And now for something completely different! Text based
Interactive Fiction on the 2600! While (obviously) not
as elaborate as an Infocom effort—such as Zork—Dark
Mage succeeds on its own terms. The text is minimal
and, rather than typing, actions are chosen via a menu
using the joystick.
In the story, you are a jester banished from your kingdom.
You must find and return the king's black rose. You find
and use items, talk to characters, and generally get stuck
and start again. Once you've beaten it, replay value is
low since you'll probably have the solution memorized.
Even so, Dark Mage comes recommended. Both for
its uniqueness as an Atari game and the fact that it is
one of the better aftermarket homebrew games.
2010 ben langberg, all rights reserved.