Producer: CRL
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: St. Bride's School

Right, you've seen this one in the shops and you now want to know how good it is. Well, it is Quilled, it's from the ST BRIDES team who have turned out some average to good but hardly commercial adventures. It reaches you in the shops courtesy of CRL, a company which has little history in mainstream adventuring, but, I am pleased to say, they are now releasing some imaginative stuff.

Well, all in all it's pretty good, what with its humorous treatise of Colossal Cavern, the mainframe yarn that was the inspiration of many an early Spectrum adventure, and its quickly drawn graphics and powerful EXAMINE command. Considering its size (it comes in two parts) its price could be justified, but I consider it to be a shade on the expensive side.

You must excuse me if I seem to plod through this review. Like an editorial which went west recently, the first version of the Big Cave review similarly went astray somewhere between the Far North and the Middlemass of Ludlow. Exactly as forecast by a certain well known law, my backup copy flew out of the window when I moved house (which itself is another equally well-known sub law which states that when moving house anything you value is either lost or broken whereas the junk mysteriously survives usually at ankle or knee height in dark corridors).

Now, where was I, oh yes, the small brick building of the Crowther and Woods original. NORTH takes you to a secret hiding place (apparently on the Spectrum version only) curiously marked by a large and conspicuously flashing sign. Here are the first examples of the superb EXAMINE command where EXAM FOOD elicits 'It's a school dinner' (described as 'tasty' in the inventory!) while EXAM BOTTLE gives 'Green. Originally one of ten.' Travelling west takes the mickey out of all illogically mapped adventures whereby you find yourself on top of a small hill. 'Well, not that small. I notice you are out of breath and perspiring freely so I hope you will not fuss when I tell you that that this hill plays no particular part in the adventure and I have no idea why it's here. Contrary to the laws of geography going north will take you back to the road. Don't say I never tell you anything'. This witty and chatty style runs throughout the adventure and really is genuinely amusing.

To the east, the door of the small brick building is closed and something prevents it from opening. Examining the door reveals the problem. 'You see a brass mechanism attached to the door bearing the legend: VACANT. There is an aperture at the top of the mechanism approximately the thickness and diameter of one penny'. This carefully weighted style of writing nicely deposits the joke in your lap, a strength of the game I particularly enjoyed.

To the south of the start location, in a gully in the forest, you chance upon a Gully-Bull which, true to its name, is highly gullible and lets you steal the old penny there right from under its nose. Back to the wellie house and you discover the spring is not the watery kind but the springy kind springing you out of the place should you touch it. Taking on the bull again you read 'And you can see a rampaging bull with the distinct air of a bull who does not mean to be caught out a second time'.

Not all the adventure is directly concerned with Colossal Cavern. It's true that much of what's here is familiar, even if it has been given a new twist. The wellie-house is the original well house with its watery spring, the python of Big Cave being the snake of the original, and in this adventure the Ming vase is not dropped on the cushion as you might expect; instead dropping it anywhere else does the trick. Other themes running Through this humorous trip are the raped crusaders of Gotham City, Alice in Wonderland, and lesser interludes like text-powered space invaders and a horror section. Certainly the Big Cave Adventure offers a great deal; it's not only a super spoof but a polished and well orchestrated adventure in its own right.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: flows along nicely
Graphics: mostly attractive
Presentation: neat
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: Quill

FAX BOX
Title: The Very Big Cave Adventure
Publisher: CRL
Price: £7.95

Even the loading screen on this one is that bit different! Yes, there you are outside the familiar brick building, with a small stream flowing out and down the gulley. Yes, there's the door, so let's open the door and go in. What's this? The door won't open? Curses on you, you belle's of St Brides. How inconvenient. Oh well, down the gulley and there's something useful on the floor - unfortunately it's guarded by a bull, and a rather stroppy one at that. But seasoned adventurers won't be bullied for long, and with the object in your grasp you may be able to enter the building alter all.

Once inside you discover it's a welly-house, and to prove it there are the wellies, along with a log, a fence, a spring and a bomb. What, no lamp, food, keys or bottle? Never mind, out you go, and with a great deal of effort the missing ingredients turn up in the very secret hiding place. Back down the gulley - good grief, the bull's back.

Onwards and downwards, through the grate and into the tunnels, and here are all the familiar sights - yes, there's the debris room, there's the gilded cage, there's the bird, and there's the ginger-bearded figure throwing something at you. What? Let me examine the cage... looks inviting, I'm told. Okay, I'm game for anything. ENTER CAGE. Drat, I appear to be locked in. After five minutes my language becomes distinctly worse than 'Drat,' but at least it got me out of the cage via the swear box. Down I go to the vast hall, and east to... now hang on, this is getting extremely silly. I mean to say, a text-only version of space invaders? Come on, what is going on here. Zapped again and again, my only resort is the swear box and I've still only scored two shillings and fourpence three-far- things. No, wait a mo', after killing the snake here are some silver bars, so it's back via a magic word to the welly-house where my score increased by £10,000. Yip- pee! And back again by magic through the Habitat room and the twee room and more goodies, and what now, a dirty crack to the east. Alright, I'll fall for it... what's that? It'll cost me a treasure? Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound...

And this is only Part One I've been talking about. On the other side of the tape is Part Two, Moron's Quest, which you can begin provided you have a saved game position from Part One to load in; and this allows you to transport objects between the two sections, this second one beginning in the welly-house. Not that this helped me much as by the time I got there my food was battered, my keys were useless and the method of getting out of the house no longer worked.

