Mountains of Ket

Despite its status as a contest game, and its age, this is a perfectly playable game. You're robbed of an examine command for all but your items, but most of what you have to do can be deduced. The key word being most. There are a few completely impossible puzzles in here, thrown in purely to slow progress on the contest. Whether some dedicated geek got through without waiting for a magazine hint is anyone's guess. Fortunately, the other puzzles are easy to intuit and fun to play around with. You'll know when you've run into a brick wall. Peek at a walkthrough and continue on your way.

Of course, you can die left and right, or end up in an unwinnable situation. Combat, step and die traps, missing items, missed information... it's all here in its early 80's glory. But you likely know what you're getting into. This game packs personality into its small bites (or should I say bytes?) of text, and can be fun for those who don't mind a game that hits the hard end of the Cruel ranking. A fun bonus: you can carry over your stats into the second game in the trilogy, which is a marked improvement over this one.