Dark Mage

SPAG
Dark Mage is a unique work. Using bank-switching to achieve the needed resolution, it is a complete implementation of an original text adventure within an 8k Atari 2600 program. [...] The game did reveal that (aside from the technological strong-man freak-show value of an endeavor like this) there are at least a few pleasures to be had in an extremely spare form. These stemmed mostly from the unusual replies, with less thrill provided by puzzle-solving. In many places, the quickest path through solution space may be the exhaustive search approach: simply doing everything in every location to try to advance. The occasionally witty subversion of my action into something wacky provided a good moment here and there, but it was not enough to make Dark Mage a really fun experience overall. It remains of interest as a retrocomputing curiosity -- and, to some extent, as a way to learn about the essence of IF by looking to the least ornamented, most simple examples.
-- Nick Montfort
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