[{"TitleName":"Catacombs","Publisher":"J.K. Greye Software Ltd","Author":"J.K. Greye Software Ltd","YearOfRelease":"1981","ZxDbId":"0028748","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":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 7, May 1982","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1982-04-16","Editor":"Terry Pratt","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Terry Pratt\r\nAssistant Editor: Elspeth Joiner\r\nEditorial Assistant: Susan Cameron\r\nDesign: Linda Freeman\r\nProduction Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Rita Lewis\r\nAdvertising Executive: Neil Wood\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Louise Flockhart\r\nPublisher: Tom Moloney\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES POSTAL SERVICE SUBSCRIPTION. By using the special Postal Subscription Service, copies of COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES can be mailed direct from our offices each month to any address throughout the world. All subscription applications should be sent for processing to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES (Subscription Department), [redacted]. All orders should include the appropriate remittance made payable to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES. Annual subscription rates (12 issues): UK and Eire: £10.00, Overseas surface mail: £12.00, Airmail Europe: £20.00. Additional service information including individual overseas airmail rates available upon request. Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd. Printed by Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd.\r\n\r\n© Computer & Video Games Limited\r\nISBN 0261 3697.\r\n\r\nCover: Elphin Lloyd-Jones"},"MainText":"UNDERGROUND HAUNT FOR MONSTERS\r\n\r\nProwling around the Catacombs in search of gold you suddenly come across an evil looking monster - will you get the gold before the monster gets you?\r\n\r\nThe aim of Catacombs is to find as much gold as possible before you run out of food of are caught by one of a variety of creatures. It runs on a ZX81 in 16K.\r\n\r\nKeys 1 to 8 move you in the direction indicated on the keys - 1 to 4 move you diagonally. Keys 5 to 8 with shift enable you to tunnel, but beware, this uses up a lot of your food. As you move a series of rooms and passages will unfold, these may contain food. As you move a series of rooms and passages will unfold, these may contain food, gold, monsters or nothing at all.\r\n\r\nThere is always an exit to be found on each level if things get tough. The exit takes you to a different level, which provides a breathing space while the ZX sets this up.\r\n\r\nWhen meeting a monster you can run away, but it will follow.\r\n\r\nAn excellent addictive game which will keep you amused for hours. For £4.95 it is certainly worth adding to your collection, but be prepared for a struggle when loading - certainly the most troublesome that I have encountered. Catacombs comes from J. K Greye Software.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"83","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]