[{"TitleName":"Quest for the Golden Eggcup","Publisher":"Network Adventure Games","Author":"Harvey Lodder, Nigel Brooks, Said Hassan, Simon Dunstan","YearOfRelease":"1986","ZxDbId":"0006841","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 56, Sep 1988","Price":"£1.25","ReleaseDate":"1988-08-25","Editor":"Dominic Handy","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Dominic Handy\r\nAssistant Editor: Katharina Hamza\r\nSub Editors: Barnaby Page, David Peters\r\nStaff Writers: Mark Caswell, Philip King, Lloyd Mangram, Nick Roberts\r\nEditorial Assistants: Erica Gwilliam, Frances Mable, Glenys Powell\r\nPhotography: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson\r\nContributors: Jon Bates, Raffaele Cecco, Paul Evans, Simon N Goodwin, Ian Philipson, Brendon Kavanagh, Rosetta McLeod, Paul Sumner\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nProduction Manager: Jonathan Rignall\r\nArt Director: Mark Kendrick\r\nAssistant Art Director: Wayne Allen\r\nProduction Team: Ian Chubb, Melvin Fisher, Robert Millichamp, Yvonne Priest, Matthew Uffindell\r\n\r\nEditorial Director: Roger Kean\r\nPublisher: Geoff Grimes\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nSales Executives: Andrew Smales, Sarah Chapman\r\nAssistant: Jackie Morris [redacted]\r\n\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\nSubscriptions: Denise Roberts\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypeset by The Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow. Colour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset, [redacted] - member of the BPCC Group. Distribution by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPETITION RULES\r\nThe Editor's decision is final in all matters relating to adjudication and while we offer prizes in good faith, believing them to be available, if something untoward happens (like a game that has been offered as a prize being scrapped) we reserve the right to substitute prizes of comparable value. We'll do our very best to despatch prizes as soon as possible after the published closing date. Winners names will appear in a later issue of CRASH. No correspondence can be entered into regarding the competitions (unless we've written to you stating that you have won a prize and it doesn't turn up, in which case drop Frances Mable a line at the [redacted] address). No person who has any relationship, no matter how remote, to anyone who works for either Newsfield or any of the companies offering prizes, may enter one of our competitions. No material may be reproduced whole or in part without the written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return anything sent into CRASH including written and photographic material, software and hardware - unless it is accompanied by a suitably stamped addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photo material is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\nTotal: 96,590\r\nUK/EIRE: 90,822\r\n\r\n©CRASH Ltd, 1988\r\n\r\nCover Design & Illustration by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN EGG CUP\r\n\r\nProducer: Mastertronic\r\n£1.99\r\n\r\nSmart Egg Software have a reputation for producing top quality games. Rigel's Revenge, released as a budget game late last year and written without the aid of an adventure utility, surprised everyone with its complexity and style. The same team was behind CRL's Federation, a revamped version of Eighth Day's Quann Tulla, an excellently presented sci-fi adventure embellished by the odd touch of Smart Egg humour. And it's exactly that brand of characteristically cynical fun which distinguishes their latest adventure Quest For The Golden Egg Cup.\r\n\r\nIf there's anything to be learned in life, it's that you always get exactly what you expect. If you jump into the road straight into the path of a pink C5 speeding down the highway at 90 miles an hour in the capable hands of an even pinker panther, it's guaranteed you'll be knocked down and killed. Next stop (of course) is heaven. Unfortunately, God isn't in the best state of mind to receive new angels - he's lost his golden egg cup and insists that you retrieve it. How could you possibly refuse?\r\n\r\nQuite easily probably, except that God doesn't look like the son of chap you'd want to mess with. Puffing at his huge Havana-style cigar, lounging around in a turban and monogrammed (G.O.D.) silk robe, playing melancholy tunes on his baby grand, he behaves like an eccentric, philosophical millionaire - and you've always had a soft spot for richer men (well, perhaps you have, Samara - Ed). In any case, he threatens to turn you into an egg if you don't obey.\r\n\r\nHeaven, a small place full of bizarre and seemingly useless objects, is situated at the top of a beanstalk. Some branchlets down this overgrown vegetable, you discover a land of subterranean passages, forest paths, sparkling rivers and dusty train stations. Illustrated by bold, bright pictures, these strange and mystical locations are populated by a host of eccentric individuals. As the program doesn't allow for speech, interaction with all of these is kept to a minimum. It's mostly a matter of giving Wongo the witch, a surly guard or a ferryman what they say (or you decide) they require.