Following is a review of Shadowgate published in SPAG issue #36, March 16, 2004.

SPAG Website: http://www.sparkynet.com/spag

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From:	Adam Myrow <amyrow SP@G midsouth.rr.com>

TITLE: Shadowgate
AUTHOR: David Griffith (originally published by Icom for the Nintendo
        Entertainment System as well as many other platforms)
EMAIL: dgriffi SP@G cs.csubak.edu
PARSER: Inform standard
SUPPORTS: Zcode interpreters
AVAILABILITY: freeware IF-archive
URL: ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/zcode/sgate.z5
     Source code is also available at:
     ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/source/sgate.tar.gz

Sometimes, a game grows larger in the mind when it is not played for
many years. This was the case for a game called Shadowgate which was
released by Icom for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989. I have
been totally blind since birth. Thus, I was never able to play the
original game by myself. However, I was able to play it a few times by
having a friend read the text and I would tell him what I wanted to try.
The game was a mixed graphical/text game with a menu of verbs which
could be applied to objects in your inventory. Anyway, I never got very
far, and eventually, lost access to the game.

Fast forward to late 2003. I was casually browsing rec.games.int-fiction
when I noticed a post announcing that David Griffith had just released
an Inform adaptation of Shadowgate based on the Nintendo version. I was
thrilled. After over a decade, I could now finally play this game by
myself and get past the puzzles which had previously stumped me. I
grabbed it immediately.

What I discovered was that this game had become much more exciting in my
mind than it was in reality. First off, as the original was based on a
menu of verbs rather than a parser, the puzzles were rather simple. With
one or two exceptions, one object is used to solve one puzzle. Once the
puzzle is solved, the object is either removed from play or will never
be needed again. There are no alternate solutions, and few hints. Either
you get past the obstacle, or you die. In fact, dying is extremely
common in this game. There are numerous death traps besides the instant
death puzzles. Take an object, go through a door, or attack a monster
with the wrong weapon, and it's curtains for you. As if that weren't bad
enough, there is the light source problem. When you start the game, you
have a torch. You will quickly notice lots of torches lying around for
the taking. Be sure and grab them! Your torches don't last very long, so
you will find yourself constantly lighting new torches and dropping dead
torches. The good news is that there is no inventory limit. This was
fairly minor, as there are more than enough torches to let you finish
the game. I think I ended up with 10 extra torches at the end of my play
session. It's just a nuisance to constantly be told that your torch is
about to go out and having to light one. There are no mazes, and no
hunger or sleep puzzles, so most of the really annoying puzzles of older
games are absent. It's just that learning by death is not much fun.
Here's a typical example of what I mean.

   Tower Prison
   You are in a bare, round room. A beautiful woman is chained to the
   wall. Moonlight streams in from a window.

   You can see a golden blade and a beautiful woman here.

   >x blade
   It's some sort of spike that is made of precious metals. The tips are
   as sharp as needles.

   >get it
   As you reach for the golden blade the beautiful lady suddenly
   transforms into a wolf! With a load [SIC] roar, the wolf pounces on
   you, taking your life! The wolf's powerful jaws rip your throat out!


       *** You have died ***


   It's a sad thing that your adventures have ended here.

Examining the girl gives no hint that she is anything other than what
she seems. So, the only thing you can do is learn by dying, undo, and
try to figure out how to get rid of the wolf. Another even worse example
of this.

   Stone Tunnel
   This hallway is made of large granite slabs. There are exits up,
   west, and north.

   You can see four unlit torches here.

   >w
   Without thinking, you jump through the opening and immediately hear a
   loud click. Suddenly, the granite slab above you gives way and
   crushes you beneath it. It breaks every bone in your body.

As for plot, it is the standard save-the-world type of plot. You must
overthrow the evil Warlock Lord before he releases the Behemoth to
destroy everything. Of course, this involves collecting various items
and assembling them into a weapon of great power. In other words,
nothing that hasn't been done before. There are a few spells as well. I
don't know how spells worked in the original graphical game since I
didn't get that far, but in this version, the good old Enchanter system
of using gnusto to copy them into a spell book from a scroll was adopted
probably because it is readily available. This really isn't a big deal
as far as I'm concerned since like everything else, the spells each are
used exactly once.

So, overall, I was a bit let down by the game mainly because it had
grown into an epic in my mind. What it is, in reality, is a very short
little fantasy game with loads of death traps and one-use objects. There
are also plenty of red herrings. However, while the plot is minimal, the
writing is fairly decent aside from a few spelling errors. I think most
of the writing comes from the original game, but according to the
"about" text, many descriptions were made longer to account for the lack
of graphics. So, it's not all bad. As for coding, I found a few minor
bugs, but for the most part, things work pretty well. The torches, while
annoying, have had a lot of work done on them to make dealing with them
as painless as possible. I would suggest that any game developers have a
look at this game's source code even if you don't plan on using Inform.
Bundled with the source code are some transcripts of very early beta
versions of the game with embedded remarks from the beta testers. These
serve to illustrate the sorts of bugs to watch out for and the crazy
things players might try when they get stuck. So, for me, I actually
found the source code and transcripts very informative despite finding
the game to be a little annoying. If you treat it like a game from the
late 1980's rather than a modern piece of IF, I think it will sit much
better with you than it did with me.

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