ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MICROPENDIUM P.O. Box 1343 Round Rock TX 78680 Phone 512-255-1512 Internet jkoloen@io.com Microreviews for December 1994 by Charles Good Starting with this month's column I will list all appropriate names and addresses at the end of the column under the heading "access". This is where you look to find out where to send for the software reviewed here. ---------------- DISK OF MEDIEVAL TIMES by Ken Gilliland This $15 commercial software is the latest of Ken's theme disk sets. This one is about the middle ages and is full of knights in armor, castles, dragons, jousts, and fair maidens locked up in towers. I just finished reading Arthur Conan Doyle's "The White Company", and this disk set reminds me of the events in Doyle's story. (Yes, Doyle wrote about other things besides Sherlock Holmes.) Medieval Times comes on four SSSD disks and is designed to run out of DSK1 using extended basic. You also get a nicely illustrated 16 page user guide. The main menu is displayed from the first disk as follows: A- Tales of Chivalry; B- Legends of Valor (Game); C- History of the helmet; D- Castles, Keeps, & Towers; E- Exit Medieval Times. When you select these items you are sometimes prompted to insert another of the four disks into DSK1 in order to continue. A- Tales of Chivalry displays text files which include legends relating to King Arthur and his knights as well as scholarly discussions concerning the history of these stories. Separate stories about King Arthur, Sir Bors, Sir Gareth, Sir Gawain, Sir Percival, Sir Lancelot, and Sir Erec are included. My favorite texts are the two dealing with the known history of these tales, answering questions such as what is the oldest known reference to King Arthur. As you probably know, the Arthur stories are in all probability a mixture of ancient fiction and fact, and very little independent information about Arthur and his knights exists. I was particularly intrigued with the "Holy Grail" legend. Supposedly the cup Christ used in the last supper was brought to England where it exhibited various magical powers. Lots of time, effort, and money was expended by medieval English important people looking the grail. The source materials Ken used in researching these text files and in creating his medieval artwork are listed in the documentation that accompanies Medieval Times. B- The Legends of Valor game is actually three games tied loosely togther with a story. The queen is locked up in a tower and you have to go and rescue her. First, however, you have to prove you are worthy of such a rescue attempt by competing in various medieval tests of courage. The three games are supposed to be played in order, and you have to win each in order to go on and play the next game. All three games are written in extended basic. The first test of valor is a joust on horseback against a great big knight. You position your shield and lance high/middle/low and try to knock the other knight off his horse. This requires several tries with you or the other knight getting wounded each time. When somebody is wounded enough that they can't continue the game ends and if you are the least wounded you then heal quickly and go on to the next game. There really isn't any skill involved here, only luck. There is about a 50% chance of winning. The joust is slightly modified from a joust game originally published in 99er magazine in the ancient medieval past of the 99/4A, back in 1983. The second test of valor is very similar to the joust except that your opponent is a fire breathing dragon. You adjust your lance and shield position and try to skure the dragon with your lance as you pass on your horse. Hopefully your sheild prevents the dragon's fire breath from burning you. As with the first test there doesn't seem to be much skill involved. Chances of slaying the dragon are about 50%. The third test of valor really is original and fun. You have to approach the castle in which the queen has been locked, climb the tower, and rescue her. All along the way you have to dodge the arrows and swords of the defenders. Some of these defenders pop out of the ground at sudden and irregular intervals to do you in. Screen graphics are very well done. You get two simultaneous displays. Most of the screen shows you (as a knight) and your immediate surroundings. This display constantly changes as you move from left to right towards the Queen's location. In the lower left of the screen you see a map of the whole castle area, with your location on this map indicated. The closer you are to the Queen's location the faster the action. There is a fair amount of skill in this game since you need to know just when to jump or dodge arrows. My main complaint about these tests of valor is that you are supposed to complete them in order and you only get one chance (one life) to complete all three games. Once killed you go to a high score screen where your chosen "Sir _____" name and score are permanently recorded and are then returned to the Medieval Times main menu. If you want to attempt another Queen rescue you have to start again from the beginning of the first test. What is needed is a "save game" feature. The third test of valor is really neat, but you can waste a lot of time trying to get to this third test and if you are killed you have to start all over again with the first test. Since Medieval Times is largely written in extended basic I figured out a way of cheating so that I can start directly with the third test at any time. Each of the valor tests is a stand alone XB program. You can OLD and RUN the third test directly from XB's command mode. C- History of the Helmet shows you a series of TI Artist pictures, each of which shows several types of medieval helmets. A short description of each helmet accompanies each picture. D- This gives you a slide show of several castles. I suspect the castle pictures have been converted from MAC pictures or another picture format since the detail shown looks too elaborate to have been created de novo from TI Artist. E- from the main menu will return you to reality and display the 99/4A title screen. Two of the four disks are completely full of Ken Gilliland's own artwork related to medieval times. The disks are full of TI Artist pictures, instances, and fonts. You really get a lot of artwork for your money because some of the art is archived. What if you don't own TI Artist? If you don't want to purchase TIA from a dealer, you can use Bruce Harrison's Drawing Program which is public domain and which I will send you if you mail me a buck. TIA instances and fonts can be loaded into and displayed by Drawing Program. Ken's theme disks are all totally 99/4A and Geneve creations. The artwork and software are all created on a 99/4A and the documentation is created using TPA for MDOS. I know of nothing in the IBM PC world that resembles the unique combination of scholarship and original artwork found in the theme disk sets. Probably anyone can learn from and enjoy Disk of Medieval Times. ----------------- RISK by Oliver Arnold Risk is a Parker Brothers board game I enjoyed playing with my friends when I was a young teenager. The object of the game is to conquer the world with your armies, physically occupying all countries of the world displayed on board game's world map. There is at least one "official" Risk computer version and I have also seen in CD ROM collections a couple of fairware RISK versions for IBM PCs. Now we 99/4A owners have a nice adaption of Risk we can use on our machines. The assembly language (EA5) game is for 2 to 6 players. It is a game of strategy, not fast action. A joystick is required. The gameboard displays an amazingly detailed multi colored mercator projection of the world. The game begins with Players entering their names in the upper right corner of the screen. The computer randomly divides the countries of the world among the various players and then allows each player to place his surplus armies (each country already has one army) in the countries under his control. Players attack countries next to the ones already under the player's control, with a roll of the cumputer dice deciding the outcome of each battle. Player names, country names, and computer prompts for input are all displayed in teeny tiny multi colored 64 column text. Each letter is only 3 pixels wide with one pixel between letters. This is hard to read on a TV screen. You had better use a monitor. Cute background music plays all the time. You can turn it off by moving the cursor next to the pictured gramaphone (the "His master's voice" type with a big horn-like speaker) and pressing the firebutton. Risk is an excellent eductational tool for learning world geography. You run into some strange country names, particularly within what is now Russia. Several autonomous areas within Russia are treated by Risk as separate countries. I really like this game and am amazed at the detail that is simultaneously squeezed onto the screen. My only complaint is that sometimes all this detail is hard to see. Players 1 and 2 have their countries colored white and gray, colors hard to distinguish from each other. Sometimes the text is hard to read because it is so small. Risk is fairware. Send me $1 and I'll send it to you to try out. Oliver asks whatever you think it is worth as a fairware donation. ACCESS: Ken Gilliland (Notung Software): 7647 McGroarty St., Tujunga CA 91042. Olivar Arnold: Hauptstrasse 44, 69517 Gorxheimertal, Germany. Internet oliver@thorin.swb.de Charles Good: P.O. Box 647, Venedocia OH 45894. Phone 419-667-3131. Internet cgood@lima.ohio-state.edu