★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ MIKE WONG'S CHEAT ★ |
| Mike Wong's Cheat | Applications Divers |
A PROGRAM that will dump the contents of a binary file to the screen has been sent in by Michael Wong. This is an excellent way of cheating in adventures as it allows you to view all the words and responses in the program. I hereby nominate Mike for the Hall of Fame. If any other readers have any short programs that they think would help fellow adventurers send them in and if they are printed I will send them a free adventure. Don't forget to enclose a list of the adventures you already own so that I know what not to send you. Send me your list. Mike, so that I can get a tape in the post to you. The response to the competition for names for the Sorcery high score table has been excellent. The winner, with 26 suggestions, was John Saker. Also worth an honourable mention are Richard Levy and Geoff Dawson. Geoff came up with Clive. which was the only one that John didn't get. The names to try are: Strangeloop, Virgin, Sorcery or Sorcery+ , Amstrad, Arnold. Roland, Hugh, Brym, Elaine, Nick, Angela, Jeremy, Patricia, Steve. Simon. Ian, Andy.,Dave, Charles and Clive. In case you are wondering where the rest of the names are. entering no name at all will produce an amusing response, as will several words that I dare not print. I d like to thank several people for sending in maps and solutions to various adventures: P. Robson and John McCann for Dun Durach, Linda Wright for Smuggler s Cove (good luck in the new house Linda), and Di Reynolds for Gems of Stradus and Return to Eden. Di wants to know whether Classic Adventure and Colossal Adventure are the same. They are both based on Colossal Caves, the original adventure, but have quite a few differences, the main one being that the Level 9 version has an end-game whereas Melbourne House's does not. There are also quite a few differences in the play of the game. To get past the snake for instance, only requires the bird in Colossal whereas the flute and bird are needed in Classic. LORDS of Midnight from Beyond Software is more than just an adventure or war game, it is an epic. The land of Midnght has been almost overrun by the evil Doomdark. Through his control of the ice crown he has covered the land in permanent winter and now it is the solstice, the height of winter and Doomdark is preparing his armies for the final battle with the Free. You play Luxor, Lord of the Free, and with you are three companions, Corleth, Rothron and Morkin, your newly discovered son. As you are the last of the mcon princes you have the moon ring, a magical object that allows you to see through the eyes of your allies and control their actions. You have two different ways of gaining a victory over Doomdark. Vou can meet and defeat him on the battlefield and then capture "lis citadel. Ushgarak. or you can guide Morkin to the Towers of Doom and steal and destroy the ice crown, the source of Doomdark s power. To play the game to the full means that you must send Morkin on the quest as well as attempt to defeat Doomdark. Either can be done separately, and until you get used to controlling the characters you would be well advised to do just one or the other. To enlist lords and their armies to your cause you or one of your allies must visit the keep or citadel where they live. Once a lord has been recruited he comes under the control of Luxor. As far as I have been able to discover there are 25 such lords, which makes keeping track of who you are controlling at any given time a task in itself. For Doomdark to win he must kill Morkin and take Xajorkith. the citadel of the Free. As long as Morkin is alive, the game will continue. This means that Xajorkith can either be defended or abandoned in favour of a better strategy. I have found two ways of winning by battle. Gather as many lords and their armies as possible and take them to Xajorkith. Doomdark s armies will arrive eventually and. since they don't wait for reinforcements but attack immediately, you can defeat every army as it arrives. The other way is to take your armies to Ushgarak. If you choose an indirect route you should find that the majority of Doomdark's armies are too far away to help him. In either case. Morkin should be hidden away in a keep. I have yet to take Ushgarak before" Xajorkith has fallen, and would be interested to know if this can be done. It is possible to concentrate solely on Morkin's quest and leave Luxor and his armies to fend for themselves. Since this is the adventure part of the game I won't give too many hints. It is possible, despite the relevant part of the documentation saying otherwise, to get an army to help Morkin. If the army is in front of him it isn't with him. Don't go too far to the North with this army though, or you will attract too much attention. The game is controlled by single key input. Characters and their actions are selected directly from the keyboard or via a menu. Each character has a range of options at each location. All the lords and their armies perform according to their strength, which varies from utterly invigorated to exhausted. In addition, because of the ice fear that Doomdark spreads across the land, you may find that some of your armies are too scared to fight. Each location a character visits is displayed graphically and a view may be obtained for each direction. Since there are about 4,000 locations this means that there are a massive 32.000 possible pictures in the game. Characters and armies that are to be found in the location that would be visited if a move is made are also displayed, yet the graphics are drawn instantly. Each character has a limited number of moves he can make before nightfall, when he can move no longer. The number of moves varies with the type of terrain and is decided by the computer. When night falls it is Doomdark's turn to go into action. The complexities of the game are such that the booklet accompanying it contains 28 pages long, half devoted to explaining the background to the game and giving valuable insights into the way the characters behave. One slight niggle is that after saving your position on tape the program tries to verify it. Apart from not prompting you to rewind the tape, if for any reason it can't verify the saved game you will have to reload and start from the beginning. This can be very awkward, especially when, like me, you lose the results of over three months successful campaigning. I was unable to get a disc copy for review so am unable to say whether the problem is confined to the tape version. I simply cannot praise this game too highly. The more I play the more I find to enjoy in it. It is the best game I have ever played?
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