★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ KWAH? (c) MELBOURNE HOUSE ★

Amstrad Action
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Avid readers of this column will recall that Redhawk from Melbourne House received rather less than a warm welcome from the man with the rod and staff. This game used a combination of text entry and graphics in an attempt to present a computer comic', where pictures and captions scrolled across the screen to accompany your inputs. 'Twas naff. 'Nuff said.

But now the intrepid lads from Melbourne Mansion have done it again, producing a similar-format program that claims to raise this art form to dizzy new heights. Have they succeeded? Or should they stick to endless replays of the Hobbit?

Well, fellow Pilgs. it does look as if they're making some headway here. The fact is that what made Redhawk so appalling (and I stick by my review of it, though others thought it was the best thing since sliced pitta bread) was the slow graphics and the really rather weedy plot, combined with illogical puzzles and an atrocious parser.

Weeeel... Kwah! goes a lot further in some respects. First, the plot. Instead of having to apprehend lots of rather unimpressive thugs and super-villains, in Kwah! you have a clearly defined objective which is easy to grasp, though very difficult to accomplish. Bring the infamous Doctor Lee to justice and, in the process, perhaps find out a little more about yourself.

The next thing I liked about Kwah! was the game layout. Redhawk had a whole series of rather loosely linked locations which didn't have me on tenterhooks and seemed, in some instances, to be rather illogically connected. Kwah! takes place in a nice easy-to-map scenario (Doctor Lee's Rest Home for Maniacs - or whatever he calls it) and you don't have to fly about the place to get from one place to the next.
Finally, the graphics have improved somewhat - they draw quicker and are better designed. In a game that claims to borrow irorn the world of comics, that's obviously important.

So what gives? Well, those of you who missed Redhawk should r.c that in this series of programs {Kwah! is number 2) you get a screen boasting three picture windows across the top half of the display. You enter text in a window beneath these, and as you do so your commands (if understood) are then protrayed graphically in the windows as one picture is drawn in the right-hand window, then shifted to the left to make room for the next one in the series. Just like a comic, but with yours truly writing most of the story-line. It's a great idea and Kwah! comes a lot closer than Redhawk to making it work well.

The hero of the program, Kevin Oliver, is a mutated freak who can turn into superhero Redhawk simply by saying Kwah! In this guise he can get the better of just about anyone, but his energy is limited and after a while you find yourself controlling good ol'Kevin again. Each character has a different inventory and changing from one character to another is a vital part of solving most of the puzzles in the game.
In fact, it was the puzzles that I liked most about Kwah! They were a darn slight better than the ones in Redhawk, and the authors seemed to have done a bit more thinking about the possibilities of having a split-personality hero. The other characters in the game are also more interesting - and some of them (particularly one Rik, who follows you everywhere if asked) are really quite loony. Interaction with the characters is of course essential to get anywhere in the game.

The main weakness with the program is the parser. It's pretty limited and really doesn't have much of a vocabulary to draw on. Perhaps there's a problem with fitting all those pictures in alongside the vocabulary, text, and so on. If so, I reckon it's worth the authors'while taking rather more time over their compression techniques, because with just a fraction more speed and a better parser this system could really be quite attractive.

I still don't think I'd go out and buy Kwah! because the Pilg is more of a traditional adventurer - but if you like the comicbook idea and fancy life as a super-hero then you can be sure that this game represents a far better deal than its predecessor - and if things were polished up just a mite bit more then we might see something very interesting indeed.

AMSTRAD ACTION n°16

KWAH?
(c) MELBOURNE HOUSE

Developer: Silhouette Software
Authors: Simon PRICE , Mike LEWIS , Carl CROPLEY
Loading screen: KEV
Cover Illustration: Steinar LUND

★ YEAR: 1987
★ LANGUAGE:
★ GENRE: INGAME MODE 1 , AVENTURE TEXT , AVENTURE GRAPHIQUE , ZX , FUTURISTIC , TAPE
★ LiCENCE: COMMERCIALE

★ PROTECTION: LOADER RICOCHET (TAPE)
★ RERELEASE: MICROPOOL (GERMAN)

★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ DOWNLOAD ★

Covers/Packages:
» Kwah    (Release  TAPE-MICROPOOL)    FRENCH-GERMAN-ITALIAN-DUTCH-SPANISHDATE: 2023-03-01
DL: 37
TYPE: image
SiZE: 987Ko
NOTE: Uploaded by manuelv ; w2592*h1540
 
» Kwah    ENGLISHDATE: 2012-06-10
DL: 340
TYPE: image
SiZE: 77Ko
NOTE: w856*h522

Dumps disks:
» Kwah    (2020-04-29)    ENGLISH    NICHDATE: 2020-05-02
DL: 221
TYPE: ZIP
SiZE: 34Ko
NOTE: 40 Cyls
.HFE: Χ
 
» Kwah    ENGLISHDATE: 2010-12-10
DL: 326
TYPE: ZIP
SiZE: 34Ko
NOTE: 42 Cyls
.HFE: Χ

Dump cassette (version commerciale):
» Kwah    ENGLISHDATE: 2021-05-14
DL: 334
TYPE: ZIP
SiZE: 32Ko
NOTE: Dumped by Dlfrsilver for Loic DANEELS ; Loader Ricochet;/CSW2CDT-20191102
.LOG: √

Medias/Supports:
» Kwah    (Release  TAPE)    ENGLISHDATE: 2016-09-07
DL: 239
TYPE: image
SiZE: 50Ko
NOTE: Scan by Loic Daneels ; w597*h737

» Kwah    (Release  TAPE-WHITE-MELBOURNE  HOUSE)    ENGLISHDATE: 2017-01-11
DL: 176
TYPE: image
SiZE: 28Ko
NOTE: Uploaded by hERMOL ; w600*h387

Notices d'utilisation:
» Kwah    ENGLISHDATE: 2011-07-22
DL: 434
TYPE: PDF
SiZE: 1390Ko
NOTE: 12 pages/PDFlib v1.3

» Kwah    ENGLISHDATE: 2018-03-11
DL: 322
TYPE: text
SiZE: 22Ko
NOTE:

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L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent  du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko.