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Cranston Manor - Review

Review by Canalboy

Ratings

Parser/Vocabulary
6
Atmosphere
6
Cruelty
Tough
Puzzles
7
Overall
7
Written:
05-01-2025
Last edited:
Platform:
Atari 400/800

This is a pretty good old style treasure hunt with a few annoying bugs, some of which may be caused by the Altirra emulator I was using.

I played the original 1981 text only version for the Atari. if you leave a space at the beginning of your command response the game crashes with an error 5. After destroying the computer and the hologram you can still be shot by a tin soldier in the blast room even though they are all meant to be disabled. Inventory limits are set at eight and you will need to find a way to recharge both the droid you are controlling and the lamp. In all there are sixteen treasures to find and one other object. Throwing the dagger anywhere describes the stasis field even when you are not in it. It is not at all obvious what you are supposed to do after collecting all the treasures. Two of the puzzle solutions are arrived at only via the utilisation of obscure verbs. This is of course a cheap way of upping the difficulty quotient without constructing clever or elaborate puzzles.




Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 6/10)

About 130 words are understood according to the manual and the two word parser is usually adequate.

Atmosphere (Rating: 6/10)

The descriptions are quite long and atmospheric. Room logistics are generally logical i.e. the kitchen is next to the dining room.

Cruelty (Rating: Tough)

You can softlock this quite easily. Obscure verbs are needed in two places.

Puzzles (Rating: 7/10)

There aren't that many but those there are seem of a medium difficulty to me.

Overall (Rating: 7/10)

One of the best early treasure hunts.