Knight Lore


fawny

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Back in the 1980s the ZX Spectrum brought computing to the masses. There were rival machines that were superior in many respects but the Spectrum, due to its price, made the greatest market impact and spawned thousands of 'bedroom coders'. Professional game developers sprung up almost overnight and some truly amazing and a lot of truly abysmal games flooded onto high street shelves.

One company, Ashby Computer Graphics, quickly became a star of the games scene, arguably 'the star', under the label 'ULTIMATE play the game'.

With JetPac, PSSST and Atic Atac on their resume, they then embarked on a series based around an explorer known as Sabreman.

The third game in this series turned out to be the pinnacle of their acheivements. It was called Knight Lore. You control Sabreman, who has contracted a nasty case of lycanthropy (he has become a werewolf). Every night you change into a wolf and by day resume your human form. The game takes place in the castle of Melkhior, a great wizard who can cure you.
Knight_lore_3.gif

In many peoples' minds this was the first isometric 3D game. Of course it was not, there had been Q-bert, Zaxxon and Ant Attack for example. But there was something special about Knight Lore. Being able to push items around and the fact that it is non-linear (i.e. You are not forced to follow a set sequence of screens but can wander around the castle as you wish) are a part of its magic.

It was also the first ULTIMATE game to use the new technique of masking. Up until then graphics had been put on the screen using 'exclusive or' logic. This meant that any over-lapping objects resulted in an unsightly 'negative' effect where the objects overlay each other. They also did away with the 'Spectrum colour clash' by only using one colour per screen. This seems to have worked remarkably well as, even though some of the screens were in bright yellow, old timers will swear to the dark, moody atmosphere of the castle.

To rid yourself of the curse you must collect items from around the castle and place them, in the right order, in the wizard's cauldren.

Near the centre of the castle Melkhior walks ceaselessly around and around his cauldron. If you enter the room in your human form a magic mist rises from the cauldron and reveals, in its sparkling form, the next object required in the list of spell ingredients. If you have that object you must drop it into the cauldren and it will then show the next object needed. Fourteen items are needed to break the evil curse that holds you in its grasp.

If you enter the room as a werewolf the magic mist will attack and kill you.

The wizard is totally barmy and has created many strange tests to ensure only the worthy will benefit from his powers. There are magic gates that open and close, hindering your progress and which will kill you if they come crashing down on your head. Hideous gargoyles adorn some rooms - these are deadly if you touch them. Killer spikes and mines block the way. Some mines are suspended and will fall when you enter the room, while others only fall once you collect an object.

There are guards who patrol some rooms, touching them loses you a life. In other rooms magic mists chase you and hinder you, sometimes pushing you onto something deadly. Also there are ghosts that move rapidly and erratically that you have to avoid - or die.

Perhaps the strangest obstacle is a ball reminiscent of the 'Rovers' from Patrick McGoohan's cult TV show 'The Prisoner'. These come in two forms. One variety bounces up and down on the spot, always in a most inconvenient position. The second roams freely - limited only by spikes. They behave differently depending on whether you are a wolf or a man. As a man they appear to be afraid of you - but enter their domain as a werewolf and they will go for the jugular.

Beware the vanishing and sinking blocks that will, more often than not, result in you suffering a spiky death.

There are tables and chests that you can manoeuvre and stand on to help you reach high objects but on the whole everything else is out to kill you.

This game will appeal to map-makers, if such gamers still exist. If that is not your thing, the web is littered with maps already done for you. Here is one.

The game received unprecedented ratings in its day from the computer magazines. I think it it is a must for any retro-gamer and stands up well today all these years later. A classic.

Due to the fact each game randomly starts from one of four locations, the order in which the objects have to be collected changes and the same objects are not always in the same places the game has plenty of replay value.

Unfortunately the rom is denied distribution - so unless you own the original and can rip your own it is a no-no for emulation.

Sadly there is only one remake for the PC that I can find, but they omitted some of the features and it is much too fast on a modern machine. You can find it here.

You can play the original on-line here.

Or, of course, you can also play the GP2X remake. You can get that from ED's archive here.
wizard.gif
 
QUOTE
market impact and spawned thousands of 'bedroom coders'.


I remember those "how to" program games books for the spectrum.

They were so big that they made the Elite manual look like a holiday pamphlet!

:D
 
I have only just got into this game in the last few months through the GP2x remake. When this game came out in the 1980's I could not figure out what an earth I was supposed to do so I would just walk around a few rooms and died. My copy of this was probably on a C90 so I didn't have any instructions and even if I did, the ones supplied by Ultimate would have been too cryptic for me back then. I think that Head Over Heels was the only one of these games I ever understood and really got into.

When the remake came out for GP2x I thought I would give it another go, and read it's Wikipedia entry to understand what was going on. It is now definately one of my favourate games and I would rate it higher than Head Over Heels now. Once you understand what you have to do, you realise it is an extremely simple concept very well implemented. It is a shame the Spectrum version had slow down in some rooms though.
 
