Adventure games

Background

I made a new year's resolution a while back to try to play and finish a few more Speccy text adventures. You can't beat chilling out on a Saturday morning with a coffee, pencil and some graph paper, right? But choosing what to play can be difficult, as there are hundreds (maybe thousands) to pick from.

So why Polearn? Well, this one intrigued me - it barely got a mention in the main Spectrum magazines, yet it was reviewed by Crash magazine and received a Crash Smash.

I couldn't find the author of the game - if anyone knows then please feel free to let me know. It appears to be the only release from Sheol Software (mail order), and authored using Gilsoft's Professional Adventure Writing Sytem (PAWS). The game is 128k only, and makes extensive use of the PAWS graphic capability to create some nice location pictures.

I'll be revealing a bit about events in the game in this article, but I've tried to avoid major spoilers (i.e. puzzle solutions). It should be safe enough to read the rest of the article if you fancied playing this one.

The Game

After failing to dig up a physical copy of the game, I've had to glean the background from the Crash review. You play as Marcus Thornton, who is visiting the village of Polearn in Cornwall on a break. Seems harmless enough. But it won't be long before you're thrown into a creepy mystery, suspicious shenanigans and some underlying criminal activity.

Your first port of call (no pun intended) is to find your lodgings, a quaint place called Fair View Cottage. As you traverse the village you're likely to encounter some of the locals going about their daily activity.

As you play, you'll quickly realise that 'time does indeed wait for no-one'. Your wristwatch is constantly ticking - the movements and actions of the town inhabitants continue on their own schedule, regardless of player actions.

In this regard it reminded me a tiny bit of Melbourne House's Sherlock (but without the obsession over train timetables). The main problem this caused me is that if you don't happen to be in the right place at the right time, it's very easy to miss events and clues.

And so on day 3, just as a few creepy things were starting to happen, my game came to an abrupt end:

Fortunately at this point I'd fashioned quite an extensive map (a quick shout out to Trizbort.io, a fantastic online utility for mapping adventures). So despite my surprise at the sudden ending, it meant I could explore the game a bit more efficiently. Also playing the game using an emulator let me keep tabs on the actions of a few of Polearn's denizens, just to see what they were up to. Being the nosy tourist that I am.

The location graphics are all backed up nicely with some very descriptive text, with a certain amount of further detail available on EXAMining some objects. You can TALK to people and, possibly more pertinently, ASK them about other people in the village. Discovering notes and letters opens up a bit more of the mystery and lets you learn about some of the village characters and their history.

I did find myself playing sections over and over as I'd missed things, or made mistakes first time round. One (hopefully non-spoilering) hint is that you may need to use the adverb CAREFULLY when EXAMining things, something that in 1989 a lot of adventure players would've done.

Where I failed with this game, however, is that it was just too difficult for my feeble adventuring brain. A combination of timing - being in precisely the right place at the right time - and getting access to other areas, sometimes knowing the right vocab to use, just proved too much for me.

After playing for some time without success (I really gave this one a good go) I consulted some hints. Ultimately I resigned myself to looking at a walkthrough, something I'm usually loathe to do, just because I occasionally get annoyed at myself afterwards for not persisting. Not this time though - I would never have worked out much of the solution to the mystery. Je ne regrette rien.

Summary

Polearn's a big game, but I found I had to work very hard to even scratch the surface. The unfortunate lack of a physical copy of a game, or even a scanned inlay/instructions sheet, means that I don't know how much introductory help was provided in the game instructions. My guess is that the author probably offered a few hints given its impressive review rating, implying the reviewer might have made a bit of progress.

So with the perspecive of someone not privy to an inlay card/instructions (quite often the case in the 80s, right?), there's very little HELP in the game itself, and some of the actions you need to take need very specific timing. I'd say that this one is aimed at the seriously seasoned adventurer.

In conclusion - up for a major challenge? Give Polearn a go. Despite its difficulty, its setting will make you feel as if you can almost smell the briny sea air and hear the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore.

...Good enough to solve it? If so, the end of the story will certainly reward you for your efforts.