Spellbound Longplay (C64) [50 FPS]
114Developed by David Jones/Richard Darling and published by Mastertronic in 1986
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Despite owning many games back on my C64 back in the day, there are many more that I have yet to discover. One of my viewers was keen to see a longplay of Spellbound, so I decided to rise to the challenge!
Devised as a sequel to David Jones' earlier title, Finders Keepers, Spellbound was released in 1986 under the Mastertronic Added Dimension (MAD) label. Magic Knight, our hero from the first game, takes centre stage once again in a new adventure that is quite a departure from the before!
MK's mentor and generally decent wizard-like chap, Gimbal, has gotten himself into a spot of bother. In an attempt to give his favourite dessert of rice pudding a touch more pizzazz, Gimbal casts a powerful spell that backfires, catapulting both himself and Magic Knight through time and space to the castle of Karn. Once the dust settles, it transpires that a whole host of other characters were ripped from their own dimensions and teleported to the castle as well.
It turns out that Gimbal is now trapped inside a crystal prison under the influence of an unpleasant wipeout spell, plus the other folks around the castle are none-too-pleased about their current predicament. Taking it upon himself to save the day, Magic Knight must find a way to release Gimbal and send everyone back to their correct dimensions.
Although the game might seem like a platform game at first glance, it is actually much more of a puzzle and exploration game than anything else. The castle is divided into multiple floors, each comprised of a number of interconnected rooms that Magic Knight must explore.
Many of the rooms contain items that can be picked up and used elsewhere to solve some of the game's many puzzles, whilst others turn out to be nothing but useless junk. Part of the challenge is working out which are useful and which should be left behind. Although Magic Knight can carry a maximum of five items at one time, it is possible to drop items in any rooms and come back for them later.
Interactions with items and characters can be initiated by pressing the fire-button, which causes a pop-up window to appear on screen with a list of different actions. Pushing up or down on the stick moves a hand icon through the items and pressing fire will open any sub-menus associated with the parent option. Spellbound is quite possibly one of the earliest examples of a menu-driven adventure game that I've played and, given that the vast majority of adventure/puzzle games were text adventures (with some notoriously shonky parsers), this is seriously innovative for the time.
Another great twist is the inclusion and use of the mirror item. The mirror creates a reflection of oneself, allowing the player to see which items are being carried, as well as remaining strength. It took me a while to work out exactly was causing the inventory and health bar to appear, but I eventually figured it out and I think it's a very cool feature. Veteran players might decide to eschew the mirror in favour of freeing up an inventory space for other items, but run the risk of running out of strength a the most inopportune moment.
Perhaps even more interesting are the game's cast of supporting characters and how they behave. Far from being static, lifeless entities, each character has a list of basic needs that need attending to over the course of the game if you are to succeed. For example, each character's mood is reflected by his/her happiness rating - if this drops too low then they will be unwilling to help out, or will refuse to be summoned. Similarly, if they get too tired then they will fall asleep and cannot be called upon until their stamina level has raised sufficiently to stay awake.
As innovative as the game is, it's not without some faults. Working out which items are genuinely useful is difficult enough in itself, but working out where and how to use them is far from simple and can be somewhat frustrating.
As for the game's visuals, this is a conversion of a Spectrum game after all so don't expect glorious technicolour! The sprites are nicely drawn, but the good ol' primary colour, neon-esque colour palette from the Speccy version is alive and kicking.
The game features some in-game music (courtesy of Rob Hubbard) which is fairly atmospheric and suitably haunting with a slight medieval vibe. There are a couple of basic sound effects as well, but this definitely isn't going to win any awards for sound design.
Despite these niggles, Spellbound is quite a remarkable title thanks to the (largely) intuitive interaction menus and overall interface presentation. For 1986, this was an early example of effective, menu-driven design that would eventually evolve into the point-and-click adventure genre.
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