Volcano Isle

>INVENTORY - Paul O'Brian writes about interactive fiction

Volcano Isle, with its sparse implementation, mindreader puzzles, maze, and inventory limit, annoyed me greatly. The game clearly wants to pay homage to Zork -- that suspicious-looking individual carries a "vicious-looking stiletto"; there are various treasures to collect, and a place to deposit them; there's a tree to climb, a rope to descend, and, of course, a maze. Unfortunately, the whole thing ended up feeling like an amateurish copy of something that was a) more than the sum of its parts because of quality implementation and writing, and b) interesting because it was doing some of these things for the first time rather than the 500th. Volcano Isle is neither.