[{"TitleName":"Adventure A","Publisher":"Artic Computing Ltd","Author":"Artic Computing Ltd","YearOfRelease":"1981","ZxDbId":"0028637","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 3, Jun 1982","Price":"£0.6","ReleaseDate":"1982-05-20","Editor":"Nigel Clark","TotalPages":68,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editorial Director: Nigel Clark\r\nConsultant Editor: Mike Johnston\r\nProduction Editor: Harold Mayes\r\nDesign: William Scolding\r\nAdvertisement Director: Simon Horgan\r\nEditorial Director: John Sterlicchi\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Les Morton\r\nEditorial/Production Assistant: Margaret Hawkins\r\nManaging Director: Terry Cartwright\r\nChairman: Richard Hease\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by ECC Publications Ltd. it is not in anyway connected with Sinclair Research Ltd.\r\n\r\nTelephone\r\nAll departments\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to Sinclair User. please send typed (or beautifully-handwritten)articles or programs to-\r\nSinclair User\r\nECC Publications.\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nWe will pay £10 for each program printed and £50 for each article which should be approximately 1,000 words long.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1982\r\nSinclair User\r\nISSN NO. 0262-5458\r\n\r\nPrinted and typeset by Bournehall Press Ltd, [redacted]\r\n\r\nDistributed by Spotlight Magazine Distribution Ltd, [redacted]"},"MainText":"FIGHTING AGAINST ASSORTED TERRORS OF THE IMAGINATION\r\n\r\nIn the second and final part of his series on adventure games, Phil Garrett comes to grips with Inca temples, catacombs and nasty mountains.\r\n\r\nArtic Computing advertises three Adventures, with the rather uninspired titles of A, B and C. They are written in machine code and seem to be from the same original master program, so we can probably expect more adventures in the future.\r\n\r\nAdventure A appears to be 12.5K long but on closer inspection a fair amount of this seems to be empty. It has about 20 locations, a similar number of objects, and along with the other Artic games, a large vocabulary of more than 100 words.\r\n\r\nThe setting is an alien planet which you are trying to leave, and there is a green man to deal with, a spaceship to find, and even a computer - they get everywhere. Unlike the other two games, you cannot save your present position to return later.\r\n\r\nAdventure B is set in an Inca temple, is 11K long and is the only one of the three to give you a score. For what it is worth, mine never went above zero. This game has 50 locations with short descriptions and more than 25 objects, not including the treasures, which, as in all the Artic games, need to be used at the proper time and in the proper combination to be useful.\r\n\r\nI had some problems with this game. It was sometimes very strict about the word required at a certain point; for example you cannot go \"Up\" the stairs, they must be \"Climbed\".\r\n\r\nThe 13K Adventure C is the largest of the three and is set on an alien spaceship. The object is to press a control button somewhere which will release your own ship from the fiendish Gravitron Beam and allow you to escape.\r\n\r\nThe program contains more than 35 locations and 40 objects, and is, I think, on two levels separated by a hidden door. Despite having spent hours exploring, and manipulating objects on the first level, I still have not been able to break through.\r\n\r\nHaving cheated furiously I know that, apart from the control button, the other level contains more rooms and objects, and a distinctly X-rated Android I would like to meet.\r\n\r\nAll three programs respond to \"Help\", although rarely helpfully, and \"R\" repeats the room description.\r\n\r\nDespite the large vocabulary, the response time is, to all intents and purposes, instantaneous, which makes a difficult and frustrating adventure easier to hear.\r\n\r\nAll the programs use the Artic keyboard scanning routine, which means that there is no response to the break key. The only way I have found to stop the programs, so that I could make a security copy, is by entering three or four \"Newlines\", and then a complete line of letters which overloads the display file and stops the program with a \"5\" error.\r\n\r\nHaving done this. I discovered that the instructions for Adventure C got the name of the program wrong. The filename is ADVENT C not ADVENT as stated.\r\n\r\nAt £5, £7 and £7 for A, B and C respectively, they are all good value, and will take many, many hours to master.\r\n\r\nCatacombs from J K Greye is an all-graphics-real time game. There is no chance of having a think about where to go next on this one, as your strength steadily drops whether or not you are doing anything.\r\n\r\nAs you move around using the standard cursor controls, the surrounding area is revealed. Each level of the catacombs is made up of a random set of inter-connected rooms containing random amounts of food, F, gold, £, and monsters, O for Ore, D for Dragon. Depending on your strength you can either fight the monsters or run away and, if necessary, you can even tunnel through the walls.