Game 273: Spirit of Adventure (1991)

     

Spirit of Adventure

Germany

Attic Entertainment Software (developer); Starbyte (publisher)

Released in 1991 for DOS, Amiga, and Atari ST; 1992 for Commodore 64

Date Started: 12 December 2017

Spirit of Adventure is a potentially-enjoyable title from the minds and hands of Hans-Jürgen Brändle and Guido Henkel, two developers at the cusp of fame. They had cut their teeth on Drachen von Laas (1991) and would soon find renown with the Realms of Arkania series, which uses an update of Spirit's interface.

Sprit was originally released in German, and like many German games of the era, it shows a heavy Bard's Tale influence, particularly in the graphics, the layout of the city, and the approach to combat. But it also shows an awareness of Legend of Faerghail (1990) and has similar elements to Antares (1991), published the same year (I'm not sure which came first). In my experience so far, it makes small improvements on its sources.

The backstory is sketched in the manual and fleshed out as you explore and talk with NPCs. The game is set in the world of Lamarge. The planet's first civilization turned its back on their creators and destroyed itself. The survivors are in the process of re-building and re-discovering old magics. Society is governed by the Cult of Knowing, which studies and makes use of the power of magical runes. The Cult's power is being threatened by the Fraternity of Dreamers, dedicated to trafficking a highly-addictive drug called Opitar. An estimated 20% of the population is addicted, crime is rampant, and "the very fabric of society is endangered." A group of adventurers have been commissioned to track down the source of the drug and stop the machinations of the Dreammaster, the elusive leader of the Fraternity.
     

Rowena, head of the Cult in the starting city, lays it all out. I don't think the runes on her robe actually spell anything.

      
The player assembles a party of six characters. Races and classes are mostly original, though drawn from familiar themes. There are basically four classes, though the male and female versions of the classes have different names (something we saw previously, to some degree, in Faerghail). Warriors and Amazons are the fighting classes, magicians and goddesses the spellcasters, and priests and fairies the clerics. Samurais and banshees serve as warrior/priests.

Races are described in terms of attributes but not appearance, and from the portraits everyone seems to be human. Odinaries are a Nordic race, hardy, clumsy, and stupid. Tidicians are forest barbarians, strong and healthy but ugly and clumsy. Dyce come from cities and have high marks in intelligence and magic. Finally, Allays live in smaller towns and are weaker, but with high charisma and intelligence.
     

Creating a "goddess" character.

      
The races mostly affect the attributes, which are randomly rolled by the computer: body, mind, magic, strength, dexterity, IQ, and charisma.
     
The party starts in Moon City. The city's "monastery" serves in the same fashion as the "adventurer's guild" of Bard's Tale. Only here can you save the game and create new characters. New characters start with a paltry selection of equipment.
     

The monastery is kind of like the "town hall" of Lamarge.

    
The "principal" of the monastery has some words before the party departs. In Moon City, the principal's name is Rowena.

I spent most of the first session simply exploring Moon City, which is a large 32 x 32. Like The Bard's Tale, it has a few important locations mixed within dozens of private homes. Spirit has a fun selection of graphics and NPC comments for those private homes, but you have to try all of them because the essential locations aren't obvious from the outside. 

     

He's awfully polite given that I interrupted his dinner.

This guy is more to the point.

      

The game is graphically more sophisticated than The Bard's Tale, showing details like flower boxes, hung laundry, and carts in front of the homes. Each street and square has a unique name, which is also a fun touch.

  

A shirt dries outside a house on Ordain Boulevard.

     

Key locations are scattered throughout the city and I haven't been able to visit them all yet, partly because there's both a day/night cycle and a day of week cycle that keeps some locations closed. So far, I've found several taverns, a weapons shop, an armor shop, a general goods store, a magic shop, a healer, a thieves' guild, a seer, and a mage who recharges crystals. Thus far, I haven't spent much money.

     

It will be a while before I can afford anything at the magic shop.

What kind of a world closes its taverns on hump day?

       

In one fairly significant improvement over its sources, Spirit of Adventure features NPCs who respond to dialogue keywords. Some of them occupy fixed homes but others wander the streets. Through experimentation, I found that most of them responded to OPITAR, LAMARGE, CULT, DREAMERS, and ROWENA.

       

Bartenders and named NPCs respond to keywords.

