ix21@sdccs6.UUCP (David Whiteman) (06/25/84)
I just played the prototype vesion of Thayer's Quest, and it is awesome. Basically it is an mixture of Zork and Dragon's Lair. The game has a forty key keyboard instead of a joystick, and the game communicates to you by means of a speech synthesizer. After depositing your quarters you enter name into the keyboard and the machine addresses you by your name. The quest is to travel through the magic world and collect the five parts of a magical amulet. Like Zork you pick up and use various objects in your journey and fight various enemies. There are numerous clues in the game to guide you. So far I found 3 different scrolls, 6 different weapons, and 13 other objects. The animation is decent and the various scenes occupy 3 laser discs (during the prototype testing period an operator changes the discs. The speech synthesizer leaves much to be desired, but most of the dialogue is prerecorded human voices. When and if this game is released it is sure to be a hit.