\r\n\r\nThe program is written in 9.5K Basic and 2K of machine code. Despite the machine code, the game takes more than two minutes to set up. Something else to watch for is the Exit, X. If you go through it you have a two-minute wait for the next level to be set up.\r\n\r\nThis is a nicely-done graphics game with your strength and score, the amount of gold you have amassed, shown on-screen. At £5.95 it is a little expensive and would be greatly improved if the setting-up could be converted to machine code, since beginners may find the setting-up lasts longer than the game.\r\n\r\nI have to admit that Giltrole's Nasty Mountain nearly had me beaten. After playing the game, studying the listing, and cheating furiously. I finally managed to get out with a score rated as \"awful\".\r\n\r\nThe idea is to cross a mountain via a set of seven logically-connected caves. Your tortuous path from one cave to the next is shown graphically. and the caves may contain objects, mainly edible, such as apples and carrots. The nasties are not all that fearsome, being rabbits and chickens, but they have to be treated the proper way if you want to get anywhere.\r\n\r\nThe program is written in 12K of Basic and runs at a gentle pace. Movement and picking-up objects can be done with whole words or abbreviations if preferred, but you are told your score only if you manage to get out. You can enter \"Help\" if you get stuck but all that happens is that the program determines whether or not it is still possible for you to escape, which is scarcely helpful.\r\n\r\nThis is a well-presented logical adventure, and £4.95 is a fair price.\r\n\r\nPhilip Joy's non-graphics Cathedral Adventure is written in 15K of Basic and describes more parts of a cathedral than I ever knew existed - more than 30 in fact. Shortish descriptions are given, sometimes including a cryptic clue̶no pun intended̶and more than 70 words are recognised, although the input processing routine can be slow, sometimes nearly 30 seconds.\r\n\r\nSome of the treasures which are scattered around may be required later in the adventure, although I have not yet got past the Mad Monk to find out.\r\n\r\nPlenty of invention has been used in working-up the locations, and some of the spelling, too. In this game, which costs £7.50.\r\n\r\nPsion offers a tape with two sci-fi adventure-style games,, written in 9K and 14.5K of Basic. The task facing the intrepid adventurer in Perilous Swamp is to rescue a princess and return safely, having fought, or bribed, monsters at every turn. You are given a map to help you and a new layout is produced for each game.\r\n\r\nThe monsters, their strength, and the amount of treasure they are guarding are generated randomly at each step; you have to decide how much strength to use in overcoming them, or how much to offer as a bribe.\r\n\r\nThis program is really a fairly simple guessing game rather than an adventure; there are no objects and no special locations but it has been well done, and was a welcome relief from some of the more brain-taxing games.\r\n\r\nThe second Psion program, Sorcerers Island is a cross between the first and more traditional adventures. The detailed map is the same for each game and takes nearly a minute to display. There is a small vocabulary, move, fight, and so on entered as single letters, some objects, and even a rather ponderous maze. As you try to find the way off the island you use up your Life Points and hope to increase your Treasure Points.\r\n\r\nIn the process of reviewing these adventures I have been attacked by snakes and spiders, pirates and prawns, rats and rabbits, dragons and dwarfs, and countless more terrors of the imagination but it was worth it when the puzzle set by the writers of the programs was finally cracked.\r\n\r\nWhat is so good about a computer is that it is limited only by our own imagination. With each new program, you can load up entire new world.\r\n\r\nArtic Computing, [redacted].\r\n\r\nJ K Greye, [redacted].\r\n\r\nGiltrole, [redacted].\r\n\r\nPhilip Joy, [redacted].\r\n\r\nPsion Computers, [redacted].","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":" ","Page":"22,23","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Phil Garrett","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 12, Mar 1983","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1983-02-17","Editor":"Nigel Clark","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editorial Director: Nigel Clark\r\nConsultant Editor: Mike Johnston\r\nProduction Editor: Harold Mayes MBE\r\nStaff Writer: John Gilbert\r\nDesign: William Scolding\r\nEditorial Director: John Sterlicchi\r\nAdvertisement Manager: John Ross\r\nStates Executive: Annette Burrows\r\nEditorial/Production Assistant: Margaret Hawkins\r\nManaging Director: Terry Cartwright\r\nChairman: Richard Hease\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by ECC Publications Ltd. it is not in anyway connected with Sinclair Research Ltd.\r\n\r\nTelephone\r\nAll departments\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to any of the Sinclair User group of publications please send programs, articles or ideas for hardware projects to:\r\nSinclair User\r\nECC Publications.\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nPrograms should be on cassette and articles should be typed. We cannot undertake to return them unless a stamped-addressed envelope is included.