TANGLED TALES

 TANGLED TALES is a fantasy role-playing adventure written by Gary Scott Smith
and published by Origin. Subtitled "The Misadventures of a Wizard's Apprentice,"
TANGLED TALES offers a three-part storyline, excellent graphics and gameplay, an
easy to use menu/icon interface, keyboard or joystick control, and a weird and
nasty form of copy protection that makes the package not worth the cost. The
Commodore 64/128 version is the basis of this review.

 While TANGLED TALES looks great, plays well, and has an interestingly skewed
story, the copy protection is so vile that I can't imagine C64 users booting it
often. Consider formatting a disk from Commodore BASIC: The 1541 drive head
"bumps" to Track 0, where the format process begins. Choosing to reload a saved
TALES position also causes the drive to bump; the difference is that the
format-a-disk bumps are compressed into one very quick, very strong, and very
loud bump.

 This is a scary sound, especially as the 1541 has always been plagued with a
drive head that's easily knocked out of alignment. If this bump event happened
once in a while, it might be tolerable, but you hear it every time you reload a
saved game, no matter which of the three scenarios it's loaded from. What's
more, should you decide to remove your current character and restart with a new
character, the program asks you to swap all four disk sides, which is how many
bumps you're going to hear.

 The storyline of TALES concerns an inept apprentice wizard who destroys
precious adamantite dust. His mentor, Eldritch the Wizard, on learning of the
loss, erases the apprentice's spell book. As the apprentice, you must solve
three successive adventures in order to prove your worthiness and get your
spells rewritten. En route to this desirable destination, you'll travel through
time, explore continents, enlist the aid of some strange people, and encounter
such disparate elements as haunted houses and grizzled prospectors. Although
there are monsters and combat, TALES is humorous and silly, a pleasant change
from the usual role-playing adventure, which relies heavily on themes of
despair, demons, and death.

 You'll have to create and name a character whose attributes are Strength,
Intelligence, Speed, and Charisma. Intelligence determines how many spells you
can cast; Charisma concerns your ability to interact with other characters;
Speed and Strength refer to your combat potential. These attributes are ranked
(worst to best), and your character starts in the middle of the road: Athletic,
Educated, Brisk, and Tactful. Rankings can be adjusted at the character creation
screen. A character can be male or female, and begins as an Initiate (higher
titles being Magician, Sorcerer, and Wizard).

 The C64 screen display consists of two graphics windows, an icon line, and a
text window. The window at the upper left holds a picture, usually with animated
features, of what you can see; the window at the upper right is a terrain map of
the area you're exploring, with your character always centered within it. The
map scrolls as you move; the picture window changes to reflect the environment
or to display a character or monster you've encountered. The text window
provides descriptions, dialogue with other characters, available actions, and
general game messages.

 The icon line is twofold. The first layer consists of Look, Cast Magic, Get
Talk, Actions, and a Toggle Switch, which reveals the second layer: Drop/Give,
Save Game, Inspect/Inventory, Equip, and Rest. In many situations, selecting an
icon will display an option menu in the text window. When combat occurs, a
different icon line appears: Fight, Run Away, Inspect/Inventory, Cast Magic, and
Actions. Each icon clearly indicates its function, and is easily identified.

 TALES can be controlled with either keyboard or joystick. The cursor keys move
your character left and right; the "A" and "Z" keys move up and down. Climbing
is accomplished with the Return key. The Spacebar activates the icon line; the
cursor keys move the pointer; the Return key selects. Also, single-letter
keystrokes can be used to bypass the icon line and immediately invoke a command:
"C" = Cast a spell; "I" = Inspect/Inventory; "S" = Save the game, and so on.

 In addition to the joystick controlling your character's movement, a quick
press of the button replaces the Return key; instead of the Spacebar, press and
hold the button to activate the pointer and the icon line, after which th stick
can then be used to select an icon. The keyboard worked best.

 The game package comes with two, double-sided disks, an instruction manual, a
C64 reference card, and "A Young Wizard's First Journal," which explains how he
managed to waste the adamantite dust.

 TANGLED TALES looks very good on the Commodore; the pictures and scrolling map
are perfectly done and completely understandable. The icon lines offer an easy
interface with the game, especially when used by way of the keyboard. This game
is a role-playing adventure, but it's an upbeat role-playing problem is the copy
protection: There is no game on the planet, including

 TANGLED TALES is published and distributed by Origin.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253