Publisher Description
A well-written and thoroughly absorbing adventure game . . . The Domain is a six-storey building, each floor consisting of a maze of rooms and passages. Along with either one or two friends, your task is (surprise, surprise!) to find the treasure hidden in one of these rooms. To do this, you and your team wander through the Domain picking up the odd artefact along the way and generally being nosey . . . It should be noted, however, that things can get distinctly hairy down in the lower regions.
The Domain, naturally enough, is inhabited by an assortment of zombies, trolls, ogres, dragons and other dodgy types who make it their business to lurk in dark corners -- doing whatever it is mythical monsters do in dark corners. On meeting one or more of the Domain's tenants, you have a number of options; including striking up a friendly conversation, and, very sensibly, getting the hell out of it! For braver souls, you also have the option to pick a fight in order to claim the contents of the room, but I should warn you that some of the occupants have distinctly violent tendencies.
Your chances of coming out of a confrontation with an irate centaur -- with the same number of limbs as when you entered the room -- depend on the relative strengths of your team and that of your opponent. These strengths are measured in terms of four factors: survival, battle, magic and communication. Initially, you have to choose your team to obtain what you feel to be the optimum combination of these factors. During your journey, the more fights you win, the more monster-types you manage to convert to your noble cause (getting rich quick), and the greater area of the maze you manage to explore, the greater your party's strength.
Before you begin your epic voyage into the unknown, take a bit of time to choose your team carefully. Magicians rate highly on communication and magic, but they don't make particularly good 'minders'; fighters are good in battle but have the IQ of educationally sub-normal carrots. Our referee recommends staying well clear of the lower levels until you have some strong fighters on your side!
Game points are awarded for various reasons: the acquisition of gold, platinum, jewels, artefacts and killing the Djinn, who, incidentally, are neither poor nor defenceless -- so don't waste any sympathy on them! The artefacts referred to include such things as Rhombs -- handy-sized hyperspace units enabling you to jump from one place to another instantly. However, they only work on the level you're on.
In case all this sounds complicated, it is. It's not the sort of game you can master in ten minutes and wonder what to do next.
Australian Personal Computer magazine's Program of the Month: TRS-80/System 80.