DRAGON'S CHALLENGE by Sam Pedigo
DRAGON'S CHALLENGE by Sam Pedigo for Lambda 8300 16K with Lambda colour add-on
Here, at last, is someone who sticks to Rule #5 and frightens me by presenting a game for a machine from the beyond, the Lambda 8300 computer.
I'll let Wikipedia explain it to you (and me):
"The Lambda 8300 was a Sinclair ZX81 clone from Lambda Electronics Limited of Hong Kong. It had a modified ROM (including extra semigraphic characters) and extra hardware, making it not fully compatible. It came with 2K RAM (expandable to 16K or 32K), three octave single voice sound (generated by a C4005 ULA I/O chip) and an Atari joystick port.
The character set was slightly altered from the ZX81, replacing some symbols with game graphics. BASIC tokens have alternate codings, further preventing 100% compatibility with the ZX81.
The computer was somewhat successful in Northern Europe (mostly in Denmark and Norway) and China, and today enthusiasts still develop new hardware.
The Lambda 8300 can be emulated on modern systems using, for example, the EightyOne Sinclair Emulator."
Its name changed according to the market in which it was sold, apparently they had something to hide:
Lambda 8300 (Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Denmark)
Your Computer PC 8300 (China, United States)
DEF 3000 (France)
Basic 2000 (Norway, Sweden, Finland)
Marathon 32K (Norway, Denmark)
Tonel PC (Italy, Germany)
Unisonic Futura 8300 (United States)
PC-81 Personal Computer (China)
CAC-3 (China)
Polybrain P118 (New Zealand) ... (Would you buy something called Polybrain?)
No autorun feature, no problem, just type LOAD "" or LOAD "DRAGON" and then RUN.
The author refers to the game as Dragon's Challenge in both his email and the .tzx file, but we can see from the first screen that it is called Dragon Slayer, a rather odd way of presenting it. Nor has much attention been paid to the organisation of the text on the screen, the âtâ for vomit is left out on the next line.
A cursor surrounded by menacing quotation marks awaits orders... A text adventure, I suppose.
After several hours trying to discover the text to enter to continue with the game, it has turned out to be the end of paragraph 666 of the Book of the Dead of the ancient Egyptian culture, in which you can read... No, no matter what you type, you will always get the same result:
Here we're faced with three completely unrelated options. I know everyone is going for 3...
Choose 1 - nothing happens.
Choose 2 and some text is displayed but inmediately wiped out and replaced with this:
Choose 3 and you'll get the same text but in a blue color so dark it's almost impossible to read:
After reassessing my eyes due to the lack of minimum order of the text on the screen, I choose option 2 so that I can continue without having to ask the army for night vision goggles.
Now the dragon is awake and the game needs orders. Guess what ? Yes, type anything.
A question without a question mark. I have to believe it's part of the mystery, the mere presence of the evil dragon distorting the screen and swallowing up some symbols.
Well, no mystery... In fact, the geniuses at Lambda Electronics decided that there was no need for a question mark in their character ROM: "In the technological future we foresee, no one will need to ask questions, ever."
You can try millions of combinations. You get:
Stuck.
I had to take a look at the code.
Apparently inspired by the band Clutch and their song '10001110101', the author wants you to guess that the notes that will put the dragon to sleep and allow you to win the game are a very long combination of ones and zeros. As long as the chances of getting it right are minimal. This is where you are forced to either give up, cheat like me, or get a telepath.
Scrambled Smile: 6/10
Broccoli and Squid Yoghourt: 10/10
Deep Fried Ice Cream: 0/10
Strawberry Monosodium Glutamate: 2/10
Affable Hot Chocolate Sauce: 2/10
I enjoyed the review. I will try better down the road.
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