ZorkQuest: The Crystal of Doom

ZorkQuest: The Crystal of Doom description

The second (and last) series of Zork-oriented interactive comic book from the legendary company Infocom. Both in appearance (as unattractive, with poor and predominantly black and white vector graphics – unless you enable Composite CGA) and management (which is reduced primarily to the opportunity to scroll or pause the demonstrated us an illustrated story) "The Crystal of Doom" around like "ZorkQuest. Episode 1: Assault on Egreth Castle", on the page which you can see all these features in more detail.

The "ZorkQuest: The Crystal of Doom" continues the storyline of its predecessor, so prior to his passing need to be looked through and the first series. Zork fans of the world can finally rejoice: the action takes place not only in a castle and its immediate surroundings. We will see the peaceful town of Accardi-by-the-sea so far tried since the last part all of our travelers, and the ruins of the Holy temple isbatov (according to legend, full of countless treasures), and even attend the historic Congress of magicians in the majestic hall of the Guild of Enchanters. The story became bigger, but also problems, of course, also increased – as heroes, and not always positive: successfully completed a correspondence course of magic not to the extent of plump thief mug, with which we are familiar in the prologue, cherishes not the most modest and good plans, which can radically change the destiny of Quendor...

The ability to switch in certain places on the "parallel" story, which tells about the fate of other characters still in service and very pleased with bringing at least some diversity in not characterized by the interactivity of the gameplay. Alas, the branches here are not so much – perhaps even less than in "Assault on Egreth Castle", and the total duration is approximately the same half hour (excluding the time required for exploring all alternative storylines). But what frustrates most is the traditional "cliffhanger" cliffhanger: instead of writing "The End", we see only the promise to continue the tale in "Zork Quest No. 3" (which was not destined to be born).

Yes, the experiment with Infocomics resounding failure, burying under its ruins all hopes for the opportunity to learn the same fate Prosvita, Ryker, Asia, and Quindora in General. The reason is quite obvious: the older and more primitive graphics may be appropriate in a regular text adventure, but not in the comic, but familiar sounding names and place names and even "branching stories" are not enough to attract not the most interactive product of Zork fans of the world, accustomed to the complexity and nonlinearity of the gameplay, generously provided by a text parser. However aside from all these flaws, the plot of "ZorkQuest: The Crystal of Doom" itself is quite interesting and allows at least for some time to re-explore favorite gaming universe.

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Source: Archive.org, Mobygames.com