Shadowgate

The Good
Shadowgate was an unique adventure game by ICOM Simulators released in 1987. While most adventure games at the time were text only (Lucasfilm's games aside), it was one of the first games to feature a mouse-driven interface already present in Déjà Vu, the company's first game released two years before for the Macintosh. I am reviewing the Amiga version, which I am most impressed with.

The game starts with the player standing outside the castle. There is a good reason for this. Lakmir, the good wizard, needs him to venture into the castle so that he can banish the evil Warlock Lord, who threatens to raise the Behemoth, the deadliest of Titans, from the depths of the Earth.

You start out the game with a flaming torch in your inventory, and there is a reason why you are carrying this. It will go out any minute, and you don't have long to find another torch and light that one and drop the burnt-out torch. To me, this seems like a sub-objective, if you can call it that. If you happen to run out of torches, it will become dark and you will soon fall to your death if you try to do anything else. You will have no problem trying to avoid blackouts, as long as you use the torches sparingly.

Everything is presented in their own separate windows that can be moved around and manipulated, just like Workbench. This means you can select one or more inventory items by dragging a box around them, and placing them anywhere on the main screen. The ability to drop multiple inventory items means that you waste little time and avoid blackouts. There are various commands at your disposal, and these commands take some getting used to. Of these, the SPEAK command is rarely used, and it is not to command a door to “open sesame”. The GO command can be used to go from one room to another (providing that you OPEN the door first), but I find it more easy to double-click on the exit.

There are many hidden creatures scattered around the castle, and they eventually reveal themselves if you try to take an item out of the same room as they are. Chances are that you need that item later, so you have to deal with these creatures. In one occasion, you can't take the platinum horn without dealing with a demon dog. This is not unexpected, as there are certainly many other creatures from other adventure games of its time.

As I said in the summary, Shadowgate takes full advantage of the Amiga's capabilities. The hand-painted backgrounds look good, and the animations are nicely done. There are some amazing sound effects, with my favorite being scream that you emit when you fall down a trap door if you try to take forbidden items. There is some background music, and the ending is much more satisfying. (You even get to print out a winning certificate, which is well designed.)


The Bad
The main problem with Shadowgate concerns its inventory. Once your inventory happens to be full, then if you try to pick any more items, you are greeted with the annoying “You can't take that” message. It's frustrating that I try to pick up something that I want, then try to drop as many useless items no matter how large or small it is, only to find out that it isn't enough. So my best option was to leave almost my entire inventory behind and come back for some things later, knowing them I just wasted enough light for doing so.

The Bottom Line
Shadowgate is a very good adventure game for its time, with its notable features beating those Lucasfilm games by two years. The game takes full advantage of the Amiga's capabilities. The graphics and sound is great, and whatever music there is, it is brilliantly composed. If you like good adventure games, then you have to play this.