rightful inheritance. The correct sequence for the numbers will only be given when you've found all eight.

Regrettably, the authors have imposed a limitation which can end the game if you run over a certain level. That is very counter-productive as it stops the kind of leisurely exploration which is a normal pleasure of the genre. Let's keep all that scurrying around for the arcade, eh folks?

In general the description and detail is quite full with a good grasp of London's geography. You can visit most of the major tourist attractions in your quest and there's enough event to keep up your interest. Some of the problems are more at the level of verbal gymnastics, however, and I do feel it's pretty unnecessary to make life difficult for players by not providing adequate synonyms for actions. Using 'through' as a verb instead of 'enter' when you've already allowed it at other points isn't really a puzzle - it simply becomes aggravating and that tends to mean most people will stop playing.

That, along with the turn limitation, reduces the general playability of a game which would not be that bad provided you were really into the idea of exploring London. Not enough for me, and the price is a bit steep for what you get.

The first of this selection of Quilled games is Fridaysoft's London Adventure and it is the best of the three adventures reviewed here. It is also the only one to feature a loading screen, a nicely drawn picture of London's Tower Bridge.

The aim of the game is to find the combination of a safe deposit box belonging to your eccentric, rich uncle. He has recently died and his will has left his considerably fortune to you - if you can find it, that is! The combination numbers are hidden within the adventure - for instance you may find a five pound note, so five is one of the combination numbers. The numbers are cleverly hidden within the game, often in the oddest of places!

London Adventure is designed to be realistic (allowing some artistic licence, of course), logical and, apart from the odd diversion and obligatory mazes, geographically correct. The game features over 100 locations including many well known landmarks such as Harrods, Cleopatra's Needle and the Tower of London.

The location descriptions are very good in places, such as aboard the Cutty Sark, near the beginning, while the majority of the descriptions are above average. Some of the locations though, appear to be there only for show, but at many of them you can find objects and clues. On this point it is wise to collect every object, no matter how unlikely, as it will no doubt be useful at some point.

The game has quite a few original and amusing touches which raise the adventure above the mass of Quilled games. London Zoo, for example, becomes a particularly clever maze, as do the London Sewers. Another nice touch are the events in the Tower of London - you could lose your head over the Crown Jewels! Also, typing your name on the computer in the Science Museum can be alarming!

Overall, London Adventure is a very enjoyable and challenging game which makes a change from the usual fantasy settings, and this is Fridaysoft's avowed intention. You could certainly do worse than buy this one!

London Adventure, Fridaysoft, Unit F, The Maltings, Station Rd, Sawbridgeworth, Herts.