textfiles/games/REVIEWS/demnwint.rev

 DEMON'S WINTER 

 DEMON'S WINTER is a fantasy role-playing adventure game by Craig
Roth and David Stark, published by Strategic Simulations, and
distributed by Electronic Arts. While not necessarily a sequel, 
DEMON'S offers a world over 30 times larger than its
pseudo-predecessor SHARD OF SPRING, ten character classes, 30
skills, all kinds of magic, lots of monsters and combat, good
graphics, a save game option, keyboard or keyboard/joystick
control, and no copy protection. This review is based on the
Commodore 64 version; Apple II and Atari ST version notes follow. 

 Although DEMON'S WINTER doesn't break any new ground in the D&D
adventure, it certainly rehashes a lot of old ground. Still, like
most SSI fantasy games, it is competently done, looks okay, plays
well, and will keep D&D'ers occupied for many hours. DEMON'S has an
Introductory Level rating, which isn't totally accurate; it's
actually closer to Intermediate -- at least until you've been at it
long enough to build up experience. 

 During the 5,000 years since the events of SHARD OF SPRING, the
land of Ymros has gone through changes. While some of the towns
remain, the terrain has been subjected to alterations -- some not so
subtle. The least subtle change has come from the demon-god
Malifon, whose malevolent spell has turned the seas to blood, and
thrown the world into the grip of winter. He has also sent forth his
evil minions, whose sole duty it is to free him from his
imprisonment in a volcano so that he might rule the world. Your goal
is to search the lands and seas of Ymros (and beyond) for the spells
that will undo the curse, and incarcerate Malifon forever. 

 To accomplish this long and arduous task, you must create and
control as many as five adventurers, who can come from five races
(human, elf, dwarf, dark elf, troll). Each character has nine
traits: speed, strength, intellect, endurance, skill, toughness, hit
points, spell points, and experience. There are ten character
classes: ranger, paladin, barbarian, monk, cleric, thief, wizard, 
sorcerer, visionary, and scholar. Each character will have inherent
skills, depending on its class and intellect, although others can be
learned. The wizard and sorcerer are the spell casters. The
visionary specializes in unusual skills, such as View Land, View
Mind, View Item, and View Room, and can be used as a fighter. 
Scholars specialize in knowledge concerning potions, items, and
monsters. 

 Ymros is made up of plains, forests, swamps, hills, tundra, and
deserts. There are lots of towns; most have marketplaces, inns, and
healers, while others have churches, temples, colleges (where skills
are taught), and guilds (where characters can gain levels). 
Merchants -- some honest, some crooked -- wander Ymros, where night
falls and seasons change. There are tombs, catacombs, and tunnels to
explore, and nothing underground is subject to the rising and
setting of the sun. 

 The C64 screen display consists of two windows: Your party moves
through the terrain of Ymros in the Action Window; commands, game
messages, a listing of the characters' names, hit and spell points, 
and gold and provisions appear in the Information Window. In the
action window, the terrain is occasionally replaced by a picture of
a monster or other NPC your party encounters. 

 Along the way to finding the spells necessary to do away with
Malifon and complete the game, you'll purchase, find, and loot lots
of items, many of them with magical properties: weapons, armor, 
crowns, rings, wands, precious gems, talismans, figurines, and
amulets. Spells come in five flavors: Fire, Metal, Ice, Spirit, and
Wind Runes; there are also Chants, which create illusions and summon
elementals. 

 DEMON'S is controlled from the keyboard. Pressing the first letter
of a command -- Cast, Drop, Hunt, Identify, Worship, Attack, Dodge, 
or whatever is appropriate, depending on whether the party is in
camp, combat, on the sea, or in town -- invokes it. Although the
joystick can be used for general movement and for combat moves and
attacks, you'll also have to use the keyboard for certain menu
selections. 

 The save option (the letter "S") works anywhere, even underground, 
and saves the current position and status of the party. The game
comes on one single-sided disk and one double-sided disk, neither of
which is copy-protected. The main menu does not offer the Make Disks
option (even though the documentation does), so you'll have to copy
the master disks with commercial program, such as that contained in
Epyx's FAST LOAD cartridge. There is a documentation check. 

 If we overlook the general glut of D&D games, the C64 version of
DEMON'S WINTER is a good game. There's much to explore, lots to
find, and a zillion monsters to fight. The graphics are okay, with
the exception of the character sets: The default set is more or less
incomprehensible; the alternate set is occasionally readable. The
game plays easily enough, and there's not much disk swapping. There
is plenty of disk access which, fortunately, takes place rapidly. 
DEMON'S WINTER will keep both the novice and veteran adventurer busy
for many hours. 

 APPLE II VERSION NOTES 

 The major difference between the Apple II and Commodore 64 versions
of DEMON'S WINTER lies in the quality of the graphics. The screen
display on an Apple-compatible Laser 128 with a switchable
RGB/Composite monitor is blocky, appears to understand only a
rudimentary color scheme, and is not much fun to look at. On one
hand, composite mode renders the character sets legible, while
destroying the graphics with too many misplaced colors. On the other
hand, RGB mode blurs the characters sets, but displays graphics that
are just plain ugly. 

 Since you cannot play DEMON'S WINTER from the unprotected master
disks, the main menu offers a Make Disks option, which will format
blank disks -- four of them -- and copy the program and data files. 
The documentation explains this option for the Apple, and states
that it is available from the C64's main menu, which it isn't. The
Apple II version does support a second disk drive, but not a
joystick: The CAPS LOCK key must be set, and the game is controlled
using keystrokes. 

 Like the C64 version, disk access occurs frequently, although it's
a much faster process on the Apple. 

 Since DEMON'S WINTER is a good game, I suppose that as an Apple II
user, you'll enjoy it in spite of the crummy graphics. I hope so. 

 ATARI ST VERSION NOTES 

 The Atari ST version of DEMON'S WINTER is far and away the
best-looking and easiest to play of the three versions I've seen. 
The graphics are large, cle and bright. And, unlike the Apple II and
C64 versions, the character sets form individual letters and words, 
and -- presumably as a bonus -- you can actually read them! 

 Instead of using single-letter keystrokes to control the game, you
can use the mouse. Pointing and clicking the pointer-hand on the
choices listed onscreen selects them. While in the action window, 
the hand becomes a directional arrow which, upon clicking the left
button, moves the party. The mouse also allows you to attack an
enemy adjacent to you. 

 This edition of DEMON'S is not copy-protected: You can make backups
for play, or you can copy the masters to a hard drive (which really
speeds things up). 

 The Atari ST version of DEMON'S WINTER is the best of the lot. 

 DEMON'S WINTER is published by Strategic Simulations, Inc., and
distributed by Electronic Arts. 

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