      

The first NPC I encountered was named Corbryn. His portrait looked like Oliver Hardy. He offered me a book called Monas Hieroglyphica for 500 gold pieces, and because I misinterpreted my total gold piece reserve as just an individual character's, I thought I had plenty, so I bought it. I couldn't find anything to do with it in my inventory. Later, I met him again in a different part of the city, and he protested that it wasn't his fault that I don't know how to read hieroglyphics, so perhaps the book just exists to get me to waste money. During the first conversation, Corbryn also mentioned that he'd seen a Banshee woman selling Opitar in the city.

     

Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.

       

I found the Banshee, Grishna, elsewhere on the streets. She offered to sell me some Opitar for 1,000 gold pieces, far more than I have.

      

She also had an oddly angry reaction to a question about Elfrad.

      

In a house, I met Yakka Deepshaved, whose portrait is clearly based on Sean Connery in Highlander. He said he was an elf, which I didn't even know was a race in this setting. He said he'd tell me the name of the head of the Cult of Knowing if I could tell him the name of the mayor of the city of Elfrad. I guess I'll have to return after I visit Elfrad. He also mentioned that Rowena likes to roam the city's streets at night.

       

You call that "deep"? You missed at least two spots!

      

In one major departure from The Bard's Tale and most of its clones, combats are somewhat rare in the opening city. There was maybe one every 5-7 minutes. During combat, characters can make a physical attack, a mental attack, or cast a spell (the latter two depending on class). Antares also had the physical/mental distinction, and I wonder if one game influenced the other. I'll naturally have more on combat in a later entry.

     

Trading blows with some witches and goblins.

    

My characters get pretty battered from combat, and most of my gold so far has gone to the healer, since neither physical nor mental hit points seem to restore over time.

     

This guy is eyeing a second home in Santa Barbara because of me.

        

None of the characters start with spells. I have to create them later in a "rune temple." I'm not sure if the magic system has anything to do with the slate of Futhark runes on the left side of the screen, or otherwise what they're telling me.

        

Also a bit of a mystery is the nature of character development.  You get experience for combat, but to actually level up you have to visit a "mysterious place" somewhere in Lamarge. Supposedly, leveling up improves statistics and allows you to acquire new skills. Every character starts with one magic skill, selected at random I think. I'm not sure if they work automatically or if there's some way to call on them. Some of the skills my characters have aren't described in the manual.

The interface isn't the best. Much of the time, you can select a menu option by pressing the associated number or first letter, but sometimes the developers didn't translate them from German. Any time the game asks "yes/no," for instance, and you want to say yes, you have to press "J" for ja. There's no clear command to "use" inventory items, so I'm not sure how that works. Trading items between characters requires more strokes than it should, and I keep having to look in the manual about how to do it. There appears to be no keyboard shortcut to view a character's inventory (you have to double-click on the portrait), but oddly you have to use the keyboard to get out of the inventory with an undocumented "Q," presumably for "Quit." [Edit: I missed some keyboard shortcuts. They exist, but they require CTRL.] There's no armor class statistic and thus no easy way to see the relative protection offered by armors.

     

My Amazon. This is a useful screen, but there's no obvious way to leave it.

     

There's a navigation issue that I don't know how to describe. When you stand next to a building or door, from the side it looks like you're immediately adjacent to it. But when you turn to face it, it appears that you're one square away. You have to advance to the door and then advance again to enter. If you only advance once, then turn, the game moves you one square away again. It's not crippling, but it takes some getting used to.

Before I wrapped up this session, I took one of the four exits from Moon City and found myself on a top-down overland map. Presumably I'll find other cities and dungeons here. I have no idea how big the game is. It would be nice if not all the maps were so big.

        

The overland world of Lamarge.

       

Before I forget, I need to thank a reader named Jan for providing me with a spoiler-free English version of the manual and for otherwise doing some initial scouting on the game and its versions. Apparently, the C64 version is a travesty that we'll have to later explore.

        

My map of Moon City.

       

"The Bard's Tale but with more plot, Ultima-style dialogue, and fewer combats" sounds like a great game, and I look forward to seeing how this one shapes up. I could see it becoming very hard, with no clear way to level up and nowhere to save except the monastery. By next time, we'll know.

Time so far: 4 hours

****

SSI's Realms of Darkness was supposed to be Game #273, but I can't get any version working. Every C64 version I download insists that there's something wrong with the disk drive when I boot the game. Every Apple II version allows me to create characters but then complains that "characters exist" already on the adventure disks and gives me no ability to delete them. If you've ever gotten the game running and can educate me on how, I'd love your help. Until then, I think I have to list it as "not playable."