All I get is the menu. When I start the game it doesn't draw anything to the screen. (Main menu still visible)
Then I die, and I can select options on the menu again... :p

F100 MK2. Firmware 3.0
 
Here's a link for an updated version of Jez's Knights Lore remake he sent me a while back that works (the one in the archive is broken):

http://www.mediafire.com/?8m1kpymit05

(v1.05)

I let him know the version in the archive doesn't work right but he never updated it. I'll send him an email, I guess.

CHEATS:

To activate the infinite lives :
In the Option Menu select the Charms and then - joypad down while holding Y. You should see a new entry appear. Do the same to turn it off.

Also if you touch the volume control during the game the number of charms in the cauldren is displayed at the top of the screen.
 
There does seem to be a small problem with the archive version on some machines. I have read that it will work if you put it in the root directory. It is discussed in the comments on the download page.
 
i have the original zx spectrum game boxed ...as well as the ultimate boxed set that was released..if anybody needs any spectrum game maps just ask me..i have thousands of maps/ reviews/ tips etc,
 
Is the GP2x version identical to the spectrum map layout, or do I have to do another map (thanks for linking it, btw) for the 2x version?

The Sabreman games are perhaps my all-time favourites (aside from Jet Set Willy) on the Speccy - though IMO, Sabre Wulf was the better game.
D.
 
Dunny said:
Is the GP2x version identical to the spectrum map layout, ...
The map is identical. Everything is where it should be, and more importantly, have the correct characteristics. i.e. sinking blocks sink as they should, unlike the PC remake, where some have been changed to vanishing blocks and and others are normal blocks.

The main difference, apart from the lack of slow-down in some rooms, is in the cauldren room. The sparkly thing retreats into the cauldren when you approach to drop in an item and you have to get off the cauldren before it will tell you the next item needed. Also you cannot use the trick of dropping an item on the floor (when you are a wolf) to get rid of the sparkly thing. I never understood that in the original, I suspect it was a bug.

Other differences I have noticed :

The speed of sabreman is better. You can complete it in under 20 days whereas in the original you were hard pressed to finish it before the 40 days were up because of slowdown in 'busy' rooms. To make use of the left over days you can now select to collect 14, 21 or all 28 items in the options menu. Collecting all 28 usually takes me close to 40 days.

The blocks on top of balls do not fall off as easily as they do in the original. That was something that could be quite frustrating on the spectrum.

In the room with the long snaking line of spikes and a 'block on a ball' - the ball drops to the floor when it comes off the spikes instead of hovering around above the level of the spikes.

In the room with a ghost and two stacked tables the ghost will eventually end up with one of the tables on its head. I seem to remember it being almost inevitable that would happen quite rapidly in the original.

Apart from that it is pretty much identical but with colour and more sound.
 
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Really nice review! I remember this game when it came out. It was incredible! Utter class!

The spectrum was my machine back then! Happy gaming days...


(I am so old!)
 
Nice review. I bought this back in the day

It was like Jet Set Willy as in i was never going to complete it so it was a case of wandering round finding new rooms.

Knight Lore blew me away totally back then, amazing to think its 24 years old ! Great graphics, i know it slowed down in places but the graphics for a 48k Spectrum were sensational back then.

Great memories and a great box for the game, the instructions never gave anything away but that was part of Ultimates charm back then.
 
Yay! I got a one star rating for the review ! :lol:

Thanks for that. This is almost as good as the archive ratings.

Thank you to those who left comments about the review. What you guys said is at odds with the rating, and makes a joke of the rating system as a useful guide.

Would it be possible to show how many have rated these reviews ? It is impossible to know if this is the general consensus or wether this is just the opinion of one member.

If it was a condition that you had to leave a post when rating, the reviewer could get some constructive feedback and could amend the review and make it more useful.


Just a thought.
 
I don't see any means to rate this nor any other topics in the Reviews board, I can only see the image of the five stars. Perhaps only moderators can rate topics.
 
I think it's activated for all users now, or I've been promoted to moderator :)

Some of my reviews are also rated, the problem with the rating is you don't know if the review is being rated or the game itself.
 
Instructions for
Knight Lore
Ultimate, 1984

Controls
Keyboard, Kempston, Cursor

Aim of the game
Sabreman, star of Sabre Wulf and Underwurlde, has been cursed by a wizard and now undergoes a distressing transformation into a werewolf every night. Now he must find the ingredients for a magic potion that will cure him before it's too late...
Game play
Sabreman's task of creating the potion is not easy (to say the least); he is trapped within the castle of the mad wizard Melkhior, who has set numerous traps to make life difficult for visitors. Around the castle are scattered several charms which Sabreman must collect and deposit in the cauldron at the heart of the labyrinth. The type of charm needed is shown appearing and disappearing above the cauldron.

In many of the rooms are hostile guards and magical creatures which will kill Sabreman if they touch him. There are also many unpleasant traps, such as disappearing stone blocks, mines, poisoned spikes and so on. Some of the blocks move around by magical means and can be used by Sabreman to transport himself around certain rooms. There are bonuses lying around, such as extra lives, which will make your task a little easier if you collect them. However, all this will be for nothing if you do not create the potion within the time limit - Sabreman has forty days and forty nights in which to succeed, otherwise he will remain a werewolf forever.
 
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