Enchanter

aka: Enchanter: INTERLOGIC Fantasy, Zork IV
Moby ID: 56
PC Booter Specs

Description official descriptions

You are a dim ignorant Apprentice Enchanter, but your task is enormous. You must save the world from the warlock Krill who is ruling the land with his evil powers. You are not the first in this quest but hopefully you will be the first to succeed, as the more experienced members of the Circle of Enchanters are powerless. You know the basics of magic and will have the chance to learn many spells. Keep your wits and use everything you can to your benefit!

Enchanter is a text adventure set in the Zork universe, following the original Zork trilogy. As in the previous games, the player interacts with the environment by typing in text commands, usually combinations of verbs and objects. A new feature in the game is the player character's ability to cast spells. These spells must be memorized before the protagonist is able to cast them, and are learned during the course of the game. The text parser understands the names of the spells as verbs, and the player only needs to type in the spell name and the name of an object he/she wishes to cast that particular spell on.

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Screenshots

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Credits (PC Booter version)

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 7 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 90 ratings with 3 reviews)

Absolutely superb

The Good
This was one of the first, if not the first, adventure games I have played, on my Amiga back in 80's. I was into it for more than 2 months, addicted so much I wouldn't even eat. The plot is rather nice, but the best part is the puzzles. You have to find and use quite a few spells and make others do things for you ( I miss the turtle dearly.. ).

The Bad
The game is a bit hard, especially once you are close to the end. There are a few not-so-logical puzzles/problems you have to overcome.

The Bottom Line
If you like adventure or RPG games you just have to play this game, along with all other Infocom classics that is.

DOS · by Mark Papadakis (35) · 2002

Milestone for Player Characters

The Good
This game lets players learn Spells, which allows them to solve puzzles. This concept gives a subtle difference between you changing the world, or just using items to change the world.

The Bad
The story was not as memorable as other Infocom games.

The Bottom Line
Zork with spells. But that's a good thing.

DOS · by Tony Van (2803) · 1999

The single best Infocom game.

The Good
The introduction of magic made a huge difference. It was always so exciting to find a new spell and to test its abilities on your surroundings. My favourite remains using the nitfol spell on the frogs in the pond and then following their advice to look under the lily pad where you find "a slightly damp scroll". Or the use of the zifmia spell to summon the actual Infocom programmers into the game universe. Brilliant.

The Bad
Like most Infocom games, I found this one impossible to complete without help.

One example: I was always using kulcad to dispel the rope bindings from the jewelled box which contained some spell (I forget which). Because it worked I assumed I had found the solution, but had no way of knowing that if I "ozmooed" myself and allowed me to be sacrificed in the temple, I would regenerate with a magic knife that could cut the rope bindings.

ACTUALLY, the ozmoo spell was my biggest gripe. The only way to find it is to ditch your light source and enter the gallery. Well, I wasn't stupid enough to frotz the lantern and carry it around as a lightsource - why bother? I had found a better solution and just frotzed myself. One less item to carry. Which meant, unless someone had advised me as to the ruination I was reeking on my ability to win by doing so, I would never have been able to find that spell, and never able to beat the game.

Oh, and what is the filfre spell good for? I finally beat the game but had no use for this ostensibly powerful spell.

The Bottom Line
An extremely fun but oh-so-vastly tricky text game from the masters of the genre.

DOS · by Jeff Sinasac (391) · 2000

Trivia

Difficulty

Infocom rated Enchanter as "Standard" in difficulty.

Grues

Enchanter may be the only game in the Zork universe not to feature grues; the creatures that kill you in dark rooms are not referred to by name, and the game doesn't even know the word "grue".

Novel

A novelisation (perhaps better termed a cross-promotional tie-in loosely related to the original property) of the game was produced by Byron Preiss (with a grey-striped cover design emulating Infocom game packaging), published by Avon Books. It was written by Robin W. Bailey (who gives Marc Blank and Dave Lebling special thanks under the dedication) and first published in May of 1989. Its ISBN is 0-380-75386-3 and the rear cover blurb reads as follows:

"It's a very original, really funny fantasy novel--well worth reading. I loved it. Robin W. Bailey should become an outstanding name in the field." - Marion Zimmer Bradley

Anesi was the grandson of the wizard Stribel Wartworth, but he'd never really studied magic. His father had pulled him out of the university after less than one semester. Anesi wasn't even allowed to use the little magic he knew.

Then the entire Thriff Guild of Enchanters came to his family's little house in the woods. The whole world was threatened by the evil of the Great Terror, and they were helpless before it. To fight the Great Terror would require a magical prodigy, one who was untouched by the petty temptations of a wizard's life.

It would require Anesi.

With his friends at his side--Fidget, Cubby the brogmoid, and Tyrillee the dryad--he began his march to the south to face the greatest danger his world had ever known

...

Infocom, Inc., is the foremost publisher of interactive fiction software. Since its first release, the best-selling ZORK(r), the company has had an unparalleled string of successes, including Dave Lebling's and Marc Blank's fantasy world of ENCHANTER(r).

Parser

The game has a parser that understands over 700 words, making it the most advanced interactive fiction game of its time.

References

There are references scattered throughout Enchanter's documentation and gameplay comparing the use of spells by mages to the use of command line interfaces by programmers, and comparing mages to hackers in general. Many of the spell names, such as FROTZ and GNUSTO, are taken from MIT hacker slang of the time; others are various pop cultural references or anagrams. For instance, the NITFOL spell allows one to speak with animals, and NITFOL is a truncated reversal of "LOFTING", after the author of the Dr. Doolittle stories.

References to the game

Frotz, a modern open-source interpreter for Infocom games (as well as independently written interactive fiction) draws its name from a spell ("cause object to glow with illumination") in Enchanter and its sequels. Another spell, Blorb ("hide an object in a strongbox"), provides the name for a standard wrapper for interactive fiction multimedia resources. Several other IF tools have also been named after spells from the series.

Statistics

(From The New Zork Times Vol.3 No.2 Spring 1984)

Some statistics about Enchanter:

  • Apparent number of rooms (those seen by the player): infinite Number of rooms: 74 Number of different ways to die: 17 Number of words in vocabulary: *718 Number of takeable objects: 31*

Zork IV

The game was intended, at one point, to be a sequel of sorts to the Zork trilogy. In Zork III: The Dungeon Master, a device slowly cycles through "scenes" from each of the Zork games as a number is displayed above it. A depiction of the sacrificial altar from the then-unreleased Enchanter appeared under the number "IV".

Information also contributed by Belboz, Nélio and Pseudo_Intellectual

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Related Sites +

  • Enchanter Transcript Game
    Working Z Machine Game
  • Enchanter's Wikipedia page
    Here you can find all sorts of info about the game.
  • Infocom homepage
    At this site you can find information on ALL of Infocom's interactive games, Infocom related articles, sample transcripts, InvisiClue hints, walkthroughs, maps and information on buying Infocom games today.
  • The Commodore Zone
    All about Enchanter - introduction, images, related links and comments area.
  • The Infocom Gallery
    High-quality scans of the grey box package and manual of Enchanter.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 56
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

Amstrad PCW added by Trypticon. TRS-80 CoCo, TRS-80 added by Slik. Apple II added by Droog. Atari 8-bit, Amstrad CPC added by Kabushi. Amiga, Macintosh added by Terok Nor. Commodore 64 added by mo . Atari ST added by Belboz.

Additional contributors: Dietmar Uschkoreit, Tony Van, Sciere, Pseudo_Intellectual, Nélio, David Ledgard, mo , c64fan, Patrick Bregger.

Game added March 1, 1999. Last modified March 8, 2024.