\r\n\r\nWe will pay £10 for each program published and £50 per 1,000 words for each article used.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1983\r\nSinclair User\r\nISSN NO. 0262-5458\r\n\r\nOrigination by Outline Graphics.\r\nPrinted Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd\r\n\r\nDistributed by Spotlight Magazine Distribution Ltd, [redacted]"},"MainText":"SINCLAIR ACTS TO IMPROVE THE STANDARD OF ITS NAMED SOFTWARE\r\n\r\nJohn Gilbert looks at the latest group of cassettes issued by Sinclair and finds that it is now setting the standards.\r\n\r\nA new batch of Sinclair Research software for the ZX-81 and Spectrum shows a marked improvement in the quality of programs and a continuation of fine artwork on the cassette inserts.\r\n\r\nThe reason is that the company is selling programs from other independent companies, such as Melbourne House and Artic, instead of continuing to rely on Psion, Mikro-Gen and ICL.\r\n\r\nThe Hobbit which takes first place in the new releases for quality and value for money. This adventure game, which the makers claim uses artificial intelligence, is discussed in Mind Games on page 93.\r\n\r\nVU-3D, for the 48K Spectrum, is another good offering from Psion. It allows the user to create a three-dimensional representation of an object on the television screen. The object can then be rotated and viewed from any angle. The objects can be displayed as wirework figures or can be shaded. They can also be magnified and reduced.\r\n\r\nIt is possible to store the figure on tape in a data file and re-load it to view again. The program costs £9.95 but even though it has some good features it still seems over-priced.\r\n\r\nGames feature strongly in the new tapes. Sinclair is selling the Artic range of adventures, A, C and D. Adventure A works on the 16K or 48K Spectrum and 16K ZX-81 and is called Planet of Death.\r\n\r\nYou are stranded on a planet and must return to your spaceship. There is no guide to the keywords but with a little thought you can discover the help command. At times the suggestions can be very unhelpful and it is a good idea to construct a map, as some of the help suggestions may make you retrace your footsteps.\r\n\r\nThe next adventure so far released is C, called Ship of Doom. It can be run on the 48K Spectrum and 16K ZX-81.\r\n\r\nYour ship is captured by aliens who are searching for humanoids to replace their brains with microchips. The object of the game is to escape from the alien craft by breaking the gravitational field. To do so you must find the control room of the alien ship.\r\n\r\nThe help command is a little more useful in this game and it is easier to get further when playing the game.\r\n\r\nAdventure D, called Espionage island, can be used on the 48K Spectrum or 16K ZX-81. You must escape from an aircraft which is about to crash into the Atlantic. You must the reach the island safely, avoid capture, and try to discover the secret of the island. The game is more difficult than the others and many people have not managed to get out of the aircraft, even though there is a parachute. All the adventures cost £6.95.\r\n\r\nLeaving adventure games, Reversi, or Othello as it is sometimes called, can be played on the 16K Spectrum or 16K ZX-81. The game has nine levels, from novice to expert, and the computer is difficult to beat. The makers claim that Reversi reflects the strict contemporary morality of Victorian society but we believe that it can traced to Arabic origins. Reversi costs £7.95.\r\n\r\nAn interesting addition to the range of software is the Artic 1K Chess. It takes some technical wizardry to squeeze this kind of game into the unexpanded ZX-81.\r\n\r\nThe game can be played using one of two opening moves. Because of the lack of memory, castling, pawn promotion and capturing en passant are not allowed. The game loads in approximately 40 seconds and that is ideal for someone who wants a quick game of chess without having to load from a tape which takes several minutes.\r\n\r\nThe computer also makes its moves very fast for the amount of memory available to it. 1K Chess costs £4.95.\r\n\r\nSuper Glooper is an amusing game of Pac-man on the 16K ZX-81. Glooper must paint the maze before the aliens kill him. Unfortunately it is difficult to evade those aliens using the standard ZX-81 keyboard but it is not impossible. Glooper can also pick up one of the shields at the corners of the maze to protect himself and chase the aliens.\r\n\r\nOn the other side of the tape is Frogs, a game of Frogger. You must get the frogs over the river via the moving boats to the jetties on the other bank. If froggie falls into the river, it drowns.\r\n\r\nYou score points for each frog you get across the river and you can have eight frogs to send to their deaths. Super Glooper and Frogs cost £4.95.\r\n\r\nAnother game with a familiar-sounding theme is Through the Wall. It is based on Breakout and is available for the 16K ZX-81. On the other side of the cassette is Scramble, also a familiar theme. Both games on one cassette represent good value at £4.95.