A&B Computing


Village Of The Lost Souls
By Magus
BBC B/B+/Master 128

 
Published in A&B Computing 2.12

Village Of The Lost Souls

This is a very interesting game. It is an orthodox, text only adventure set in a medieval village in, as the publishers put it, a 14th Century slightly different from our own. The accompanying blurb goes on about various magic orders but the play that I have discovered so far does not involve any arbitrary magical solutions, but fairly logical, if hard, problem solving.

An unusual feature of the game is that one can wander into many of the game's 200+ locations from the starting position without being killed or having to solve problems. One also encounters a huge number of objects whose purpose may remain obscure for a long time. I found the only practical method involved a detailed mapping and cataloguing exercise at the outset.

Then you can start thinking about what you ought to be doing. The first puzzles are not too hard but once solved you get clues to much trickier missions. I managed to solve the riddle of the miller's boots, but I am stuck by a number of other puzzles. For example, there is this vampire blocking my war into the crypt.

Village Of Lost Souls

After much industrious searching, I managed to approach the beast armed with garlic, a crucifix and a looking glass and what did it do? The stupid creature happily sucked me dry - it obviously hadn't been reading the right books.

The game is fair, in that one can tell what puzzles need to be solved, but it is also very difficult because you have so many options and objects to deal with. Many hours of work have netted me a feeble 250 out of 1,200 points so far. I trust that Magus will provide a clue sheet or an efficient hint service for their frustrated witch-finders.

In summary, this is an interesting and challenging adventure game. Not for beginners, but recommended for the seasoned campaigner.

Jonathan Evans

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