External Links


maiden.zip
Contains MAIDEN.GAM
Requires a TADS interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links. (Compressed with ZIP. Free Unzip tools are available for most systems at www.info-zip.org.)
maiden.gam
original competition entry
Requires a TADS interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
readme.txt
Author's notes
maiden.wlk
Walkthrough
maiden.txt
Background story
Walkthrough and map
by David Welbourn

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Maiden of the Moonlight

by Brian P. Dean

Haunted House
1996

(based on 10 ratings)
2 reviews

About the Story

You are standing in front of Drochsolas Manse, preparing to explore it in an attempt to find the key to ending the Baron's curse upon the surrounding land. You have come bearing your sword and pistol as well as a prayer that any hazards you might encounter within the haunted mansion can be dealt with by such physical means.


Game Details


Awards

7th Place - 2nd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (1996)

Editorial Reviews

Baf's Guide


A 17th-century Scottish ghost story involving a wicked baron, his beautiful daughter, and the poor lad who loved her - all of whose souls remain inside a decaying manor house. You play a soldier, just returned from fighting the Roundheads and determined to put the ghosts to rest. One of the better ghost games - good setting, solid story, quite a lot of exposition scattered about (some of it quite long), and a bevy of mechanical and magical puzzles, including one very good large-scale one. Requires a little learning-by-death - entering one particular room can end your game prematurely, and there's no way to know it except by experience. Has a few subtleties that few will notice without using the adaptive hints.

-- Carl Muckenhoupt

SPAG
Simple but clever puzzles, with the only annoyance being the very, VERY forced method of getting the perfume bottle over the fence. (Was this necessary?) I liked having to piece together solutions from the writings, books, and room descriptions, though there's the occasional guesswork.
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SynTax
[...] the program tells me that there's a path made of flagstones to the west (if my memory serves me right). I tell the program to examine the flagstones, and it replies that it has no idea what 'flagstones' are! [...] I must say that I none the less enjoyed many of the descriptions of the various locations I visited and I stayed with the game at least 15 minutes before giving up completely!
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>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

Maiden is both exciting and irritating — it promises drama and intrigue, but many of the obstacles to be overcome along the way are simply brute force barriers, with none of the subtlety of the best interactive fiction.
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Member Reviews

5 star:
(1)
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Number of Reviews: 2
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Not Altogether There, May 2, 2009
by AmberShards (The Gothic South)

It is fairly detailed and interesting, so if you're an atmosphere junkie, this will draw you in. However, the broken puzzles and the ridiculously small amount of time allowed to explore the mansion will prove frustrating. There are typos, too, and a lot of the rooms are threadbare, as if the author lost interest in the game by the time the later rooms show up. It feels like the game needed a few more rounds of beta-testing.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A tightly timed ghost story in a mansion, February 4, 2016

In this game from the second IFcomp, you play a sword wielding Britainer in the time of Cromwell, investigating a haunted house.

The house is haunted by the maiden of the moonlight, daughter of a witchcraft using Baron.

You have to discover their story and put her to rest. The focus on the puzzles is sources of moonlight, which you must deal with in increasingly complicated ways.

The game has a timer.

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Maiden of the Moonlight on IFDB

Recommended Lists

Maiden of the Moonlight appears in the following Recommended Lists:

My new walkthroughs for July 2019 by David Welbourn
Very late on Monday July 29, 2019, I published new walkthroughs for the games and stories listed below! Some of these were paid for by my wonderful patrons at Patreon. Please consider supporting me to make even more new walkthroughs for...




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