\r\n\r\nA package for the 1K ZX-81, called 1K Games, has also been released. The games include Jackpot, in which you must try to win the 25 pence jackpot from a one-armed bandit; Etch and Sketch, where you can draw pictures on the screen; and Maze Game, where you must find your way out of the conventional maze.\r\n\r\nThe release of this cassette, costing £4.95, is a good idea at a time when so many people are buying ZX-81s.\r\n\r\nA basic Toolkit is available for the 16K ZX-81. It provides a series of machine code routines to make the job of programming easier. It includes a re-number routine, a search and replace routine, a merge routine to put together two separate Basic programs, and a routine to put a Basic program above RAMTOP and out of the way of the NEW command. The Toolkit costs £5.95.\r\n\r\nTwo database programs are available in the range for the 48K Spectrum. They are called Collector's Pack and Club Record Controller.\r\n\r\nCollector's Pack can be used to store information about coins, stamps or even records. The Club Record Controller will store information about people such as addresses and telephone numbers. It would be useful to schools or even someone who runs a private club. Both packages are easy to use and cost £9.95.\r\n\r\nAdventure B, Inca Curse, for the 48K Spectrum is an upgrade of an adventure which Artic wrote for the 16K ZX-81. The adventurer is exploring in the jungle when he finds an Incan Temple. The aim is to go in and drag out all the treasure, or as much a you can carry. It all seems so easy until you enter the game and step into the temple.\r\n\r\nThe authors have managed to cram a good deal into this adventure and the Artic top score of 3,200 points will take some beating. We must admit that it is not one of the adventures in which we have made much progress. Adventure B costs £6.95.\r\n\r\nThe latest release of tapes is certainly better than the previous one. The games, utility, and business areas have been covered well but there is still a lack of good educational software. The only tapes available tend to be multi-choice and question-and-answer sessions.\r\n\r\nThe Psion tapes seem to be the best for quality at the moment and the ones with the most interesting concepts. None of the cassettes reviewed was bad but The Hobbit, Vu-3D, 1K Chess, and Super Glooper seem best.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"62,63","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"John Gilbert","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"ZX Computing Issue 6, Apr 1983","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1983-03-25","Editor":"Roger Munford","TotalPages":140,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"ZX Computing\r\nVol. One\r\nNumber Six\r\nApril/May 1983\r\n\r\nDeputy Editor: Roger Munford\r\nAdvertising Manager: Jeff Raggett\r\nDivisional Advertising Manager: Beverley McNeill\r\nManaging Editor: Ron Harris\r\nManaging Director: T J Connell\r\n\r\nOrigination and design by MM Design & Print, [redacted]\r\nPublished by Argus Specialist Publications Ltd, [redacted]\r\n\r\nZX Computing is published bi-monthly on the fourth Friday of the month. Distributed by: Argus Press Sales & Distribution Ltd. [redacted]. Printed by: Henry Garnett Ltd., Rotherham.\r\n\r\nThe contents of this publication including all articles, designs, plans, drawings and programs and all copyright and other intellectual property rights therein belong to Argus Specialist Publications Limited. All rights conferred by the Law of Copyright and other intellectual property rights and by virtue of international copyright conventions are specifically reserved to Argus Specialist Publications Limited and any reproduction requires the prior written consent of the Argus Specialist Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Argus Specialist Publications Limited 1983"},"MainText":"PLANET OF DEATH, SHIP OF DOOM, AND ADVENTURE ISLANDS - ARTIC COMPUTING LTD\r\n\r\nFirstly for this month's ZX81 software review, some adventures from Artic. Three of Artic's adventures have been given attractive boxes and more interesting titles (they were known formerly as Adventures A, C and D) for marketing by Sinclair as part of their fast expanding software range.\r\n\r\nFor the benefit of readers new to computer adventures, a brief explanation of this type of role playing game will not go amiss. An adventure is a game in which you explore strange new worlds with your computer in the comfort of your own home. As the introduction to the Artic games puts it, during an adventure 'the computer acts as your puppet and controls your senses'. Plenty of imagination, patience, and some lateral thinking are necessary if you are to succeed. An adventure is a game with an object - to enter a castle, rescue a princess from the clutches of an evil wizard, and escape with her to safety, for example.\r\n\r\nYou move from one location to another and there are objects along the way, some of which should be collected as you will need them later on. Hazards of one sort or another abound, and you will need to overcome them all. Each location is described by the computer, and you instruct it with short phrases such as 'Go East', 'Get knife', 'Use torch', etc. The computer then provides an appropriate response such as a new location description, 'I can't' or quite often 'I don't understand'. It is a good idea to make a map as you proceed to stand any chance at all of retracing your steps to safety.