textfiles/games/REVIEWS/trap.rev

 TREASURE TRAP

 TREASURE TRAP is a strategy/arcade game written by Brian Kelly and Paul
McLaughlin, published by Emerald Software, and distributed by Electronic
Zoo. This addictive, great-playing game offers excellent graphics,
animation, and sound, a sunken ship, a fabulous treasure hidden in over 100
rooms, keyboard control, save option, support for additional memory, and
copy protection. To play the Atari ST version, the basis of this review,
you'll need at least 512K, a color monitor, and a 360K disk drive.

 Electronic Zoo, a European developer that now has a US office, makes an
auspicious debut with TREASURE TRAP. Graphics and animation are excellent
throughout, and the game worked like a charm. There are all kinds of nasty
underwater creatures, and the clever puzzles become ever more challenging
as the game goes on. E-Zoo has at least 9 ST packages available -- Amiga
and IBM machines, and in some cases the Commodore 64, are also supported
-- and more are in the works.

 Many years ago, a boiler room exploded on the Esmeralda, a 210-foot
luxury liner carrying $20 million in gold bars. The ship lies 300 feet
beneath the Pacific Ocean, and, as famous salvage diver Howard Kelp, you
are about to plunge into the drink to recover the treasure hoard, whose
value has skyrocketed in the intervening years to $50 million. The gold
bars are scattered throughout the Esmeralda's 100 rooms, but even worse is
the site of the wreckage: it's a feeding ground for a menagerie of undersea
creatures: crabs, eels, sharks, piranha, jellyfish, and stingrays, all of
which are ravenous and deadly to the touch.

 The goal of TRAP is to enter a room, get the gold, and escape into the
next room. You have six lives; the touch of an undersea creature will knock
off a life, as will running out of air; collecting 200 gold bars earns an
extra life, and when all lives are gone the game ends. Collect 50 gold bars
and you can save the game.

 The ST screen display consists of the Esmeralda's current stateroom; it's
placed diagonally onscreen, like the picture-platforms of NEVERMIND or the
mansion rooms of DEVON AIRE. In the room is the helmeted Howard Kelp; there
are also creatures, crates, air tanks, high-pressure bubbles that drip from
the ceiling, keys, furniture, gold bars, and doors to other rooms; smart
fish, when collected and later released in a room, will eat anything
lethal. Along the bottom edges of the room are gold, smart fish, and lives
counters; an indicator that'll flash until you've found all the gold in a
room; and a bar gauge that keeps track of your air supply.

 When you first enter a room, you'll see a large "M" blinking in the upper
left corner. Press the "M" key and you'll see a scrollable, overhead map
view of the sunken Esmeralda, on which appears the rooms you've entered
thus far.

 TRAP is controlled with the keyboard: the arrow keys direct Howard's
diagonal movement; the Spacebar makes him jump. The joystick can be
substituted for movement keystrokes (it helps to turn it); the button
substitutes for a Spacebar jump. Keystroke D picks up and drops keys; S
releases a smart fish; P pauses; F toggles sound; and R will let you
redefine the keyboard.

 The TREASURE TRAP package comes with two 360K disks that are
copy-protected, instruction manual, Reference Guide, and diver's log. For
game saves, you'll need a blank disk, which TRAP will format. On booting,
TRAP will detect additional memory beyond 512K -- in this instance, a 1040
with a 512K Polydisk cartridge -- and will build a RAMdisk for speedy and
noiseless decompression of graphics data and faster screen loads.

 The graphics of TREASURE TRAP on the ST are excellent throughout: the
colors are bright and the details are recognizable. Animation is notable as
well: eels slither, starfish crawl, fish breathe, and Howard's air bubbles
are a most useful visual reference. Getting a stack of gold bars provides
the strategic element, and it's so easy that it's not easy: some of the
bars are on top of stacked crates, or hidden beneath them, or in full view
but guarded by overzealous sea life. Some crates float; some rise and fall
or move back and forth; and still others disappear or otherwise move at the
slightest touch, thus releasing whatever sea beasts might have been trapped
behind them. Objects can be pushed around and climbed on so that you can
reach higher objects. The underwater creatures are everywhere, and while
their movement seems patterned, it changes at the slightest disturbance,
such as opening a door and walking into the room.

 Perfectly matched strategy and arcade actions make TREASURE TRAP a most
excellent game, great fun to look at and great fun to play. I wouldn't
exactly call it easy but it certainly is addictive and you ought to have
it.

 TREASURE TRAP is published by Emerald Software and distributed by
Electronic Zoo.