Volcano Isle

SynTax
Now this is what I call an adventure! Volcano Isle is a traditional TADS text adventure which has got everything an adventure should have - an evil guy to defeat, treasure to collect, good scenery, a tree to climb, a maze, and a great ending. There are a few nods to other games which you'll recognise ... I just loved it.
See the full review

>VERBOSE -- Paul O'Brian's Interactive Fiction Page

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.
See the full review