Spellbreaker

aka: Mage, Spellbreaker - An Interactive Fantasy, Spellcrafter
Moby ID: 58
DOS Specs

Description official descriptions

The head of the Circle of Enchanters is a brave hero, the same one who has defeated the evil Krill and solved the mystery of the Necromancer Belboz. However, now an even greater threat has appeared: the very foundations of the art of Magic seem to be failing! The Guilds organize a great assembly to discuss the alarming waning of Magic; suddenly, a mysterious shadowy figure casts a spell that transforms everyone to toads and newts - everyone but the intrepid leader of the Circle, who must commit his most heroic deeds yet, solving the hardest mystery of all.

The concluding part of the Enchanter trilogy within the Zork universe, Spellbreaker is a sequel to Sorcerer. The game plays similarly to its predecessors, the player inputting text commands to interact with the game world and solve puzzles. The magic system is still present; however, spellcasting can fail now, due to the game's premise of the decline of magic. A new feature is the player's ability to name the objects the protagonist collects in the game. This ability becomes a necessity when the player is required to collect the identically-looking Cubes of Foundation, having to name them in order to differentiate between them.

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Credits (DOS version)

7 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 10 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 35 ratings with 1 reviews)

The Absolute Pinnacle of Text Adventuring

The Good
This was the third game in the Enchanter Series and followed on from the beguiling but relatively simple games:Enchanter and Sorcerer. From the word go this game took no prisoners . You found yourself stuck in a five room (roughly) area, you carried very little of any use and there was virtually nothing to pick up. Each of these areas contained an "impassable" blockage and none of the blockages responded to anything you were carrying. What a stinker of an opening. With your limited knowledge of magic and an excellent text parser you had to make a giant Ouroboros (a mythical symbol of a snake devouring its own tail) consume itself to open up an underground path behind it. The logic of this game was exceptionally harsh but always fair. Your had to continually draw maps and charts to solve puzzles. In a world of failing magic your main advantage was becoming next to useless for puzzle solving. Your fireballs became mere sparks and your strategies had to adjust to such sudden spell failure. I remember riding around on the back of living but exploding rocks, playing a warped game of nine-mens-morris, with a particular fondness.The sheer imagination within this game combined with the breathtaking prose of Dave Lebling (who I personally reckon wrote the best infocom adventures) and the amazingly flexible text parser made this game an absolute classic...

The Bad
Initially I hated the fact that this game was so damn hard. On release this game was overshadowed by the so-called pictorial splendour of "The Pawn" and adding this to Spellbreakers difficulty gave you a superb game that went unplayed by most. It was absolutely evil and unforgiving at times, but any failure would eventually prove to be yours alone . Frustratingly difficult, seemingly obtuse and unwelcoming to the novice.

The Bottom Line
Unfalteringly challenging but joyous because of that very fact. In a world of falling game difficulty levels this is one for the seasoned veteran or at least the very brave. Seek it out and be very afraid.

Atari ST · by kemmysunshine (9) · 2004

Trivia

Title

There was a big fight between the creative and marketing department over the title. While the developers wanted to call the game Mage to fit it with the titles of the two predecessors, the marketing people felt that the title was too short and the expression too unknown. They did research and found that most people could not even pronounce the word correctly. In the end, marketing won.

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Related Sites +

  • 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 Infocom Gallery
    High-quality scans of the grey box package and manual of Spellbreaker.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 58
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

TI-99/4A added by Trypticon. Apple II added by Droog. Amstrad CPC added by Kabushi. Atari 8-bit added by Martin Smith. Macintosh, Amiga added by Terok Nor. Amstrad PCW added by Игги Друге. Atari ST, Commodore 64 added by Belboz.

Additional contributors: Dietmar Uschkoreit, Belboz, Martin Smith, Pseudo_Intellectual, mo , Patrick Bregger.

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