Spellcasting 101
| Spellcasting 101 | |
|---|---|
| Studio | Legend Entertainment |
| Publisher | Legend Entertainment |
| Senior Developer | Steve Meretzky |
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1990 |
| platform | MS-DOS |
| genre | Text adventure |
| Game mode | Single player |
| control | Keyboard Mouse |
| medium | diskette |
| language | English |
| copy protection | Enclosure referencing |
Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All The Girls is a text adventure game with graphics by the US manufacturer Legend Entertainment , which was released for MS-DOS in 1990 .
action
The player takes on the role of Ernie Eaglebeak, a Port Gecko teenager in the fictional world of Peloria. Eaglebeak is in love with Lola Tigerbelly, but she is more interested in his stepfather, Joey Rottenwood. In order to increase his chances with Lola, Ernie had applied to the renowned Sorcerer University to study magic. At the beginning of the game, Ernie receives a confirmation of admission from the university. The player's task is first to escape his stepfather Joey Rottenwood, who is hostile to Ernie's curriculum, and to enroll at university. After acclimatizing himself to the university and getting to know his supervisor Otto Tickingclock, he witnessed an attack on the school, in which Tickingclock was kidnapped and a valuable and dangerous artifact was stolen. It is up to the player in the form of Ernie to solve the incident.
Game principle and technology
Spellcasting 101 is a text adventure, that is, 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 have no graphic decoration whatsoever, Spellcasting 101 comes up with a picture of the respective environment as well as a point-and-click interface with which simple commands can be created with the mouse. For complex control commands , however, the player still has to use the text parser . The game supported the EGA standard and was able to display still images in the appropriate quality, and there was also rudimentary background music.
Spellcasting 101 contains several situations in which the player comes into closer contact with female NPCs . There are two game modes for these situations, between which you can switch at will. In the preset "Nice" mode, these contacts are completely adult-free; in the adjustable "Naughty" mode, there are ambiguous scenes that are described in a slightly provocative manner.
Spellcasting 101 has a magic system that is based on the magic system in Infocom's Enchanter trilogy and is ultimately 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 "VAI" spell heals plants; Entering "VAI IVY" lets a sickly ivy suddenly mutate into a strong vine that can be climbed.
Production notes
Spellcasting 101 was the first game developed by Legend Entertainment after the company was founded by former employee Bob Bates in 1989 after the liquidation of Infocom . Spellcasting author Meretzky was also employed at Infocom, where he was responsible for the bestsellers Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Leather Goddesses of Phobos , among other things . Bates acted as the producer on Spellcasting 101 . With over 50,000 units sold, Spellcasting 101 was a solid financial success.
The game contains a number of inserts that are referenced in the game and thus represent copy protection. This is a registration form and a timetable from Sorcerer University and a map of the Peloria Islands.
1991 appeared with Spellcasting 201 : The Sorcerer's Appliance a sequel to the game, 1992 with Spellcasting 301 : Spring Break a third part. A fourth part, Spellcasting 401: The Graduation Ball , never got beyond the planning stage.
reception
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The ACE Magazine praised the complex and motivating story, but criticized occasional errors of the parser and described the humor as part of "terrible". The ASM found Spellcasting 101 "brimming with crazy ideas" and awarded it the "ASM Hit" seal of approval. The Power Play highlighted the humor, story, graphics and the technical structure positively and noted that advanced English skills were a prerequisite for the game. Power Play editor Heinrich Lenhardt found the game to be "one of the very few icing on the cake of adventure". Many media compared Spellcasting 101 with the recently published Wonderland of the competing company Magnetic Scrolls and unanimously stated that Wonderland was technically more advanced. A content comparison was not made due to fundamentally different topics.
Spellcasting 101 received a Showcase Award at CES in 1991 . The CGW nominated the game for the 1991 Games of the Year for the title "Adventure Game of the Year" and placed it in 11th place in its list of "15 Funniest Games of All Time".
Web links
- Spellcasting 101 at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Filfre.net: The Spellcasting Series (or, How Much Ernie Eaglebeak is Too Much Ernie Eaglebeak?). Retrieved June 30, 2017 .
- ↑ Series retrospective on hardcore gaming 101. Retrieved May 31, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Review in ACE # 40, January 1990. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ Review in Amiga Joker special issue # 4. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Review in ASM 3/91. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ a b Review in Power Play 3/91. Retrieved January 2, 2016 .
- ↑ Award list on Mobygames. Retrieved May 31, 2015 .
- ↑ CGW # 88 (November 1991), p. 58. Accessed February 2, 2016 .
- ↑ CGW # 148 (November 1996), p. 113. Accessed February 2, 2016 .
