Leopold the Minstrel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author(s): Jamie Murphy Language: en First Publication Date: 1994 License: Former commercial ABOUT THE STORY A verbose but really interesting game, told in the third-person past tense ("What did Leopold do next?"). [--blurb from The Z-Files Catalogue] Guide Leopold on his journey to get the lute repaired and remember that failure to do just that could result in the 'apprenticeship' being cancelled .. or even worse, if anything could be regarded as worse than that!!! EXTERNAL LINKS Inform port For the 1996 Acorn User Interactive Fiction Competition. Requires a Z-Code interpreter[1] zenobi128k.zip Play Online via archive.org Spectrum version. Play this game in your Web browser. EDITORIAL REVIEWS SynTax > This adventure is one where you have to interact with a lot of other > characters and I'm afraid I prefer to adventure alone! However, that said, > there is plenty to do and see. The text is very descriptive and reading it > carefully usually gives you a clue as to whether something useful may be > found in your current location. It is a good idea to map this game as it > does seem rather big ... even with a map I sometimes got lost! Acorn User (issue 173, October 1996) > In third place overall: Leopold the Minstrel, by Jamie Murphy. On the face > of it, this is a traditional fantasy-quest game: Leopold was out to get his > master's lute, which had accidentally been damaged, mended. And Leopold went > to the usual settings, such as a village and an inn, slightly wordily > described. It's an unusually atmospheric tale, though, written with > meticulous care. It seemed to me to have a Welsh flavour: perhaps so, since > the author hails from Carmarthen. And almost unique about Leopold is that it > is told in the third person and the past tense, which must have involved the > author in a major rewrite of the Inform system libraries. (Only almost > unique: Infocom's rather poor late game, Journey, is also in the past > tense.) For example, in reply to 'climb pillar': 'Leopold looked at both > pillars carefully, gauging their climbability. He rubbed his chin, nodded > several times, chuckled twice, and didn't bother.' -- Graham Nelson REFERENCES [1]