\r\n\r\nThoron, a dwarf with a soft spot for gold (no, he doesn't sing), and Dandalf, a wizard without a wand unable to look quite as mysterious as he would like, are mortal enemies and provide plenty of entertainment when they manage to get themselves into a fight.\r\n\r\nThese two illustrious people are typical of the cross-referencing that pervades the whole of this epic journey. The obligatory constituents of an adventure game are scrupulously identified as they appear (cor, where does she get this from? - Ed); there's the inevitable 'under the bed object', a dead sherlock and a maze of twisting passages which bears more than a passing resemblance to the mindbenders devised by Level 9. Not that the satire stops at adventure games; a few more familiar elements of modern culture get the treatment too.\r\n\r\nIn the midst of all this totally gratuitous frivolity (eh? - Ed) there lurks a very playable and exciting game. The puzzles are by no means straightforward and there's plenty of opportunity for getting yourself killed. (How you can die when you're dead already I've still to comprehend.) The environment is extensive and has plenty to keep you occupied; it should take quite some time to fathom its many secrets.\r\n\r\nThe parser isn't quite as advanced as the gameplay. It doesn't accept complex commands and won't register commas or speech marks. (Sounds like Nick Roberts's sort of adventure however, it has been very cleverly designed. In places where complex input is required, the flexibility of the parser has been extended to cover a wider range of possibilities. Consequently you have a functional rather than an elaborately intelligent system but one in which there's very little scrabbling for exactly the right word.\r\n\r\nThe mainstream software houses haven't exactly been swamping the market with their adventure releases over recent months. At a time when the publishers are concentrating more and more on licences and sequels, it's refreshing to be sent a game of such high calibre. As long as the budget houses keep releasing products as slick and innovative as Quest For The Golden Egg Cup, there's hope for adventurers yet.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"57,58","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Kati Hamza","Score":"88","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Stop snooping around in the bedroom and get on with the quest."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"88%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 29, May 1988","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1988-04-13","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nArt Editor: Darrell King\r\nDeputy Editor: Marcus Berkmann\r\nTechnical Editor: Phil South\r\nProduction Editor: Jackie Ryan\r\nDesigner: Catherine Higgs\r\nContributors: Guy Bennington, Richard Blaine, Audrey & Owen Bishop, Ciaran Brennan, Lucy Broadbent, Jonathan Davies, Mike Gerrard, David McCandless, Duncan McDonald, John Minson, David Powell, Peter Shaw, Tony Worrall\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Simon Stansfield\r\nAdvertisement Director: Alistair Ramsay\r\nProduction Manager: Judith Middleton\r\nMarketing Manager: Bryan Denyer\r\nArt Director: Hazel Bennington\r\nPublisher: Kevin Cox\r\nPublishing Director: Roger Munford\r\nFinance Director: Colin Crawford\r\nManaging Director: Stephen England\r\nChairman: Felix Dennis\r\n\r\nPublished by Dennis Publishing Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England.\r\nTypesetters: Carlinpoint [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinters: Chase Web Offset [redacted]\r\nDistribution: Seymour Press [redacted]\r\n\r\nAll material in Your Sinclair ©1988 Felden Productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Sinclair is a monthly publication."},"MainText":"FAX BOX\r\nGame: The Quest for the Golden Eggcup\r\nPublisher: Mastertronic\r\nPrice: £1.99\r\nReviewer: Mike Gerrard\r\n\r\nWay back in the dawn of time... or at least when I first started writing the YS adventure pages, I gave a fairly glowing review to a home-grown adventure by Harvey Lodder, The Quest For The Gold Eggcup. And lo, it has come to pass that the game has been tarted up by those hard-boiled adventurers at Smart Egg Software and released cheaply by Mastertronic for the delectation of the adventure public.\r\n\r\nEggcup is a very funny tale, and it thoroughly deserves being given the professional treatment on Smart Egg's eggsellent adventure-writing system - you know, the one it used for the mega-selling Rigel's Revenge.\r\n\r\nThe optional instructions at the start, tell you that the whole story begins in typical British weather: a warm, wet, sunny day. Having been killed by a pink panther driving a pink C5 (older readers will remember what those were), next thing you know you're in a temple being confronted by an old man wearing a turban. \"Hello,\" he says, \"I'm God.