QUEST ADVENTURE 1: MANOR OF MADNESS BY C.A. MCCARTHY ORIGINALLY RELEASED COMMERCIALLY IN 1984 BY CELTIC SOFTWARE PRODUCTIONS MADE PUBLIC DOMAIN IN 1996 BY THE AUTHOR & ILLUSORY MENTAL IMAGES ABOUT THE GAME --------------------------- In "Manor of Madness", the first in the Quest Adventure series, you assume the role of crack Soviet agent Leonid Smirnoff. You have been assigned to recover the Manhattan Project, a top secret list of Soviet agents working undercover in the United States. Having eluded you many times before, you finally trace the list to an insane asylum, run by French psychologist Dr. I.M. Potti, located deep in the mists of the Yorkshire moors. Upon trying to gain access to the grounds, however, you are knocked unconscious by an escaping lunatic. You awake to find yourself in a strange green bedroom... "Manor of Madness" was originally written in 1983 for the 16K Sinclair ZX81 computer. The version here is an improved 48K Sinclair ZX Spectrum version, written using Gilsoft's "The Quill". Versions were also available for the 48K Oric-1 and Commodore 64 platforms. I have been unable to recover any copies of the Oric or Commodore versions. A later version of the game, released in 1985, contained graphics for some of the game locations. I have chosen not to re-release this version of the game as I was never happy with it, and text was sacrificed in order to incorporate the graphics. Unfortunately, like its author, this game has not aged well. Testing it in August 1996, I found it hard to believe that the game not only sold well, but received almost universally positive reviews upon its release. The game violates almost every word of the Adventure Gamer's Bill of Rights: sudden death abounds, as do random mazes. The player can be left high and dry at any moment, and the locations are very strange indeed. The "plot" is also very weak. But, hey, it's still rather fun in parts. Save often! On the plus side, the yellow on black text is pleasing to the eye, there is on-line help, and the game is free! IMPORTANT IDIOSYNCRASIES (READ THIS!!!) ----------------------------------------------------------------- This version of "Manor of Madness" was written using "The Quill" from Gilsoft, and uses a pretty standard early 1980's command parser (e.g. usual direction and action commands, I or inventory, Help, Examine etc.). One exception is the R or Redescribe command, which repeats the current location description for you. Gilsoft implemented this in lieu of the LOOK command. An odd decision, but one you should be aware of. TRIVIA ----------- "Manor of Madness" was the first commercially available text adventure game to come out of Ireland. In fact, I believe it and its successor, "Corridors of the Nethermind" are the only commercial text adventure games to be produced in Ireland. If anyone knows of any others I'd be curious to hear about them. I have so far been unable to find a copy of "Corridors of the Nethermind". If anybody has a working tape copy of this game, preferably in its original packaging, I have a standing offer of US$100 for it. Check the web site for contact details. The original cover art, along with other games and links to various adventure and non-adventure game related sites, can be found at Illusory Mental Images Home Page at http://www.execpc.com/~illusory/illusory.htm SPECTRUM EMULATORS ----------------------------------- There are a number of ZX Spectrum emulators available at the time I write this, at least for DOS/Windows (I don't know about other platforms). My personal favorite is Z80 which is a very slick package and the one I mostly recommend. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ---------------------------------- Once again I find myself extending thanks to Paul David Doherty for his amiable demeanor and aid in recovering and converting the game from the original tape. Special thanks to Lee Tonks for trying every method possible to recover the data from the tape, and succeeding admirably in the end. Kudos to Arsen Torbarina for his Sinclair Spectrum TapeFix utility. And thanks to Justin Lennon, Shane Conway and Rory Walsh of Celtic Software Productions, for the original commercial release, Gilsoft for "The Quill", Keith Campbell of "Computer & Video Games" magazine, "Crash" magazine, "Your Sinclair" magazine, and Neil Walsh for the cool artwork. LEGAL STUFF -------------------- Quest Adventure 1: "Manor of Madness" was released into the public domain by its author, Colm A. McCarthy, and Illusory Mental Images, in August 1996. The author hereby relinquishes all rights, other than acknowledgment of original authorship, to the game and its contents. "Manor of Madness" is not an Illusory Mental Images product. Illusory Mental Images offer no technical support for the software.