Spheres of Chaos - Review

Spheres of Chaos is a rare avis indeed - that is a large text only adventure consisting of over 250 locations written by Chris Grant in 1994 (his only adventure as far as I can see) and I played it via the RPCEmu Emulator.

It is a linear odyssey with the goal to collect seven spheres of chaos scattered throughout an impoverished rural kingdom set in an indefinite age and then to harness their power to prevent an evil king using them to his nefarious ends.
The white text on black background display is easy on the eye and the excellent location descriptions show that the author has a real eye for creating a believable milieu. The game also features sixteen NPCs which is more than most adventures of its kind. These range from friendly ones (the Giant and the Hermit) to those of a less philanthropic bent (the somewhat incongruous lager lout who vacillates between trying to kill you and calling you his best mate). Most of them can be addressed and often they proffer up useful information or objects; some need bribing.

The game itself is split up into several regions, namely a windmill surrounded by corn fields, a large forest, a lake with a water mill and central island, an interesting "city in the sky" constructed of bridges and tree houses high in the trees of a forest, an overgrown crater and a large castle replete with cesspit (don't try swimming!) and a balcony. Some of the regions cannot be revisited so it is important to work out which objects you need when leaving one particular region as the inventory limit is set at six and is predicated on number, not weight. There are three objects for which there appear to be no use. There are a few small mazes but they can be entered and exited fairly quickly via random movements with the exception of the small maze in the mine.

Given the size of the game the actual puzzles themselves are not great in number and I can't help but feel that the acquisition of the spheres could have been made more interesting and difficult as none require strong powers of reasoning to acquire, with the exception of the Sphere of Despair.

There are a few bugs scattered throughout the game, i.e. you can carry all seven spheres if you drop all and take all but only six of them if you pick them up one by one. Another annoying feature is that the HELP command admonishes you for your stupidity and exits the game play session. There is also only scope for one saved position so I ended up moving saved game states and renaming them as backups.

The parser is run of the mill and recognises EXAMINE and TAKE ALL. The game has no score or progress indicator but does exhibit an occasional dry wit, i.e. attempting to kill someone who is not present elicits, "There is no-one here to kill. What a shame."

Overall an interesting and none too easy diversion. I recommend drawing a map as some regions are difficult to reconnoitre from memory.

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Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 6/10)

A reasonable parser that recognises most objects in a room and has synonyms for most necessary verbs. I was seldom stuck for what to say or how to phrase a certain action.

Atmosphere (Rating: 7/10)

The game's strong point. The descriptions are of medium length but the kingdom is atmospherically and believable described and the regions fit together in a coherent whole. The NPCs add to the sense of realism.

Cruelty (Rating: Tough)

It is possible to leave behind an object you have yet to use and not be able to claim it back. There are no sudden death endings that I have discovered.

Puzzles (Rating: 4/10)

The game's weak point. There are not many of them and most are blindingly obvious with one or two exceptions.

Overall (Rating: 6/10)

This is worth a look but needs a map and a fair amount of patience to navigate.