\" He promises to reincarnate you if you fulfil the task of bringing back the Golden Eggcup, otherwise He'll probably turn you into an egg yourself and have you for supper, poached \"Play on,\" the game tells you, \"Or you could really be in hot water.\" Ouch, that's worse than one of my jokes.\r\n\r\nI played on, beginning the game in the temple with an empty inventory, though funnily enough I was told I'd taken three turns when I typed SCORE as my second input. But I found very few faults in the game, and lots to laugh at as it's very wittily written. In one location you find some beans, and when you examine them you're told: \"The beans are magical but you do not know this.\" Pardon? The way down from heaven is via a beanstalk, at the foot of which you find a sign wedged between two of the toes. The sign tells you the opening hours of God's Temple (Wednesday half-day closing, Sunday closed all day.) At a nearby railway station if you examine the ticket office you're informed that it's \"closed due to lack of program memory.\" The game also seems to contain the only free ferry service I've ever seen in an adventure! just ring the bell and a ferry-boat turns up to take you across a river.\r\n\r\nEggcup isn't just a game full of jokes, though it certainly won't be the hardest adventure you'll ever play. Good for beginners, at least. More experienced adventurers will probably solve it in a matter of days, but should still enjoy, as I did, the various diversions that the game contains, and the many in-jokes like the dead Sherlock you find in the railway carriage (you can even pick him up and put him in your pocket!) Whether you take to the game depends on what you demand from an adventure - a deadly challenge or entertainment value? The graphics are interestingly done, the pictures being built out of blocks, some of which appear in consecutive locations and give an impression of you moving around in locations with a bit of solidity and consistency about them.\r\n\r\nApparently each screen takes up just 80 bytes, with a further 2 1/2K for storing the data. Economic and effective. In fact that's what you can say for the adventure as well, and I'm sure people will be buying it in their droves.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"91","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mike Gerrard","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Text","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Personal Rating","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 36, Dec 1988","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1988-11-10","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nArt Editor: Catherine Higgs\r\nDeputy Editor: Ciaran Brennan\r\nStaff Writer: Duncan MacDonald\r\nProduction Editor: Jackie Ryan\r\nTechnical Consultant: David McCandless\r\nContributors: Marcus Berkmann, Richard Blaine, Mike Clowes, Mike 'Skippy' Dunn, Mike Gerrard, Gwyn Hughes, Sean Kelly, Gary Liddon, Peter Shaw, Rachael Smith, Phil South, Ben Stone\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Simon Stansfield\r\nAdvertisement Director: Alistair Ramsay\r\nProduction Manager: Judith Middleton\r\nAdvertisement Production: Kathryn Balchin\r\nMarketing Manager: Bryan Denyer\r\nPublishing Director: Roger Munford\r\nFinance Director: Colin Crawford\r\nManaging Director: Stephen England\r\nChairman: Felix Dennis\r\n\r\nPublished by Dennis Publishing Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England.\r\nTypesetters: Carlinpoint [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinters: Chase Web Offset [redacted]\r\nDistribution: Seymour Press [redacted]\r\n\r\nAll material in Your Sinclair ©1988 Felden Productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Sinclair is a monthly publication."},"MainText":"QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN EGGCUP\r\nMastertronic\r\n£1.99\r\nReviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn\r\n\r\nThis is actually more Mike Gerrard's territory than ours 'cos Quest For The Golden Eggcup is actually an adventure. It's been created with GAC so there are plenty of nice illustrations to look at while you're wending your way through numerous locations.\r\n\r\nAt the start of the game you're run over by a speeding C5 driven by an insane looking Pink Panther. You float up to meet God who asks you to get his Golden Eggcup if you want to be re-incarnated. And so you begin your quest.\r\n\r\nText input is simple enough and the game itself is quite humourously written. If you like adventures we think it's probably a reasonably good buy!","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"55","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Ben Stone","Score":"4","ScoreSuffix":"/10"},{"Name":"Mike Dunn","Score":"4","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"4/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 82, Aug 1988","Price":"£1.1","ReleaseDate":"1988-07-16","Editor":"Eugene Lacey","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Eugene Lacey\r\nDeputy Editor: Paul Boughton\r\nSub-Editor: Seamus St. John\r\nStaff Writer: Matt Bielby\r\nArt Editor: Craig Kennedy\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Garry Williams\r\nSales Executive: Sian Jones\r\nAdvertisement Production: Lora Clark\r\nPublisher: Terry Pratt\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]"},"MainText":"SUPPLIER: Mastertronic/Smart Egg\r\nMACHINES: Spectrum, Commodore 64/128, Amstrad CPC\r\nPRICE: £1.99\r\n\r\nWritten by Harvey Lodder and Nigel Brooks, Quest For The Golden Eggcup is a zany romp, in which you are given your quest by the highest authority - God!