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Bob Chappell surveys the scene to evaluate the influence of a new crop of innovative adventures

Melbourne House's The Hobbit and Legend's Valhalla were both important watersheds in the development of the adventure, but how much has the adventure moved on since their launch?

Like them or not, these two games set new standards in two fields, most obviously in graphics, but also in popularising semi-intelligent characters (in addition to the one usually found sitting at the keyboard).

So, post Hobbit and Valhalla, you might have expected the floodgates to open for a new breed of adventurers. A look at a representative sample of some of the latest releases should give us an indication of the state of this particular art.

This one is Hewson's follow-up to Quest. The plot is hardly original, being littered with stolen treasure, elves, castles and the like, but there's no doubt that Fantasia Diamond is one of the most sophisticated of the current wave.

It shows clear signs of the influence The Hobbit has had on the genre. The command analyser is powerful, allowing the player to enter compound commands such as 'OPEN THE DOOR AND GO EAST', 'GET THE FOOD AND THE WINE' or 'LOOK THROUGH THE WOODEN DOOR'. You can also communicate with the various characters in the adventure with the syntax 'SAY TO THE GNOME "GET THE ROD"'. The characters themselves lead separate lives, and will go about their business as you go about yours.

Many of the locations also include simple graphics, and if you know The Hobbit, they will seem fairly familiar. Hewson has obviously taken the lessons of The Hobbit to heart by combining a powerful command parser, character communication, independent characters, graphics and a large scale mission. The end result is fantasy adventure that is both sophisticated and stimulating, and offers a great challenge.

Fresh from the fertile mind of Brian Howarth comes yet another in the popular Mysterious Adventures series. Originally these adventures were text only, but they've been updated in keeping with the trend towards graphically depicted locations.

One excellent feature of this particular series - apart from the fact that it is available for a wide range of micros - is that you can switch the graphics on or off at any time during the adventure.

Waxworks follows a theme beloved of devotees of spook stories. You've been visiting a waxworks museum and you've fallen asleep - in this respect it's a bit like visiting the House of Lords - and you wake up to find that you've been locked in for the night.

The adventure breaks no new ground in terms of technical development - apart from the graphics it's a traditional verb/noun command driven game - but, nevertheless, like its predecessors it's a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining adventure.

Since the days of Noah, 'ark' has generally been what passes for intelligent conversation among ravens. But no more: MikroGen's Genesis II is the biblical tale of survival on board a galactic Noah's ark.

It has a good analyser, instant response and graphics, and a vocabulary of some 300 words. There are over 100 locations to explore, and 60 objects to play around with - more than enough to satisfy the most inquisitive and acquisitive of explorers.

What next, one asks? Exodus II, where the children of Israel pass through a black hole into the promised galaxy? The sky quite clearly isn't the limit...

Moving right along, we fall like Lucifer into - with apologies to Richard Shepherd Software - the pits. The Inferno, the latest from the Shepherd stable, also exhibits signs of progress. It has a command analyser which allows the entry of compound commands, communication and interaction with the characters, and has graphics which can be switched on or off.

The plot is unusual, being modelled around a plan of Dante's vision of Hell, with the adventurer having to pass through nine circles of Hell to reach the centre and escape. The theme is unusual, and overall it's an attractively presented adventure.

Program generators are just starting to have an effect on the market, and Gilsoft's Quill is certainly the most popular of them. Since its appearance, the Quill has been used to produce a goodly number of commercial adventures for the Spectrum. With its release on the Commodore 64, we can expect to see a similar outpouring of adventures for that machine.

Spoof is a Quill-generated adventure, but what makes it worth special attention is its humour. There are already a number of humorous adventures to be had, the most notable being Supersoft's Streets of London (Commodore 64), Salamander's similar Cricklewood Incident (Dragon) and Infocom's superb Planetfall (various micros).

But Spoof stands out from these because it is a parody of the standard adventure. In it you will come across such exotic locations as the Obligatory Mountains, the Secret Mysterious Hidden Cavern (clearly signposted) and the Necessary Forest. You will also encounter a three-headed vulture who wants a bit more than the usual food to let you pass. If you happen to have on you a bottle of wart remover, the dress of a princess, a magic rope and the ring from a pig's nose, you're in business.

This is one of Gilsoft's own Quill-produced adventures, marketed under the title of The Gold Collection. It's a particularly good example of the series, and is set in a mysterious hotel. It's reasonably detailed and its atmospheric text descriptions ensure the player's imagination is caught.

The Gold Collection's contribution to mind-bending is named, aptly enough, Mindbender. It's crammed with testing puzzles and action, and starts as it means to go on by forcing you to stretch your imagination if you want to progress beyond the first couple of locations. A good sense of humour in the text helps you from biting the carpet when you're stuck - great stuff.

Certainly adventures have improved in the long term, but as yet it doesn't seem that there ahve been any material developments since The Hobbit and Valhalla. The standard of these two is, however, being matched regularly.

And as if Movisoft (the graphics system used by Valhalla) wasn't enough, Legend is currently working on Movisoft 2 for the follow-up, to be called The Great Space Race, and due for release later in the year. The next great leap forward? We'll see...