Enchanter

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Enchanting, October 20, 2008
"Enchanter" is the first in the Enchanter series, a new series set in the Zorkian universe. So of course, the first question is, how does this compare to Zork?

Not much. There's a treasure hunt, all right, but you're hunting spell scrolls, and doing so in order to advance the game. There's also a general time limit - but not to worry, it's a very lax limit, more on it later. But all in all this is a very different game altogether. For starters, it's set aboveground.

Yes, I know you're thinking "Well, duh. What difference does that make, anyway?". It makes a lot of difference, especially since throughout the Zork Trilogy you don't have a specific foe (the closer you get is the Wizard of Frobozz, but he's never a foe nor really the master of his dominion - instead he's a bumbling senile fool who gets in your way). Here you do, and you're in his domain. It's an entirely different atmosphere. The passing of days and the hunger and thirst limits also enhance the urgency of the situation.

Passing of days, need to sleep, hunger and thirst... these may potentially scare off newcomers. Relax! There's a reason Infocom was a pioneer. Not only it did what others did with better parser and no guess-the-verb, it started experimenting with lax time limitations. As a result, you *know* you'll eventually run out of food, but you'll soon realize it's unlikely to happen before you finish the game.

Unwinabble situations, now, that's another matter. Though they're all well clued, there's a few of them around, and most have to do with a certain spell scroll you acquire and can use most anywhere... but only in one place correctly.

Ah, the spells. If in Zork you had to carry treasures and give them to some demon or something, in Enchanter you have to hunt for spell scrolls. Most of these you can copy onto your spellbook, and they'll be yours to cast forever. In Zork you had to fumble around trying to open locked mechanisms - in Enchanter, you merely have to cast REZROV at them! Man, THAT's a relief, I tell you. If I had the jewelled egg from Zork I in this game, it would have saved me a lot of trouble!

"Hunting for spells" could sound tedious. It does not, because each new spell you acquire lets you solve another puzzle you've been scratching your head about, or allows you to tamper with your environment in a variety of ways, or will leave you staring at something in a room and wondering "Hmmm, wonder what would happen if I...". And the results of spell-casting are very well implemented.

Plus, you're not alone. Of course, there's plenty of bad guys around - and they aren't very good-looking either - but you can also gather a couple of friends. Both of them extremely unlikely. And both of them quite the characters! No deep NPC interaction here - nevertheless, you'll be surprised at the amount of interaction that IS possible.

Enchanter is a story, not a treasure hunt. When days pass, you have dreams that nudge you in the right direction. Your environment will change with each passing day (well, so they say. Honestly, I didn't notice anything). It is a living environment, with people roaming around. The story is painstakingly constructed by you as with each new scroll you get closer and closer to the spells that will allow you to defeat the evil warlock.

Sadly, I was ill when I played Enchanter. As a result, I ended up checking the InvisiClues when I wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting a spell... and although I wasn't needing them up until that point, once I'd seen them I had to keep on using them. That's a flaw of mine as a gamer, once I open the hintbook it stays open. Still, it did help me on a couple of points I wouldn't have otherwise even recognized were puzzles...

...ANYWAY. I was ill, I had the hintbook, and like I said I didn't notice the environment changing. So although I loved the game... it lacked a certain "oomph" for me. Mea culpa, methinks, so it doesn't affect my rating.

Bottom line? "Enchanter" was the first non-Zork Zorkian game, and first of a whole new trilogy. It was a turning point, and in more ways than one - Planetfall players will recognize the gameplay structure, for instance. It remains a good game, an engrossing game. It's not overtly difficult, provided you explore and experiment - and the game is fairer on that account than, say, regarding the clay brick in Zork II. It is, on the whole, a must-play.

Enchanting, March 17, 2010
To start out, as much as infocom may have said this is not Zork IV, it is basically Zork IV. (You can visit this place in Zork III, and the game includes the Zork Adventurer as an NPC).

The game has a story, albeit a basic one- you are a weakling novice mage, one so minor the big bad mage Krill won't even notice you mucking about his castle. So go kill him.

The game includes a magic system which works nicely, and a very annoying hunger/thirst puzzle.

Some of the puzzles in this game seem to have multiple solutions. However, you will find that solving them the "wrong" way, will leave you without the tools to solve later puzzles, as I found out when I played it. You do run into some issues with the randomness aspect (that Zork Adventurer keeps running around before I can cast my spells on him!), and there are some times you need to use out of world knowledge to solve puzzles. (The last battle requires 3 specific spells, and you don't know you need to memorize them until you get there, and then it's too late).

The writing is wonderful, and you do get a sense of dread as time goes on, pushing you to complete the game faster. There are plenty of ways to screw with the spellcasting system, such as breaking everything, then repaing it with the repair spell, or summoning all kinds of people like the game designers or Krill himself. There is also a very clever (and nasty) puzzle involving a magic map and an imprisoned beast.

I played this game and loved it, and I am a big fan of the fantasy/Zorkian genre. If you are as well, you will love this game. If not, then this game will not be for you.

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