Lancelot (computer game)

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Lancelot is a text adventure with graphics developed by the British computer game manufacturer Level 9 . It was released in 1988 for various home computers .

action

The player takes on the role of Lancelot, a legend from the medieval Arthurian novels . At the beginning of the game, Lancelot arrives at the court of the legendary King Arthur , by whom he is knighted. Arthur and his wife Guinever give the player a number of tasks that take him through the whole of Britain and northern France and whose completion increases his reputation until he is finally entrusted with the search for the Holy Grail . Throughout the course of the game, Lancelot has to consider the knightly virtues . A secondary strand of the plot is the changing relationship between Lancelot and Arthur's wife Guinever, which, in contrast to Arthurian legend, is not a central element in Lancelot's life.

Game principle and technology

Lancelot is a text adventure, which means that the environment and events are displayed as screen text and the visualization is largely up to the player's imagination. In contrast to classic text adventures, which do not have any graphic decorations, Lancelot comes up with a picture of the respective environment. The game is divided into three parts that can be played independently of each other. The third part, the search for the Holy Grail, takes place 20 years after the other two parts. The game's parser has some advanced techniques at the time of its release; so the player could give orders to other knights and with the command "GO TO" go to places that he had already explored. To a limited extent, Lancelot has role-playing elements. On the one hand there are fights that are not based on a combat system and that are usually won by the player. On the other hand, there is a point value that represents the “chivalry” of the player and is important for the progress of the game and which is influenced by chivalrous or unknightly deeds. By since Knight Orc in use containing (and after this game named), Level 9 developed KAOS - Engine is Lancelot able a life of their own NPCs to simulate what the game makes use rich.

Production notes

In previous Level 9 games, all of the in-game text was written by the Austin brothers, mostly Pete Austin. Professional writers were used for Lancelot : Peter McBride and Christina Erskine. The former is a non-fiction author in the field of computer science and had already written the previous novellas for level 9 that introduced the game worlds , and he was also a co-author of the Gnome Ranger published in 1987 . Erskine was the editor of the Commodore Horizons magazine and is now working as a non-fiction author in the field of garden design. The book of stories King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table , which accompanies Lancelot , summarizes various Arthurian legends and is based on the book Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory from 1485. The game box also included a map of medieval England showing the locations of the game .

The original versions of the game included a competition, the winners of which received a silver sculpture reminiscent of the Holy Grail. The versions for Spectrum +3, Schneider CPC and Amstrad PCW were supplied on floppy disks in an unusual triple format that could be read by all three types of computers.

reception

reviews
publication Rating
Atari ST Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Advanced computer entertainment 84% k. A.
Crash k. A. 90%
Power play 49% k. A.
Your Sinclair k. A. 9/10

Mike Gerrard noted in Your Sinclair that Lancelot , compared to earlier games with a similar theme, portrayed the Arthurian legend and medieval England much more comprehensively and sometimes felt like being immersed in a book. He praised the quality of the texts and the parser, but criticized the graphics (“Only the Spectrum + 3 users can see graphics, and they will wish it wasn't.”) And minor errors that resulted from the Complexity of the parser. The Crash magazine analyzed that Lancelot offered an easy introduction to the game and the game world through the "sophisticated" parser and the large, freely accessible game world, but that the game presented itself in places as if it were "itself." play". Crash praised the "highly developed" parser and the "multi-layered" characters as well as the interaction possibilities with them and only criticized a few lengths in the texts. The Amiga Computing magazine described Lancelot as "one of the best level 9 adventures" and praised the "highly atmospheric" texts and graphics of the Amiga version. The ACE magazine called Lancelot indeed as "disastrous disappointment" and criticized a bad game design, sloppy implementation as well as some "gruesome" puzzles, admits the premises and characters of the game but an "undeniable aura of authenticity" to and evaluated the game as " technically impressive, (...) but (...) unsatisfactory ”. Anatol Locker judged the Power Play that the puzzles were “illogical or simply stupid”, and criticized the graphics, parsers and the occasional “beer seriousness” of the story.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Amiga Computing # 8, January 1989, p. 15: Lancelot. Retrieved April 28, 2016 .
  2. a b c Crash # 60, January 1989, p. 52: Lancelot. Retrieved April 28, 2016 .
  3. a b ACE # 15, December 1988, p. 98: Lancelot. Retrieved January 1, 2016 .
  4. a b Power Play December 1988, p. 55: Lancelot. Retrieved January 1, 2016 .
  5. a b Mike Gerrard: Lancelot . In: Your Sinclair . No. 038, February 1989, p. 58.