The Usurper: Mines of Qyntarr

Mines of Qyntarr is an unquestionably awful game. It plays like when I wrote BASIC tributes to Zork--or I would've if they hadn't run out of memory. Lots of points to collect, lots of simple but illogical puzzles except for the ones based on received knowledge, and lots of verbs to guess. And far too many locations to fit on one piece of paper.

You drop treasures in a well, which is not the trophy case from Zork I. There's a cool talking idol, but there's also a puzzle where the challenge is mostly to look up Funambulate by looking in a dictionary--that's like googling, for you younguns--and another that is different on the Apple than the PC (Spoiler - click to show)"Approach Queen" vs "Checkmate". Plus there's a monster called a yallou, which couldn't be copied at all from the grue.

Sir-Tech bit the dust soon after this, so the promised sequel never happened. I can't say I'm really sad. I wasted money on Wizardry I so I could play II and III. I just thought the games were too tough for me at the time. I'm just not sure I've ever seen such a large-scale, categorically awful game as this. Well, not one you would pay for. It even made me feel like a schmuck for wanting to write a game exactly like this as a twelve-year-old.

This game is very much a case of what might have been. Originally posited as the third game in a series (although it was the only one released) it bears many features of mainframe games from the late seventies and early eighties. It is a large fantasy quest, replete with a dragon, a lamp with limited fuel, a yawning chasm to cross and so on....a problem child descendant of a marriage between Zork and ADVENT.

There are quite a few bugs here, but none of them are game breaking, for instance a lead suit that you can't walk in or carry for more than one location unless you "break" that particular puzzle by using one of the game's many transportation words and then you can carry it or wear it anywhere you like. Another oddity is that you can only give or implement an action with an object if you are not carrying it; an atypical trait of the home brewed parser. There are also far too many red herrings; some of the locations have quite elaborate set-ups where you feel there is obviously a puzzle to be tackled, but there simply isn't. One of these per game may be acceptable, but this game is studded with them. I get the feeling that most of these were going to be set pieces to drive the narrative but the author never got around to connecting them; as a result they just lie there, waiting to frustrate the world-weary traveller. And they do. There are several wells dotted throughout the game, oddly numbered one, two and six. There is no well three, four or five. Again, these were probably pencilled in but never implemented. A reasonable level of play and beta testing would have hoovered these up and uncluttered the very large map. The parser is workmanlike and there are very few typographical and grammatical errors. Take all, oops, and back are all missing but a refreshingly large percentage of objects can be examined. A list of verbs is given upon typing "HELP" but oddly some of those don't parse. There is one particularly annoying parser infelicity concerning the fountain; I spent ages trying to use an object on its waters only to find you have to "THROW" said object. Using the lighter at the beginning of the game seems like a deliberately contrived parser struggle. I don't think anyone would alight on the correct command in their first ten guesses. So much for easing the player into the game with an easy puzzle or puzzles to begin with.

The surreal nature of the game's geography (a uranium mine, greenhouses, dragons and blueberry pie-festooned kitchens lie in close proximity to each other) does little to create an immersive, tangibly realistic world. One exception to this rule, however is an object you find near the beginning of the game that chatters fearfully when danger is near (obviously a rip-off of Zork's sword that glows blue when danger is near) but it still remains a good way of heightening tension. Unfortunately this is also slightly bugged, as the warnings continue even after you have solved the puzzles associated with them. There are a lot of rooms which are merely fillers; a number of the shops with their associated NPCs and stock are merely there to to bump up the room tally I suspect.

There are many soft and hard locks; the lamp timer and inventory are at least generous and a number of hints to some of the puzzles are strewn about the game, usually on bits of paper or scratched into cave walls. Against this however, as mentioned earlier I can think of at least five "puzzles" which aren't and I spent many hours banging my head against them; the bird cage, the roses room and the teddy bear are just three examples of this particular annoyance. There is one red herring which is very funny and clever but its effect is somewhat diluted by the other head scratchers.

Towards the end of the game you have to draw a pretty obscure connection between something occuring near the beginning of the game and a character you meet near the end; this seems too contrived to me, and even discovering it leaves you trying to parse it correctly. I would class this as unfair. The puzzle content as a whole is something of a curate's egg containing the tough, the very easy and the non-existent. Working out what to do with the orb and the purpose of the pedestal with the triangle suggests to me a leap of deductive reasoning beyond what I would consider logical or fair. On the other hand, if you find a room full of green gas and you find a gas mask nearby you probably know what to do.

This type of game is normally right up my street, and if it had been play tested correctly and had either proper puzzle solutions to the numerous dead ends or indeed, had them removed completely then I would have scored it higher. As it is, you'll need a lot of patience (and the deductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes in a particularly inspired state of mind) to hang on in there to the conclusion, which leaves you on the precipice of the next never to be published chapter.