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About the StoryAn adaptation of the classic sword & sorcery tale by Robert E. Howard, first published in 1933. Game Details
Language: English (en)
Current Version: 1 License: Freeware Development System: Inform Baf's Guide ID: 2955 IFID: A6F3F4FC-01C5-4B8A-9486-5CE3BCE52088 TUID: a6pcygzm8y4czmgr |
Awards
15th Place - 12th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition (2006)
Editorial Reviews
Textsplaining
Text Games That Time Forgot: The Tower of the Elephant
It does justice to the source material while allowing the player agency to take a different direction than Conan did in the original story.
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Member Reviews
| Average Rating: Number of Reviews: 2 Write a review |
Vivid, but Under-Implemented, April 26, 2015This short adaptation of one of Robert E. Howard's Conan stories features engaging prose and good characterization, which is odd, because I remember Howard's prose and characterization as clunky and overblown. I suppose all Howard needed was a good editor.
The game itself, however, is under-implemented. Nouns, plurals, and synonyms are missing, making it tough for the player to communicate with the parser. There's even a guess-the-preposition puzzle here, which forced me to consult the walk-through. And, instead of providing clues in the descriptions, the author makes suggestions directly to the player.
Still, this game has interesting stuff in it. One of the game's branches creates a small role-reversal for the player-character. Instead of an NPC following the PC, you follow another character. Fun, but taking this path bypasses the game's best puzzle. There's also a vivid, and effective, action sequence here, a rarity in IF.
I'd say it's worth fighting the parser a bit for a few good puzzles and the excellent writing this game offers.
A Conan the Barbarian story adapted to IF, June 11, 2016I really enjoyed the story of this game, which makes sense, because it was adapted from a famous Conan the Barbarian story. The author has done a good job adapting it.
The game could use more synonyms; you often climb by going east instead of going up, and up doesn't work.
The action sort of slows down in the main conversation part of the game.
This game is fairly short.
If you enjoyed The Tower of the Elephant...
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Recommended Lists
The Tower of the Elephant appears in the following Recommended Lists:Linear thriller games by MathBrush
These are games that are pretty straightforward, and which are designed to be easy enough that you can keep moving forward while hard enough to make you nervous. These games get your blood pumping.
Polls
The following polls include votes for The Tower of the Elephant:Fast-paced action scenes by Juhana
Fast-paced action is something that's notoriously hard to do in IF where waiting for player's input necessarily pauses the game every turn. Which games have succeeded in creating action scenes that convey the sense of urgency, danger and...
Games that are adaptations of conventional (not CYOA) books by ChrisM
I'm interested in games that are straightforward adaptations of conventional books (probably novels, but I'd be interested to know if there are any non-fiction book adaptations). The ones that I know of are The Famous Five and The...
This is version 2 of this page, edited by Marshal Tenner Winter on 24 February 2020 at 3:38pm. - View Update History - Edit This Page - Add a News Item