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uestBusters TM The Adventurer's Journal August, 1987 VolN,#8 Station£ all: W elcoine Back, Floyd! By William E. Carte main items to open it, things that aren't It's been five long years since your hard to find. The trick is in getting them Planetfall heroics on the planet Resida. back to the safe. After being promoted from Ensign 7th You won't meet any people on the Class to Lieutenant lst Class, you were space station, but do get to interact with a certain that life in the Stellar Patrol balloon creature, an ostrich and a robot would finally be exciting. How wrong named Plato. And of course, Floyd, that you were, for your daily routine of precocious robot who saved your life in scrubbing the decks has been replaced Planetfall, will help. In fact, you can't with dull paperwork. Today's finish the game without his assistance. assignment Go to the space station But as time goes by, Floyd's behavior Gamma Delta Gamma and pick up a grows erratic. Emitted by the pyramid, a supply of Request Form Forms. Just strange force seems to be affecting him, another boring day-or is it? and you've only got a limited amount of No-one greets your arrival at the space time to find the pyramid and put an end to it Otherwise the station explodes, and station, for the place turns out to be from the Captain's safe. This is not there's no way io escape. Without food deserted. The station itself, all seven merely an initial puzzle that opens the and water, as in the original game, you mappable levels (it actually consists of way into another phase of the game, as may also perish, and it helps to get some nine levels), proves as intriguing as the one would think, but turns out to be the sleep now and then. mystery of the missing crew. By visiting main quest that keeps you occupied the Commander's Quarters right away and throughout Station/all. You need four Continued on page nine using the tape found there, you'll get some information about an alien ship that showed up near the space station just a Ultima V & Wizardry IV few days ago. It seems that shortly after the crew removed a strange pyramid from July 17-Two monster games are nearing the first time we're beginning all the the alien ship, things began to go completion, so we asked Richard Garriott conversions before the game is even haywire on the station. Machinery and Robert Woodhead for updates. finished. Because we've had a problem malfunctioned, robots started attacking with that in the past, getting conversions the crew (even the automatic doors tried Garriott: We're into what we call alpha out on time. So we're trying extra hard to bite people as they walked through), test on Ultima V, which means that with on that this time. and no one could determine what was the exception of bugs that will exist right wrong. up till near the end (and hopefully not Woodhead: As of today we've just As you listen to the tape you realize after), that the game is fully, physically shipped off round four of beta-testing. you've got to get a very important key functional. Meaning that you can go in We have a couple of beta-testers who are and out of all the towns, transact with all about to finish the game after a month >Inventory the shops, do all the game mechanics. and-a-half of playing it actively. The The thing that is not yet finalized, and graphics are pretty much finalized, Maniac Mansion ........ 3 which will before we go into beta test, is although we 're going to be doing some Interview: Brian all the plot elements. That's what we're improvements as time permits. We have Moriarty on Beyond doing now, installing plots and completely run through it ourselves and zork ..•........•....•. 4 debugging. I know that seems odd, but made sure it's working, and we're just Defender of the Crown.5 with me the plot is one of the very last having the beta-testers sort of find the Walkthrus: Fantastic things to go in. cracks in it so we can plug those up. The Four & Lurking Horror.6 IBM and Apple versions are in the same Might & Magic Tips .... 7 The current projection for the Apple state, and the only difference is that we Dark Horn ............. 8 version's release is the middle of need to do a few more graphics for the Waiting for Duffy & September. The Commodore should IBM. But the IBM version won't Keys to the Kingdoms.10 follow fairly quickly. We've already got Continued on page eleven Swap Shop ............ 11 the Commodore translation started, so for Letters ~Adventure Hotline . to the ~ Editor The Adventures of August substitute for ordinary commands. (At Dear QuestBusters: Only a couple of months behind schedule, least that's what this press release says!) Almost every review I've read in QB Guild of Thieves, the sequel to The It was written by Jeff O'Neill, who also lately has complained about games where Pawn, is finally out It also takes place penned Ballyhoo. the object is to kill an evil wiz.ard. in Kerovnia, which may be reached via What's the beef here? Personally, I enjoy wiz.ard "sanctions" and try not to go to most computers (even Atari 8-bit). Not Sold in Stores bed without icing one or two evil wizards Another graphic adventure imported by "No publisher has the guts to go into the just to keep in practice. Besides, the Firebird, Golden Path is available for the text adventure market today," says suckers need to be kept in line. So let's ST. Its central figure is a white-bearded Michael Berlyn, so he and Muffy Berlyn, put an end to the bellyaching about doing old man who is also a martial arts guru, whose Brainwave Creations, Inc., our patriotic duty and snarfing a couple of and the game includes an on-screen help produced RAGER and ,the development bad guys, ok? feature. Alternate Reality, The Dungeon system and parser it employs, will begin Bob Brickeen arrived in mid-July for C-64, and the selling RAGER via mail order this fall. Apple version should be out by now. Origin Systems had planned to carry the Actually, this continuing theme is part of a conspiracy of Evil Wizards and their game, but finally decided againt it due "to supporters to retake Sosaria, the Great The Conversions of August weak sales figures for text adventures in Underground Empire and other fantasy P hantasie III and Realms of Darkness general," according to Robert Garriott, lands. Our main strategem is to lure all have been translated for the C-64. The C- Origin's J7resident Berlyn had hoped the adventurers off into space games, 64 Age of Adventure, a pair of Stuart someone else would pick up the game, thereby sparing the lives of the next "ACS" Smith's early games, is also but found "everyone says Infocom owns generation of Evil Wizards. And it was taking up shelf space across this great the text adventure market, so there's no working, until you wrote this darn letter! land of ours (it's only $14.95, also point in anyone else doing one." (Since available for Atari 8-bit and Apple). going head-to-head with Infocom in 1984, Dear QuestBusters: Ultima IV is supposed to finally ship for Broderbund has dropped all but one of Why don't you review original Amiga the IBM in August It's not an their Electronic Novels and Mindscape games like Faery Tale Adventure, instead adventure, but strategy fans might like to has put its Angelsoft text adventures into of just conversions? Allen Reinwasser know Mac 0 gre is also on the shelves. their Thunder Mountain line of $14.95 software. Spinnaker has also cut their Mainly because we only recently got hold Any Day (or month) Now graphic adventures to $14.95.) "But we of an Amiga and are still tracking down Microlllusions, who did Faery Tale think there are people out there who will the companies producing Amiga-specific Adventure for the Amiga, is planning buy text adventures," said Berlyn, "and titles. (Most of the major companies are Land of Legends for the same machine. will support a company that does high only doing conversions.) We did locate EA is bringing over a pair of British quality products." A year-and-a-half in Micro/llusions and will be covering that adaptations of the arcade game Dragon's the making, RAGER is being converted game soon. Contributing Editor William Lair, which will contain all the sequences for all systems (even Atari 8-bit) and will Carte just got an ST, so we'll be doing more on ST-specific games soon, and are from Dragon's Lair I and//. Both on the be priced at $29.95. For more info, call 617-896-5835. Or write: Brainwave scouting aboUJ for an IBM clone for the same disk for the C-64 only, these are office. part of their Amazing Software line. All Creations, Inc., 32 Mt. Pleasant Dr, RR we have right now are the names, but #3, Brewster, MA 02631. some of the titles on Firebird's fall line up-Druid I, Jewels ofDarkness, Pandora Phantasie IBM Bug? QuestBusters tm and Black Lamp (early '88~ be If you're playing Phantasie on the IBM, Editor: Shay Addams adventures.