Enchanter

by Marc Blank and Dave Lebling

Episode 1 of The Enchanter series
Fantasy, Zorkian
1983

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- LoquySSS46 (Longueuil, Québec, Canada), March 27, 2024

- Artran (Taipei, Taiwan), February 10, 2024

- Max Fog, January 25, 2024

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Zifmia review. "Oh hi, reader!", January 20, 2024
by deathbytroggles (Minneapolis, MN)

The first game of the second trilogy in the Zork universe, Enchanter tells a much more interesting tale with significantly more rewarding puzzles than its predecessors. Sadly, some questionable design choices and inconsistency make it not as fun to play today.

Rather than being a treasure hunter, you play a young magician whose skills are so pathetic that they’ve been sent under relative anonymity to a castle to defeat the evil Krill, a vastly powerful wizard. You begin the game with four spells, three of which you barely remember, and must learn more in order to prevail. As you find scrolls, you can imprint them into your spell book and use them repeatedly, with the exception of two spells that are so powerful they can only be used once. Only a few puzzles in the game don’t require magic; the rest all rely on you using at least one spell, if even for one part of the task. And your reward for solving each puzzle grants you another spell.

Initially, you can only memorize three spells at a time; after using them you have to rememorize them again if you want to use them. While this obstacle seems pointlessly cruel at first, it makes sense given the general ineptitude of your character and plays a key role in future puzzles where preparation is required before entering a dangerous situation. What is truly fun, though, is all the various ways you can utilize your spells. Some aren’t needed to win the game at all, but can be used in lieu of other spells. Several puzzles have multiple solutions to cater to the inner workings of your brain. They’re also a welcome mix of serious (defend against unnatural death) and silly spells (turn your foe into an amphibian). Better yet, there’s plenty of funny easter eggs if you want to intentionally misuse your spells.

As for the two spells I mentioned that can only be used once; they can be used in several places, but only one is correct, giving you extra pause before you deploy them. While using them incorrectly puts your game in an unwinnable state, it’s not that difficult to tell when you’ve boofed. And even if you don’t realize it, the game is short enough that backtracking isn’t stressful. 

Sadly, this wonderful spell system is almost ruined by issues rampant in the early days of gaming. Most unforgivable are the hunger and thirst daemons that clog up most of the fun. While finding water and food is easy and your supply should last you the whole game unless you completely fiddle-fart around, the whole process just gets in the way. You have an inventory limit that’s needlessly wasted on carrying sustenance. Some puzzles have delicate timing, and if you happen to be really thirsty or hungry in that moment it can ruin the process. And mostly it’s just not interesting. There’s also a sleep daemon, though it’s not as cumbersome and leads you to dreams which can provide subtle hints.

I also became frustrated on several occasions with the puzzles. While they are all generally logical (though a bit of a stretch in a couple of cases), and a few are almost insultingly easy, most are poorly clued with no guidance if you’re on the right track. While I don’t expect a cheering audience while solving a puzzle, there are many times I wasn’t sure if my issue was that I was completely off base or if the parser just didn’t like the way I was phrasing something. That’s not to say the parser is poor; many synonyms are implemented and it can handle multi-step commands. But some of the responses are so curt and generic that I assumed I was asking something of the game not possible only to learn that I was oh so close to figuring it out. Thus I had to look up a few hints for what otherwise would have been very satisfying puzzles to solve.

The prose itself is clean and in general evocative, though on occasions it’s sparse and they’re only so many ways to keep me interested in a run-of-the-mill castle. The game certainly could have been haunting, though akin to Zork there’s more focus on whimsy, which is occasionally jarring even when funny. The final game sequence, especially, feels like a bit of a letdown as it’s very quick with little time for the atmosphere to settle in.

Despite my quibbles, Enchanter is definitely worth a play by Infocom fans, especially if you intend to play the other games in the series. Just be prepared to be annoyed at times and have a hint guide handy.

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- Egas, December 2, 2023

- ENyman78 (Gold Beach, OR), October 29, 2023

- SandwhichMeat, September 9, 2023

- Kastel, May 23, 2023

- Phil Riley, March 24, 2023

- Jim Nelson (San Francisco), January 7, 2023

- RonFromPgh, October 16, 2022

- RustyBones, May 4, 2022

- cgasquid (west of house), February 11, 2022

- Titania Lowe, January 24, 2022

- Lance Campbell (United States), December 24, 2021

- NorkaBoid (Ohio, USA), November 14, 2021

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
The Best Zork Yet, September 18, 2021
by Drew Cook (Acadiana, USA)

1983. For the first time since Zork, the dream team of Marc Blank and Dave Lebling reunited. Both were seasoned implementors, as their work on Deadline, Zork II, Zork III, and Starcross attested. Lebling in particular had, in Starcross, created a Zork-style large, open map filled with puzzles and treasures that actually served a purpose in their game world.

