Look: 9/10 The look is so well-done for its time. From the knight/character sprite, to the colors used, to the Knight's secret path clock entrance, it just has a special feel to it. I lovvvvve the roasted chicken as the health bar lol, and you can just tell there were teams for each element of the game, a team for graphics, a team for scenario, a team for gameplay, etc. Because it feels like that high-quality type game that the NES era will usher in soon. I love the look of this staircase

Down to the scroll UI, the colors and fonts of the Time and Score, the simple yet effective enemies and decor, the realization of dungeon crawling in the "look" I know and love from Zelda etc, this has such a great look!

Sound: 9/10 I love the sounds in this. As annoying as the constant clicking could be, especially since spamming the boomerang is generally a good idea, it had a hypnotizing, addictive quality to it.

Play: 9/10 Despite all the research I did, it took me a while to fully understand that I was looking for those 3 key pieces that, like many early dungeon crawlers, unlcok the door at the beginning of the game. A la Atari adventures like Adventure and Superman, you pick up and drop items that will stay there, sorta like building the bridge in Superman 1978 heh. So cool that the dungeon experience not only is different everytime, but also is different for each character class. The "fill-in-the-map" essence brought delightful flashbacks of the PLATO dungeon crawler era. Oh how I miss that initial drive with this chronology project. And wowowow, it took me a while but the Space Bar as Pause, even when using a Kempston Joystick, is so great. Thanks to the overview of controls here, cuz I probly would have never figured out how to pick up the Keys ha. Mixed with savestating, I felt confident that I could baet this without the Infinite Lives cheat that so many sites mention (such as this essential website that gives tips, gives an overview, and provides maps). As much as I love this game, I can't deny this classic dungeon crawling adventure format of keys being in a random spot and there being a lot of backtracking/exploration gets a bit tiring. As that initial drive wore off, this relatively small adventure game started to feel a bit too long... well, tedious. Figure it's best in portions so I saved and saved my maps. I wanna try it again tomorrow with printed versions of the maps, since I tend to enjoy that better

The next day: Welp, somehow, I love it even more! As frustrating as wandering around is, with a savestate (a la a Rogue technique) you can save the randomized locations, so I just slowly filled in the map, even if I died and had to restart I knew where the randomized locations of my items were. Sign of a good game when I keep returning to it and falling deeper in love. By no means a perfect game, and would probly be frustrating to me if I didn't have a map to fill in and had to start from scratch, but great for my type of gaming. The picking up and dropping mechanics could be much better. Some of the crowded-with-enemies rooms got tackily annoying but for the most part it was worth pushing through.

Welp 4 days later, and tho I still don't like how the pick up/drop off item mechanic works (ironic the very ending requires you to deal with that mechanic, ha, to shape the key correctly), this was probly the most important adventure game I've played so far in this project! Just like Manic Miner was the most important platformer to me so far. Mind you, I mean important to me and my taste in these genres.

Feel: 10/10 Wow, Zelda owes so much to this. It felt like I had to kill all the enemies in the room to open the normal doors (turns out it's purely random/time-based, but still basically had to kill the enemies to survive till they opened). And my goodness, the boomerang-type weapon--so influential and Zelda/Castlevania-esque!! And even tho the 3 item limit was frustrating, it is undeniably classic a la early text adventures; influential on Zelda and other future adventure games; and relevant to the backtracking element of many later adventure games that is both irritating and essential to adventure games heh. The secret paths, of which I only experienced the Knight's (super excited to try the game as the other classes someday). Welp, after four days, and multiple files and even a lost life on my final playthrough, tada!

Edit: Also, I forgot to mention how this gave me Swagman feels (tho not a great game, it is very nostalgic to me). With a house full of scary monsters not fantasy setting necessarily--almost like being a kid imagining an adventure game in your own home. I dunno, hard to explain the feel.

Attachment: 9/10 The different classes, each with their own secret paths, and the randomized item locations each playthrough make for a lot of replayability. For a lazy gamer like me, the main thing I'm interested in is playing through as the different classes. Especially now that I have the map and levels understood, I can safely say I will be returning to this game to play as a Serf and Wizard, even if just for the different shortcuts and to see the different attack animations :-p (are they even different? heh). (If it weren't for the poorly done pickup/drop mechanic, this ending screen would have felt much better ha, I was frustrated after having to freak out and panic trying to put it in the right order)

Completion: Escaped as Knight with 11, 160 Score Playtime: ~3.5 hours over 4 days