Read any good games lately? If not, curl up in front of your Mac with Brimstone, an interactive Arthurian novel that follows the exploits of Sir Gawain as he journeys down to the bottom of Ulro (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dante’s vision of Hell) and, hopefully, returns a better person for the experience
Brimstone is packaged with a hardcover book that explains the background of the scenario and its characters and lists the rules of play. Unfortunately, the fiction part of the book (about three-quarters) is downright awful, written in a pseudo-diary style that offers little advancement of the Brimstone plot. It seems to be more of a self-indulgence by game author James Paul, whose text is far better in the actual program. It also, by the way, serves as copyprotection, with the Mac asking you for the "third word in the fourth fine on page 31" (this changes every time) to unlock the program .
Once you've plodded through the book, the real fun begins. The story, as explained in the typical third-person perspective often seen in non-electronic novels, is simple: Sir Gawain falls asieep in his chamber, dreaming of a strange castle on a hill. There, he finds several challenges, but if all goes according to the story, he is tricked by the witch Morgan le Fay into taking King Arthur's chair and thereby committing treason. Condemned to a tiny cell in the middle of Ulro, he must find a way to escape from jail — and from Ulro itself.
The storyline is good, offering a mental workout without the danger of puzzle overload. Generally, the answers are always right there for those who look for them, yet you'll still have enough of a mental challenge to feel satisfied (and very smart) after figuring out the solution to a problem.
The action is explained on-screen in the third person, but players are spoken to by the program in the first person. For example, the computer might ask you to identify yourself. ”I am Gawain.“ you'd type in. The story would progress with, ” ’My name is Sir Gawain,‘ said the knight with a flourish.“ It's a little schizophrenic, but you'll get used to it.
To communicate with the program, players type in full sentence commands via the keyboard (no menu shortcuts here, folks). To communicate with a person, you have to type the person s name and then use quotation marks to mark what they actually say. And the program punishes those who infringe on the sentence parser's limits by rebuking Sir Gawain sharply, then instructing him in proper communication.
Forman Hines, Tracie. (July 1986). Brimstone. MacUser. (pgs. 34, 36).