This is another large and finicky Epic adventure with interminable dull paths and real-time elements. It is not possible to refill your lamp as I eventually discovered, despite there being a large pool of oil you cannot replenish your oil lamp for reasons which are less than obvious.
The premise is that you find yourself on a country road next to a well after spinning a strange wheel you found lying in a country lane; to return to civilisation you must find 23 treasures and then...well, it should be fairly obvious.
There are umpteen ways of soft and hard locking yourself out of completion in this game so you must save in almost an anal fashion. Remember the lamp will burn in real time too so no dawdling or al fresco lamp lighting. Some exits are not clued so mapping is essential here so as not to waste precious lamp oil.
The game has a number of split second timing decisions to make, mostly centering around when and where to interact with the various NPCs in the game as well as some one visit only areas. Discovering which objects to take with you into these areas and the order in which to visit them will inevitably lead to numerous reloads and restarts. The ten item inventory limit may sound ample but there are times when you will need to take that many items with you so there is no scope for getting it wrong.
Some of the puzzles are quite clever and although the parser is fairly limited I didn't have much trouble in expressing my desire, with the exception of one set piece involving a farmer and a bull in a china shop
Location descriptions tend to be terse and repetitive but squeezing 218 illustrated rooms into the 32K Beeb won't have been easy this side of Level 9 text compression techniques.
Adequate but not great, as befitting the size of the game and the memory available.
Nothing special really. If you have played Epic games you will be used to the terse utilitarian and repetitive nature of the prose.
Very, very nasty. You have no knowledge of which items to take into certain one visit only areas and unclued deaths lurk around many corners. There is areal time lamp timer to battle against as well as obstructive NPCs including a policemen, a werewolf ,a troll etc. One wrong character interaction and you are screwed. Don't let the tramp pick up any items strewn around.
These are the game's strong suit. Some of them are clever and none too easy but rarely unfair.
A high six I should say.