As you can see, Trinity has an average score of 8.9 from 21 users. It also has an average rating of 1.7 for its characters and 1.6 for its puzzles. It has had reviews or other relevant articles appear in issues 1 through 5, 8 and 11 of SPAG. The notes are explained below.

• Notes:
  • A - Runs on Amigas.
  • AP - Runs on Apple IIs.
  • GS - Runs on Apple IIGS.
  • AR - Runs on Archimedes Acorns.
  • C - Commercial, no fixed price.
  • C30 - Commercial, with a fixed price of $30.
  • F - Freeware.
  • GMD - Available on ftp.gmd.de
  • I - Runs on IBM compatibles.
  • M - Runs on Macs.
  • S20 - Shareware, registration costs $20.
  • 64 - Runs on Commodore 64s.
  • ST - Runs on Atari STs.
  • TAD - Written with TADS. This means it can run on: AmigaDOS, NeXT and PC, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, DECstation (MIPS) Unix Patchlevel 1 and 2, IBM, IBM RT, Linux, Apple Macintosh, SGI Iris/Indigo running Irix, Sun 4 (Sparc) running SunOS or Solaris 2, Sun 3, OS/2, and even a 386+ protected mode version.
  • AGT - Available for IBM, Mac, Amiga, and Atari ST. This does not include games made with the Master's edition.
  • INF - Infocom or Inform game. These games will run on: Atari ST, Amiga, Apple Macintosh, IBM, Unix, VMS, Apple II, and Apple IIGS. I believe that it is also possible to play these on the C64, TSR-80, Acorn Archimedes, and others, but I am not positive, as I saw no public domain interpreters for any systems other than the first group on ftp.gmd.de. I will update this as people confirm or deny the feasibility of running these games on these computers.

[Other computers will be added as pointed out to me. This key will appear in each issue. Readers are asked to let me know if any games are available on a platform for which I do not have them listed.]

Lastly, at the end of each issue will be unpaid advertisements from companies or authors who wish to promote their text adventures.

The scale works like this. There are 4 categories for you to look at, and you may award up to 2 points in each. They are:

• Atmosphere
  • 0 - Little or no attempt at atmosphere.
  • .5 - A few nice touches.
  • 1 - Good Atmosphere.
  • 1.5 - Feels like you're there.
  • 2 - Edge of your seat the whole way.
• Gameplay
  • 0 - Frustrating to play, poor parser, few synonyms.
  • .5 - A little better. Still pretty unbearable.
  • 1 - Good parser. Not too hard to figure out.
  • 1.5 - Good parser. Most 'ease of use' commands implemented.
  • 2 - Excellent gameplay. Understands almost everything you try.
• Writing
  • 0 - Poorly written. Lots of spelling errors, sloppily done.
  • .5 - Some effort put into the writing. Still terrible.
  • 1 - Few or no spelling errors. Stumbles along shakily.
  • 1.5 - Good grammar, prose flows well, absorbing writing.
  • 2 - Excellent prose and style, on a par with that in _The Witness_.
• Plot
  • 0 - Poorly planned, incoherent plot.
  • .5 - Rudimentary plot, adds little to game.
  • 1 - Developed, simple plot. Fairly linear.
  • 1.5 - Complex plot, well planned and implemented.
  • 2 - Excellent plot. Twists and turns, holds you on the edge of seat. Enough freedom for the player to feel free to try things easily.

NOTE: These point values are merely benchmarks. You can award any value between 0 and 2 so long as you keep it down to one decimal place. This scoring system is loosely based on the Olympic system.

The other 2 points are at your discretion, and you may award them on the basis of thoroughness, realism, or anything else you feel is important to a text adventure. These are wildcard points, meant to encompass all the little things in a good game. These five categories add up to a maximum of 10 points. This is the total score. Only a spectacular game should ever exceed 9 points. Most shareware games will not exceed 6 points, and most Infocom games will hover around 7-8. We've had a bit of trouble with score inflation, so be sure you REALLY mean to give the game that high a score before you do.

Finally, there are two seperate categories, rated the same as the other five, that do not count in the total score, and are averaged only with other votes on the same category. These two are:

• Characters
  • 0 - No NPCs, or cardboard caricatures.
  • .5 - Uninteresting NPCs.
  • 1 - Stereotypical NPCs, not developed too much.
  • 1.5 - Interesting NPCs, some background.
  • 2 - Well-developed cast of characters. Realistic.
• Puzzles
  • 0 - Illogical puzzles. Poorly implemented, or there is not enough info in the game to solve them.
  • .5 - Illogical, requires bizarre actions to solve.
  • 1 - Logical, uninteresting and add little to the game.
  • 1.5 - Logical, interesting.
  • 2 - Logical, fascinating, well implemented. No 'guess the word' puzzles.

Cutthroats is the tale of a daring treasure seeker that begins on an island of liars, murderers, and thieves. These are your friends, the other people aren't so nice. The parser is Infocom's excellent standard parser, quite sufficient for our needs. Unfortunately, the writing fails to capture the thrills of scuba diving, treasure hunting, and murder. The characters more than make up for that, however, and the parrot is worth a chuckle or two. I awarded my wildcard points on the basis of setting and non-linearity, since there are two different ships you can explore, each with its own seperate dangers. Overall, a very good game that falls short of such masterpieces as Trinity and A Mind Forever Voyaging.

Cutthroats is currently available in Activision's Lost Treasures of Infocom package, but the new packaging lacks much of the flair of the original. Cutthroats is a game of moderate difficulty. I got stuck only once.

Be sure to give a little overview of the game, no spoilers please, discuss the quality of the writing, plot, descriptions, characters, and the gameplay. Finally, and most importantly, include where it can currently be found on the Internet or elsewhere, and the price. For shareware games, indicate whether your version was registered or not. For those games with packaging, give your impressions of the packaging.

[Changes to the old system are discussed below.]

First, you'll notice that the score has been removed, and replaced by one or two word ratings. These are pretty arbitrary, and should allow more freedom to the reviewers. The EMAIL section is for the e-mail address of the game author, not the reviewer. AVAILABILITY will usually have either Commercial ($price), Shareware ($price), or Freeware. If the commercial price varies in stores, then it will just say Commercial. If it has been released in the LTOI collection, this line should say so. Lastly, if it is available on ftp.gmd.de, the line should add GMD. (Demo) if it's only a demo version. The body of the review hasn't changed.

When submitting a review, try to fill in as much of this info as you can. Also, scores are still desired along with the reviews, so send those along. The scores will be used in the ratings section.

Here are my reasons for this change: 1.) No two e-mails agreed on what to rate, or what was most important. 2.) In the first issue, the scores were fairly widely askew. 3.) This format is easier to understand.

1) If I do that, I won't know who's reading SPAG, and can't bug them for reviews and ratings.
2) SPAG is meant to be a close-knit group of readers sharing their opinions with one another. This doesn't work as well on newsgroups.
3) I don't want to. Start your own newsletter if this offends you. If you can't put out the effort to subscribe, then I can't put out the effort to bother with you.

subscribe (your e-mail address here)

That's all there is to it, just that.