\r\n\r\nHe appears before you (\"Hello, I'm God,\" he says) and commands you to retrieve his stolen golden eggcup, or be turned into an egg and eaten for breakfast.\r\n\r\n\"Probably poached.\" he adds.\r\n\r\nAfter all, I imagine a soft-boiled egg is none too easy to tackle without an eggcup - even if you are omnipotent. Mind you, not that God is over chuffed with his omnipotence - throughout the game he is prone to turn up and whine about it not being all it is cracked up to be.\r\n\r\nThis adventure has superb graphics, full of detail and colour. Remember the instant graphics on UK conversions of Scott Adams adventures, generally reckoned to be among the best on cassette at the time? These are better, certainly on the Spectrum version which I played. They display instantaneously - there is none of that blinking flicker, from which Adventure International/Adventure Soft games used to suffer. They are the work of ex-Ram Jam graphic artist Simon Dunstan, who Smart Egg enlisted for this, and future, projects.\r\n\r\nFrom Smart Egg, the people who brought you Rigel's Revenge, comes this professionally produced, totally irreverent and comic adventure, that doesn't offend, at a wonderful price!","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"56","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Keith Campbell","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Vocabulary","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Atmosphere","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Personal","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value","Score":"10/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 12, Dec 1986","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1986-11-13","Editor":"Kevin Cox","TotalPages":122,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Kevin Cox\r\nArt Editors: Martin Dixon, Caroline Clayton\r\nDeputy Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nProduction Editor: Sara Biggs\r\nStaff Writer: Phil South\r\nTechnical Consultant: Peter Shaw\r\nContributors: Stephen Adams, Mike Gerrard, Ian Hoare, Gwyn Hughes, ZZKJ, Steve Marsden, Tommy Nash, Chris Palmer, Max Phillips, Rick Robson, Rachael Smith\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Julian Harriott\r\nProduction Managers: Sonia Hunt, Judith Middleton\r\nPublishing Manager: Roger Munford\r\nPublishing Director: Stephen England\r\n\r\nPublished by Sportscene Specialist Press Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England.\r\nTypesetters: Carlinpoint [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinters: Chase Web Offset [redacted]\r\nDistribution: Seymour Press [redacted]\r\n\r\nAll material in Your Sinclair ©1986 Felden Productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Sinclair is a monthly publication."},"MainText":"If you prefer your adventures to be a bit more light-hearted try The Quest For The Golden Eggcup, written by Harvey Ladder and Paul Cook and available for £1.99 from Harvey at [redacted]. Some people try to be funny and fail dismally, but not in this adventure. Though it's got lots of in-jokes and characters like Dandalf and Thoron wandering around, it's all wittily and originally done.\r\n\r\nYou've been mown down by a Pink Panther driving a pink C5, and you awake in a Golden Temple to be greeted by God, no less. He promises to reincarnate you if you bring him back his Golden Eggcup, which it seems someone has poached. As you move about, God reappears from time to time, and even sits down and starts singing about gold. The game is Quill'd, though you'd never guess it with the pleasant cyan background and neat white black of location description at the tap of the screen.\r\n\r\nMake a thorough search of the heavenly areas (don't forget the rubber duck) before you climb down the beanstalk to more mundane places - a sign at the bottom of the beanstalk gives the Opening hours of God's Temple (closed Sundays, half-day Wednesdays) and you're unlikely to be able to get back up again. I like the high-powered beans, which have quite an effect so watch who you give them to, and the swear-word routine is very nicely done.\r\n\r\nJust when you think it's safe to swear and you know how to get out of the dungeon, the routine changes. Enough to make you swear again. Worth every penny of its £1.99, this one.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"83","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mike Gerrard","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]