Lebling's evolving mastery of the form must have been a great benefit to the team. Back is a large, open map filled with puzzles and treasures. In Enchanter, Blank and Lebling come up with Infocom's most exciting treasure yet: spell scrolls. The protagonist is the titular Enchanter--a novice wizard who can memorize and cast a variety of spells from a spell book. New spells can be added to the book, and it is consistently exciting to do so. Each adds new possibilities for gameplay. The implementation of spells is atypically expansive: you can cast spells on all sorts of things, whether doing so advances the plot or not.

In Enchanter, you are sent to the fortress of the warlock Krill, an evil wizard who is casting a spell that will forever cloak the world in darkness. It is explained that Krill would immediately detect and kill a powerful wizard, so the Circle of Enchanters sends you instead. Within, there are some truly excellent puzzles, a death cult, and a rapidly escalating sense of doom. Since no more zany, madcap hijinks remain to be ported from the PDP version of Zork, Blanc and Lebling are finally free to create a tonally consistent game in the Zork universe. The fortress--and the world outside it--deteriorate daily, and the nights keep getting longer. There are some good jokes, too, but the balance works better than Zork III's text at war with itself, pitting as it does the old versus the new.

Enchanter is quite fair. My only quibble is that becoming a light source makes the game unwinnable. While I do get it--how would the player ever sleep?--it feels obnoxious after Zork II's ending. Standout favorites include The Unseen Terror and the talking turtle. Talking to animals unfortunately doesn't reach Deadline levels of complexity, but it's still a lot of fun. There are surprises I have not mentioned--why spoil your good time?

Those who played Zork III will recognize the scene from "Zork IV." If Lebling and Blank struggled to incorporate it, it doesn't show. In fact, that's a way to sum up Enchanter: the struggle never shows. This is a well-designed map filled with fair puzzles of reasonable difficulty. The new magic system is is intuitive and satisfying, and it constantly rewards the player's progress. Everything just settles into place. Enchanter is an impeccably crafted adventure game, the as-yet best Zorkian Infocom title.

I suppose that Enchanter is not Infocom's best game. It is, however, my favorite. I encourage everyone to at least try casting a few spells or meeting briefly with the protagonist from the Zork Trilogy (seriously!)

A warning: Enchanter has hunger, thirst, and sleep timers. I found them less intrusive than those is Planetfall, but they're present all the same. Dreams provide some useful clues, so there is at least a point to sleeping. Like other games of its ilk, Enchanter offers little in terms of plot or characterization.

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- Karlok (Netherlands), August 15, 2021

- heasm66 (Sweden), August 10, 2021

- Fivetenosdhotnvi, March 17, 2021

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
An adventure for a first-level magic-user, March 16, 2021
by dvs

This early Infocom game seems well-designed for first-time players to explore the world of text adventures. However, to a modern player, the descriptions are overly spare. I understand that many of the empty rooms are there to give the feeling of being in a castle or wandering around the nearby world but I would have loved to see much more description and interaction.

The gentle intro teaches the player how to cast spells and search the outskirts to find a way into the castle. One has to keep track of food and water throughout the game - although that is a nuisance it does make us aware of the passing of time and the passing of days and nights. It's a little irritating but not bad. Similarly, having to juggle items can be a nuisance but was part of the convention of the time.

Not everything is important. There are some random encounters with critters that don't affect the puzzles but do provide flavor. There's an odd emphasis on discovering treasures that mattered in Zork but seems to be just extra here. There were in fact so many unessential details that we missed something which turned out to be essential. (We ended up having to look at the Invisiclues for hints.)

Mid-game was frustrating as we figured out some tricky puzzles early on and missed out on easier puzzles. We ended up in a dead-end a few times by casting a spell incorrectly but didn't realize this.

Getting to talk to animals was wonderful, and a few of the NPCs were quite entertaining.

The endgame was very satisfying, even though we had to save and restore multiple times to figure out the key things we needed to complete our goals.

Enchanter is a good game for its time and was fun to play.

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- Pinstripe (Chicago, Illinois), March 13, 2021

- mifga (Brooklyn, NY), October 15, 2020

- Durafen, August 4, 2020

- Ry (Philippines), June 12, 2020


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