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Segreto della Piramide di Cheope, Il - Review

Review by Zuperfaust

Ratings

Parser/Vocabulary
7
Atmosphere
4
Cruelty
Cruel
Puzzles
6
Overall
6
Written:
21-06-2016
Last edited:
Platform:
C64/128

Segreto_della_Piramide_di_Cheope.png
This game appeared on the Italian magazine Next Strategy (issue 5, December 1985).

You meet your guide outside of the pyramid and then you inevitably fall in. From there, you must explore the pyramid to find your way to the holy sarcophagus, while avoiding mistakes that can kill you.

In reality, the Pyramid of Cheops was found intact, so if you manage to find out the pharaoh's secret you will certainly become famous worldwide.

As expected, there is a pharaoh's curse, and you keep getting hints on what it is and how to overcome it.

The game is neither historic nor educational, but there are some clever puzzles that can serve as a training for expert adventurers.




Parser/Vocabulary (Rating: 7/10)

The parser accepts verbs in the 2nd singular person, recognizes some abbreviations, and 25 verbs (including the four directions), but no synonyms. Here, "guarda" and "esamina" give different results. The player can also type "vocabolario" to get a list of the most common verbs.

You can interact with about 40 objects, and in addition to the usual verb(space)object syntax, the code implements an original way to simulate the "object with object" syntax: verb(space)object1(hypen)object2

This is a nice attempt to replicate the more sophisticated English parsers, and it was indeed an age of experimentation, but it is quite unfamiliar for the player; as a matter of fact, it didn't become a standard at all.

Atmosphere (Rating: 4/10)

First thing first: if you are intolerant to exclamation points, this game is not for you. As a matter of fact, the author(s) put exclamation points everywhere; even the sentences in the instruction booklet are filled with exclamation points.

This fact didn't allow me to feel immersed in the story. To me, it sounded childish and lowered my enjoyment. Also, the fact that you are instructing an "hypothetical friend" (Joe Comp, your guide) but the letal effects of the actions fall exclusively on you and not on your guide is somehow schizophrenic.

At the beginning, the code asks you for the exact height of the entrance in the real Pyramid of Cheops, and if you guess wrong you are encouraged to look it up in an encyclopedia. This leads one to think it wants to be an educational game, but in fact it isn't. As an example, rooms are all at the same level, which is quite unrealistic since pyramids' locations were always at different levels.

Anyway, the author(s) wanted to recreate the period and the splendor of the 4th Dynasty (approx. 2600-2500 b.C) and some descriptions are well written.

The ending is long enough to have you feel really satisfied to have spent all that time playing... but then you receive your congratulations from your computer itself, and you realize that Joe's surname is Computer, and your blissful state may experience a sudden drop.

Cruelty (Rating: Cruel)

Unfortunately there are several places where you must type in the actions in the exact order and one immediately after the other, otherwise you die due to a mummy appearing from nowhere or you're stuck with no chance of completing the game.

Puzzles (Rating: 6/10)

There are many actions to be made, some are quite obvious due to the context, while some others are difficult to imagine. Many objects are useful, and some of them are very well hidden.

In any case, the game expects common verbs, although the order in which puzzles are solved DOES count in specific cases (see Cruelty).

I was disappointed with one particular puzzle: you had to carry out three different actions, with cinematic descriptions from the game, and eventually the reward turned out to be useless for the ultimate solution. You can solve the adventure without even knowing of that puzzle. Isn't it a waste of creativity?

Overall (Rating: 6/10)

According to the author(s), this game was intended for expert players. I agree this is not an easy adventure, and beginners will feel frustrated with the puzzles and the dying, but it is not impossible either.

I'm giving a 6/10 because this adventure deserves to be played, in spite of all its idiosyncrasies.

After solving the puzzles to have access to the last part of the tomb, you can enjoy the last three rooms which put you before the whims of a mage, the sphinx, and the pharaoh. There is a sort of crescendo in the final part, and the player can really feel satisfied to have been cleverer than those figures.