Mystic Force

My IF Games

Trading Punches
The Swordsman
Insanity Circle
Breath Pirates
Mystic Force
Hallowmoor
Distress

My Reviews

Fall Comp 2008
Fall Comp 2007
Fall Comp 2006
Fall Comp 2005
Fall Comp 2004

Spring 2006
C32 Comp 2004
Misc Reviews

Miscellaneous

IntFiction Forum
Older IF News
Lunatix Online
StarLock RPG
About Me

Other IF Links

IF Competition
The IF Archive
SPAG Online
XYZZY News
IF Database
Baf's Guide
IF Reviews
The IF Wiki

Email Me At

Mystic Force

QuickBASIC (MS-DOS) -- 1993

Here is a game with almost no redeeming qualities. In 1993, it was my second attempt at Interactive Fiction on a PC (the first being the awful IF/BreakOut hybrid Spore, two years earlier). This followed quite a few equally obtuse text adventures written for the CoCo 2 and 3, in prior years. In Mystic Force, you are treated to snarky, insulting parser responses like this (also notice that "directions" shouldn't be plural), this, and this, Y2K non-compliance like this, and two-word parsing that will leave you screaming in agony. Each unrecognizable piece of ANSI room art is a separate file. Even the commands list and game text appear as text files with no encoding. Bad, unedited writing abounds. This was also my first attempt at writing a BBS game -- yet it has NO modem ability. Yes, this is quite a treasure.

By peeking at the .DAT files and working with the strict two-word parsing, it might be possible to win this game. I couldn't figure out how to go west from the village (in the darkworld). It seems I need the lantern, which is obtained from a ghost, which is west of the village. And yeah, I wrote it. Maybe I missed something. If you can solve it (try using my notes), then email me your solution!

Unless you just want to snicker at how bad this game is, don't bother wasting your time on it. The puzzles are ridiculous and arbitrary, the story makes no sense at all, the parser stinks, the writing is curt and silly, and almost everything in the game is a cliche.

Download Mystic Force HERE.