Enchanter

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Enchanter
Logo Enchanter (Infocom) .jpg
Studio Infocom
Publisher Infocom
Senior Developer Marc Blank , Dave Lebling
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 August 10, 1983
platform Amstrad CPC , Amstrad PCW , Apricot PC , Apple II , Atari 8-Bit , Atari ST , Commodore 64 , Commodore Amiga , CP / M , DEC Rainbow 100 , Kaypro II , Mac OS , NEC APC , Osborne 1 , MS-DOS , PC-98 , PDP-9 , PDP-10 , PDP-11 , TI-99 / 4A , TRS-80
Game engine ZIL
genre Fantasy
Game mode Single player
control keyboard
medium diskette
language English
Current version Release 29
copy protection Enclosure referencing

Enchanter (English for "magician") is a fantasy text adventure from Infocom from 1983. It takes place in the Zork universe and was originally supposed to come onto the market as Zork IV . It is the first part of the Enchanter trilogy . The other two parts are Sorcerer (1984) and Spellbreaker (1985).

action

The evil sorcerer Krill spreads chaos and destruction. The "Circle of Enchanters" (German: circle the magician ) not dared him to halt. In the hope that krill would not perceive him or at least not see him as a threat, a novice sorcerer (the player) is sent out to stop krill. In the course of the game, in which he has to visit the warlock's castle and place it there, the player's skills as a magician increase, but also the threat of krill.

Game principle and technology

Enchanter is a text adventure , which means there are no graphic elements. Environment and events are displayed as screen text and the player's actions are also entered as text via the keyboard. The game's parser understands over 700 words, making Enchanter one of the most technically advanced text adventures at the time of its release. The game contains 74 rooms and 33 objects. In order not to lose his strength, the player must eat, drink and sleep during the game.

Magic system

The system of magic spells is based partly on the Earth Sea saga by Ursula K. LeGuin and partly on the Vancian system of the role-playing game rules Dungeons & Dragons . As with Vance, spells must first be "stored" in the mind before they can be used, and as with LeGuin, a spell is represented by a nonsense term. This term can then be used as a verb in the game. For example, the spell "FROTZ" makes objects glow; Entering> FROTZ BOOK lights up a book accordingly. This magic system, which runs through all three games of the Enchanter trilogy and is also used in a modified form in the successor games Beyond Zork and Zork Zero , is first indicated in Zork II, where towards the end magic can be exercised with the help of a magic wand. In Enchanter, the player can only have six spells in mind at the same time. Some spells are so complicated that they cannot be saved in the spellbook and can only be used once.

At the beginning of the game, the player has four spells:

Saying effect
BLORB Protects the target object from destruction.
FROTZ Makes target object glow.
GNUSTO Transfers new, discovered spells to the magic book.
NITFOL Allows communication with animals.

Production notes

In addition to the game, Enchanter's early publications included a printed, fictional essay, "A Brief History of Magic," as well as an old-fashioned scroll with a seal (made of rubber).
The novel Enchanter by Robin Wayne Bailey has a comparable plot and takes place in the same universe as the computer game, but contains completely different characters.
Frotz, a Z-machine emulator, got its name from one of the magic spells in Enchanter .

In 1993, Enchanter was ported by SystemSoft to the PC-98 system popular in Japan . Extensive technical additions were made. In addition to a translation in Katakana , a graphical interface was installed that provides usable verbs and objects that can be clicked on with the mouse. In addition, the rooms of the game are provided with monochrome graphics.

In 2019, the source code of the game was published on the software development repository GitHub .

reception

The Creative Computing magazine described Enchanter as a "return to the Zorkian dungeons - & - dragons formulas" and praised the fact that Infocom had found its way back to its fantasy roots after exploring the genres of science fiction and crime. The game also has a keen sense of humor. The magazine criticized the genre-inherent tendency towards dead spots, where the player no longer knows what to do and is dependent on external help. The magazine suggested an in-game help system, which Infocom actually implemented in later games. Computer Gaming World magazine praised the "great parser", "excellent textual descriptions", "compelling puzzles" and a "coherent story". The magazine noted that the game has places where wrong actions put the player in the position of being unable to solve the game.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Enchanter on infocom-if.org
  2. ^ Review on ACG
  3. ↑ Nick Montfort: Twisty Little Passages - An Approach to Interactive Fiction . The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2003, ISBN 0-262-13436-5 , pp. 140 .
  4. ↑ Enchanter (novel) at Shelfari.com
  5. ↑ GitHub.com: Enchanter (Zork IV) by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling (Infocom). Retrieved April 18, 2019 .
  6. ^ Creative Computing Vol. 10, No. 3, March 1984, p. 153: Enchanter; Infocom: the Steven Spielberg of text adventuring. Retrieved July 10, 2016 .
  7. ↑ CGW Vol. 3 No. 6, December 1983, p. 43: Enchanter. Retrieved July 10, 2016 . (PDF, 20mb)