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That's
not to say, however, that veteran Wizards won't get
a few thrills out of it. Ol' Whitey has been at it for
a few nights now, and I'm afraid the bad news is that
here is another expensive Infocom game that I've just
GOT to have in my collection!
Wishbringer
puts you in the role of a young postman in the sleepy
seaside town of Festeron. Delivering a letter to the
proprietress of the local Magicke Shoppe, you find yourself
drawn into another dimension of magic and evil as you
endeavour to rescue her cat from the Evil One. To aid
you in your quest you have the Stone of Dreams, which
enables you to cast seven spells in your defence.
The
spells are for rain, advice, flight, darkness, foresight,
luck, and freedom from imprisonment. Most can only be
used once, and all require that certain other conditions
be met before they will work. For example, you can only
cast the foresight spell if you're wearing glasses.
Interesting
features of the program include a number of aids to
the novice adventurer. For example, the program begins
by flashing up What now? before each input prompt. After
a while, the What now? prompt is omitted, and the program
flashes up a little message to say that you won't be
seeing it from then on, since it's assumed that you
know when to enter commands.
Similarly,
certain location descriptions are worded in such a way
as to prompt the player to make the correct decisions.
Locations that it is wise to enter are described as
having doors that are 'invitingly' open, and so on.
You might think that this would give the game away,
but you needn't worry -- the puzzles are still just
as logical and, in one or two cases, lust as tricky
as other Infocom adventures.
The
trouble with Wishbringer (and with all recent
Infocom games) is that there isn't much I can say about
it! I can't tell you about the vocabulary problems because
there aren't any. I can't tell you what sort of inputs
it will accept, because I'd run out of space. I can't
tell you the plot because it would spoil the fun and,
besides, the text is so richly written that to try and
condense it into a review would be meaningless.
As
an example of interaction within the game, try this.
You encounter a very unpleasant little poodle on your
travels, and getting past it can be quite a problem.
After the White Wizard had had his ego thoroughly damaged
by the little monster, he typed 'Kick the poodle' in
desperation. 'Are you kidding!?' replied the program,
'This poodle is MEAN!' And that's just one example of
a whole host of responses that really lift this (and
other Infocom games) into the league of all-time classics.
Wishbringer
is yet another example of brilliant design and programming.
It makes one wonder whether British companies, used
to cassette-based games for so long, will ever catch
up when we all move over to using disks. It's pricey,
but even so it's still recommended to all in search
of mystery and imagination.
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