The Crystal Frog

I love digging through the archives of 8-bit computer text adventures. There were so many released, due to the widespread availability of user-friendly adventure game engines (such as the one used by this game, The Quill), that you can find yourself in some truly undiscovered territory; games that haven't been played hardly ever since their initial release. Of course, being the era it was, a number of these game can be very difficult, and there may not be much in the way of hints. You also need to hunt down the manual if you want the backstory for most of the games, which is usually essential. But, if you're willing to be brave, you can have a lot of fun.

Which brings us to The Crystal Frog, an oddly-titled, old-fashioned treasure hunt. The story is as simple as can be; there's a valuable artifact called - you guessed it - The Crystal Frog. Go and get it. That's it.

How you go about getting it is the fun part. The game has a vaguely creepy, surreal atmosphere, as move through a series of disconnected environments, solving puzzles and avoiding death. This is very traditional, echoing back to the original Adventure in several resounding notes. You encounter creatures and places from a variety of sources - fairy tales, classic literature, horror, all described laconically and eerily. No one wants to talk to you - NPCs exist to be given what they want, and then vanish. You move between areas like Alice in Wonderland, the world changing with the disquieting suddenness of a dream. Several of the deaths you can experience are quite creepy indeed. All of this seems very intentional, and is a welcome change from the impartial blandness or jovial self-awareness found in other treasure hunt games. Much credit to the author, David Brown, here.

In addition to the titular frog, there are several optional puzzles you can solve for additional points, and your score is given as a percentage, making it easy to gauge your progress. You can die, sometimes without warning, and there's at least one timed puzzle, so save often. The game is small enough that it never becomes an issue, and knowing that death might be around every corner contributes to the game's suspenseful atmosphere.

So, this all sounds pretty good, right? No, it's not very ambitious, and no, it doesn't do anything that new, but it's a game in the classic Adventure/Adventureland style done right - something many try, but not too many pull off (how many games have you played that claim to be "like Scott Adams", and fall so short of fun? Too many for me!). So why the middling rating?

Well, there's a bugged room containing vital information right near the end that makes the game unwinnable, (Spoiler - click to show)(a code you need to open the final door is in a room that, when you enter, makes said final door unopenable. Sadly, a score bonus, for killing a vampire, is hidden there, so you can't get 100%) and prevents you from getting a perfect score. Only way to get past it is to look it up in a walkthrough first, or save in the right spot, go on until you get the information, and then restore back to that point to proceed. It's not quite game-killing, but it does take the wind out of your sails, or at least it did for me. I hate when you can't solve a puzzle legitimately, and I hate not being able to score the full 100%. Some might say that gameplay-wise, it's not that different from learning by dying, but at least that's intended, and you know what happened. Knowing that this was just a mistake, and that you could be wandering around forever before you figure it out (like I did), that just doesn't sit right with yours truly.

Either way, now you know to look out for it, and you can click the very mild spoiler in the last paragraph for a hint on exactly what room it is that triggers the bug. The rest of the game is worth playing, though, and it makes for an enjoyable evening of spooky exploring.