Beebug


Avon
By Topologika
BBC B/B+/Master 128

 
Published in Beebug #75

Avon

Ill met by moonlight, proud adventurer. Now's your chance to brush up your Shakespeare - and have a lot of fun doing it. Topologika has taken the Bard's world and created a stage upon which you may now strut and fret your hour in its latest adventure game called Avon.

Whilst wandering the sunlit streets of modern-day Stratford, your mind lost in the past, a sudden turn in the road leaves you lost and confused in the half-world of Shakespeare's characters. Up ahead lies the barren moor where three hags await your coming. What magical offering will you accept from their bony claws to help you on your way? Eye of Newt perhaps, or Tongue of Dog. Better take something, you're going to need all the help you can get.

No need to worry that your grasp of the rhyming couplet is going to prevent you solving this all-text adventure. Whilst the game is liberally sprinkled with characters and quotes from the master, you'll need no prior knowledge to help you. Of course you are free to swell your doublet with pride each time you recognise the source!

Falstaff sits gulping ale in the nearby tavern, and providing you can make it through the doorway without being drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, you might just care to take up his challenge of a drinking match. Beware the jealous rage of the dark Moor, (of the African variety), who waits upon the dark moor, (of the Scottish variety), to strangle and passing stranger. You should also avoid falling under the sensuous spell of the Egyptian Queen who lies amid a cloud of perfumed air aboard her silk-sailed, love barge in the nearby harbour. For the cartographers amongst you there is the maze of Birnham Wood to negotiate. Let's hope that you can make it through its leafy glades before it becomes bored with your efforts and starts to move things along on its own accord.

You might like to help an old king choose which is his daughters should be his heir, or sit inside a laundry basket and wait for something to turn up. There goes that strange fellow, still looking for his horse. Pity you don't know where to find one, he would appear to be willing to pay a king's ransom. Either way, the game's the thing, and fun is king.

Topologika has a well-deserved reputation for quality adventures and I know that its game designers strive to give their puzzles that little something extra. If you have already wrestled with the other games from the same stable such as Philosopher's Quest, Countdown To Doom and Return To Doom, you'll already know what devious minds they have. They were also responsible for the large Acheton adventure; so beloved of the hardened adventuring classes - and the curse of the more feeble-minded such as myself!

Should the puzzles prove to be too much for you, the game designer has thoughtfully included a comprehensive Help facility which can cure all the ills that flesh is heir to. The puzzles seem to be pitched at a level suitable for the majority of players and the game's text is humorous despite its worthy title. So boot-up your trusty disc drive and it's "once more into the breech dear friends".

Mitch

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