Trapped June Preview

Texture mapped Dungeon Adventure for the Amiga Masses



Remember when people said that you simply couldn't do a texture mapped dungeon game like Doom? Now we can't seem to get away from them. To the list which includes Gloom, Breathless, Nemac IV, and Alien Breed 3D must be added Trapped. What this one offers that is different is that it gives up the guns and grenades for swords and magic.

This demo can be obtained from Aminet in the games/demos directory as TrappedJune.LHA or with the new Grafitti chunky graphics card. You start out by selecting one of the four supplied characters to fit your playing style. Each has differing statistics. You then start in Level 3 with sword in hand. By pressing the F8 key you have control over the game parameters in the options screen. You can lower the graphics complexity of the game to increase performance for slower Amigas or, if you have a 50MHz 68030 or above, you can have all the bells and whistles. The player is helped through this by being able to select presets based on processor type. You have control over the audio filter, the size of the play screen, the relative brightness and the displaying of floor/ceiling textures and lens flares.

One of the impressive and troubling features of this game are that as your character walks aroung the dungeon, you are treated with realistic animated lens flares, assuming you did not turn them off in the options. These brighten as you approach any light source and move as your character turns. The problem is that they also often appear even for light sources that are not quite visible. These ghost lens flares are easy to confuse for an approaching enemy until you get used to them. Still, they are unique on the Amiga to this game.

The next problem I have with this game is the combat. After striking at your enemy, a hand icon becomes ghosted for short period of time where you cannot strike again. I personally prefer quick action and often find myself frustratedly pressing my left mouse button, my character getting pummelled, while waiting to be able to hit again.

There, with those out of the way I can tell you more about the game. It runs at largest in about 3/4 of the screen with the rest showing you status information about your character and weapons. There are potions to increase your health and spells to damage oponents, all available from the keyboard, assuming you have any in your inventory. On my 50 MHz 68030 this game runs as smooth as silk at full complexity and screen size. The game also supports OCS/EGS/AGA and the new Graffiti graphics card.


Installation

Decompress the game to a directory. Boot up your machine in PAL mode if it isn't in that mode already. Read the readme file. Play the game.



Results/Analysis

This game is a real diamond in the rough. It looks good, plays fast and smooth and allows you to configure it to slower machines for the enjoyment of nearly all Amiga owners. The inclusion of support for OCS/ECS Amigas is a real suprise treat.

YAY! Trapped August demo was just released today (07/31/96). It has more ambiance. Your footsteps echo, you can use the cursor keys to move, including backward! There are new, better textures for the walls and some rooms now have objects in them. Add 10% to controls, 10% to playability, 5% to graphics and 5% to the sound percentages below, giving Trapped August Demo a total of 88.3%. The only thing left is the phantom lens flares, but I can live with that.

Suggestions for improvement


Trapped -Das Rad von Talmar-

June Preview

Oxyron Software

Michael Piepgras
Bremsbergallee 4
24960 Gluecksburg
Germany
michael_piepgras@s1.microdata.de
ATTRIBUTES
PERCENTAGE
COMMENT
Installation:
Playability:
Graphics:
Sound:
Documentation:
Controls:
100%
80%
90%
75%
85%
70%
Couldn't be easier just decompress, drag and drop
Smooth movement, but combat could be better
Hard to believe its not AGA in 64 color OCS mode
A little more ambiance would help
A readme with all you need to play the demo
A little too non-standard for this type of game.
Overall Score:
83.3%
This game and its engine have a definite future. Even with the few faults it is one of the better games of this type for the Amiga. I can't harp enough on the fact that it supports older OCS/ECS Amigas along with us AGA owners. A definate plus in my book.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Amiga, Motorola 68020, 2mb RAM, Hard Disk, ca. 2mb free disk space, PAL display mode, Extra Half-Brite display mode
(Required)
Motorola 68030 or up, AGA chipset, Fast Memory
(Recommended)
-By Anthony Becker-
Write to him at email address a.becker2@genie.com