Anyway, let's be sensible for a moment and say this marvellous game shows hardly any of its Quill origins, and though the graphics are a little repetitive (some of those caverns look remarkably similar!). Once you're scooting around in the game you can switch them off or back on using the TEXT and GRAPHICS commands, and there's also the handy RAMSAVE feature.

If you've played Colossal Cave and have any sense of humour at all then you'll love this. And if you haven't played the original... well, you'll love it anyway. Buy it!

Label: CRL
Author: St Brides
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Richard Price

Once upon a time, as all of us adventurers know, two heroes called Crowther and Woods delved into the mysteries of the vast mainframes, way back in the far-off seventies.

Out they came, brushing cobwebby diodes and valves out of their hair and clutching the skeleton of what was to become the original adventure game, a tale of derring-do and treasure tucked away in the very bowels of the earth.

Or so they said. .. but, over a glass or 15 of Jamesons with one of my Irish contacts, I picked up a very different version. "Well, Dicky," he confided, "What they really found was so crazed, so bizarre that they had to expurgate it before they published it. No one then was ready for stuff as odd as that."

Now it seems one of the St Brides team has stumbled on a secret US database which held the original game, miraculously down-loaded it and decided to turn it loose on the world.

I'm sure lots of you will have played some version or other of the Crowther and Woods program - call it Colossal Caves, Classic Adventure or what have you.

The gels at St Brides have decided to call a spade a spade and have given their deranged program the title of The Very Big Cave Adventure.

Once you load up you'll get an immediate feeling of deja vu. Yes, there's the forest, the hill and the little house in the clearing.

There's even the famous metal grating that gives you access to the cave system and its treasure. Hang on, though... surely the little house you know and love wasn't quite like this: "The door of the small brick building is closed. You see a brass mechanism attached to the door, bearing the legend 'Vacant'..." Naturally you'll need a penny to get in, readily obtainable from the ferocious bull who guards it nearby - provided you're prepared to lie and deceive the beast first. As the gels tell you "...after all, it is a gully-bull, you know." Groan factor eight at warp speed.

By this time you've probably got some idea of what VBCA is going to be like. When you then get locked into the little public lavatory on the prairie you'll realise it's going to be even odder. Examining the spring there will get you shot out of the house like Quaker Oats... yes, it's that sort of spring.

Once down the grating you're into the famous cave system, complete with Debris Room, Y2 Cavern and the Hall of the Mountain King - scattered with equally famous objects like the Black Rod (with a rusty star on the end) or the Gilded Cage, snake-scaring birds for the use of.

Huh, said I to myself, I know what these things are for. Try using them in the way the original Adventure worked though and you rapidly find all is not quite as it seems. The cheerful little songbird refuses to enter the cage - though you can if you're that way inclined. And the Black Rod, when used with the appropriate crystal, makes a bridge okay. But what sort of bridge? T***y Bridge, that's who.

The deeper you get into the cave system, the more hysterical you're likely to become and the odder become the tasks. You may feel the need to swear by this point - take care, 'cos Trixie Trinian and the other prefects at St Brides don't hold with that sort of nonsense.

VBCA is a send-up of one of the classics of games computing and fits the same sort of niche as productions like Bored of the Rings. There's the zany approach to a familiar theme, and the kind of humour that will either have you groaning in pleasure or beating your head against the wallpaper.

Like other St Brides's games it's written on The Quill, with Patched-in half-screen location graphics and the occasional sound effect. Naturally it's considerably more abbreviated than the original untainted game, but that is more than made up for by having two parts - the second half is... wait for it... Moron's Quest.

As with Bored, you'll probably enjoy the gameplay more if you know the source program but it's not essential, as the daft humour and twisted logic will quickly engage you. The descriptions are pretty reasonable, given the fact this is a Quilled game, and the responses are snappy and droll: "Exam bottle: green, originally one of a set of ten."

The general presentation and feel are more polished than previous St Brides' productions and the problems, both old and new, entail plenty of brain-straining.

CRL
£7.95

Whilst casually hacking into one of America's major computer networks, one of the pupils from St. Brides (for yes, it is they that wrote this thing) accidentally discovered a copy of the first adventure ever written. This was unfortunate as she was trying to divert huge governmental funds into her own personal account at the time, but there is something entrepreneurial in all of those girls and a way was soon found of using the discovery to make a few bob on the side.

If you are losing interest in this review already on the grounds that you have already played one of the 1001 different versions of this game, then please bear with me for I assure you, you have never played anything quite like this. To say it is a spoof on the original is like saying that War and Peace is just a book. Herein lies the problem though as it is very difficult to talk about the contents of the game without giving too much away. Some of the jokes are very clever whilst others are so dreadful that you laugh anyway.

All the old familiar faces are there, the locked grating, the bird, the cage and the rod with a rusty star on the end of it but don't expect to use items as you did before. There are also several new ideas. Just off the Hall of the Mountain King, you can go and have a game of Space Invaders - a text only version of course! And how about a visit to Gotham City in the Batmobile or exploring the Habitat and Laura Ahsley rooms. One of the nice things about the game is that it pays to be silly as these responses have been anticipated and you get an even sillier response back. For example, if you examine the cage, the program promptly shuts you inside it and the keyboard hangs up just long enough for you to get really worried about it. Other things worth trying include swearing at the program and kissing your guide, Trixie Trinian, one of the prefects.

The game is put together using the Quill, Illustrator and Patch although you would never guess from looking at it. There are all sorts of sounds and time delays built into keep you amused. The graphics are also well done and add to atmosphere. Because it is so subjective, humour is a very difficult element to include in a game but suffice to say, I laughed out loud at CAVES time and time again. This is bound to be one of the adventure successes of the year and should be very high on your list of potential purchases.