\r\n\r\nAll the Artic adventures are written in machine code and are very fast; response to commands is practically instantaneous. They each have an impressively large vocabulary of over 100 words. The programs are long, and take 5.5 minutes (Adventure A) to 7 minutes (Adventure D) to LOAD.\r\n\r\nFORBIDDEN PLANET\r\n\r\nPlanet Of Death (Adventure A) has about 20 locations and a similar number of objects. You are stranded on an alien planet, and the object is to escape by finding your space ship which has been captured and disabled.\r\n\r\nYou really are in a strange world of the imagination. There are caves, a prison, a lift (but the buttons are rather high, and where does it go?), guards and green men, and much more besides. There is also a maze, a feature common to many adventures and which, as usual, I found very quickly. Once that happens in an adventure I quit and start again, making sure from then on that I stay well clear of the maze at all times!\r\n\r\nIn Ship of Doom (Adventure C), your ship, whilst on a reconnaissance flight, has been drawn by a Graviton Beam onto an alien cruiser. Your aim is to free your ship by pressing the control button in the main computer room. You commence in your ship, and begin by moving into the airlock of the alien cruiser. This is a long adventure with some 40 locations - a radio room, robot factory, weaponry, cold room, galactic bar, an android conversion room to name a few.\r\n\r\nThere are also about 40 objects including a sonic screwdriver, infra-red spectacles, even a body frozen in ice and a beautiful android girl. I won't go into too much detail over what can be done with her, suffice to say that she is programmed for satisfaction - some parts of this adventure are definitely for adults only.\r\n\r\nThere is the odd spelling slip in my copy of the program, (exits becomes exitw in the log room, for example), but nothing is seriously wrong. In some places the program is surprisingly flexible, it accepts both the instructions 'turn' and 'rotate', for example, although some other commands have to be infuriatingly precise. In all the Artic adventures you can speed up data entry, by typing 'N' for North and 'Y' for yes, for example.\r\n\r\nAll the Artic adventures are extremely absorbing. They can also be very frustrating; it is possible to spend a whole evening stuck in one small area of the game unable to solve a problem that will allow you to move further. However, some time later and after giving up all hope of completing the game, the answer will hit you in a flash of inspiration and you can move on - until you reach another seemingly intractable problem a few locations later. An adventure can take days to complete!\r\n\r\nBoth Adventures C and D are very long and incorporate a cassette routine with which a partly completed game can be SAVEd, and LOADed at a later date - a very necessary feature.\r\n\r\nI SPY...\r\n\r\nSo absorbing were the previous two adventures that the deadline for this issue dawned before I had managed to complete Artic's final adventure - Espionage Island (D), so I am afraid much of it remains uncharted for the present. On the basis of the part I have so far explored, I am confident that it will prove an excellent game.\r\n\r\nPerhaps in another edition of this magazine I will be able to give away a few of its secrets. For the present, the plot is as follows.\r\n\r\nThe intrepid adventurer is sent on a reconnaissance mission to observe an enemy island; there is a secret hidden somewhere on this island which must be discovered. Unfortunately, your plane has to be abandoned when one of its engines is hit by enemy fire. The adventure begins in the aeroplane and leads into the heart of the enemy stronghold, from which you must eventually return to safety. This is a very difficult game, only to be attempted by the experienced adventurer. Even getting out of the aeroplane and safely onto the island is a problem - or at least I found it so - and I haven't yet managed to get much further forward.\r\n\r\nAll the Artic adventures seem to be from the same original master program, but I don't think that once you've mastered one, the others will be a doddle. Each is original in content, and challenging. Planet of Death is the shortest, with the fewest locations and objects but will nevertheless provide many hours of enjoyment. The quality of software for the ZX81 is constantly improving, and at the same time prices are, if anything, falling. Some readers might feel these Artic cassettes are still a little expensive; however, there can be little doubt that they are very good adventures indeed.\r\n\r\nArtic Adventures A, C and D cost £5, £7 and £8 respectively, and are available from Artic Computing Ltd, [redacted], or through Sinclair Research Ltd (see below).","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"24,25","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Nick Pearce","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"A sample screen dump from Planet of Death."},{"Text":"A sample screen dump from Espionage Island."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]