Heavy on the Magick is a computer game for Amstrad CPC

Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, where it successfully established itself primarily in the United Kingdom,...

 and ZX Spectrum

ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...

 published in 1986

1986 in video gaming

-Events:-Notable releases:*Namco releases Sky Kid Deluxe, Hopping Mappy, Toy Pop, The Return of Ishtar, which is the sequel to Tower of Druaga, Genpei Tōma Den, and Rolling Thunder....

 by Gargoyle Games

Gargoyle Games

Gargoyle Games was a British software company founded in 1983 by Roy Carter and Greg Follis in order to publish their first game, Ad Astra. They generally specialized in games for the ZX Spectrum even though the company was originally named with the intention of publishing games for Dragon computers...

. The game's influences draw heavily from the occult, with the Master Therion in the plot below a reference to Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...

. To finish the game, the player must invoke numerous demons who are based on their "real" counterparts, e.g. Belezbar is based on Beelzebub

Beelzebub

Beelzebub -Religious meaning:Ba‘al Zəbûb is variously understood to mean "lord of flies", or "lord of the dwelling". Originally the name of a Philistine god, Beelzebub is also identified in the New Testament as Satan, the "prince of the demons". In Arabic the name is retained as Ba‘al dhubaab /...

.

Plot

From the instruction booklet:

Axil the Able stood in three inches of stagnant water and surveyed one of the most dismal dungeons he had ever been thrown into… 30 seconds earlier, he was sitting in front of the ox-roast in that famed haunt of the Occult, The Golden Thurible engaged in his favourite pastime of Wizard-Baiting. What a good story Axil was telling — a new one about Therion, a certain moon creature and a rather gullible Elf — really, the sudden silence of his audience should have warned him. The crowd parted as Therion strode across the floor, dangerous in all his ten degrees. Therion raised a twig-like index finger and flung Axil several hundred leagues across Graumerphy, into the dungeons beneath the dreary castle called Collodon's Pile. In the dark twilight, Axil tutted — and then took stock. He was, at least, clothed: he carried a large leather pouch, and on a nearby table, there was a book. The title read as follows: The Net of Gugamon — a grimoire: wherein is contained the proper rites for the Convocation of various Demonly Princes, the procurement of lesser spirits, together with sundry workings, conjurations, manifestations, symbols relating to all manner of Astral Phenomena and so on for several more pages, in the rather turgid style thought necessary for such books. Unfortunately, apart from the title, there seemed to be little more than a rather tattered contents page. But they didn't call him Axil the Able for nothing. So, with a flourish, he marched for the door in search of a way out.

Gameplay

The player controls the neophyte wizard Axil the Able and must help him escape from the dungeons below the castle of Colloden's Pile. This a keyboard-only game, and uses a set of commands (called "Merphish" in-game) such as the standard north, south, east and west (N,S,E,W) and some additional unique commands such as invoke (I), freeze (f), and blast (b). Conversations with certain friendly characters such as Apex the Ogre are initiated in the following syntax: "[character],[speech]" e.g. "Apex, thanks".

The dungeons are full of dangerous and hostile creatures such as wyvern

Wyvern

A wyvern or wivern is a legendary winged reptilian creature with a dragon's head, two legs , and a barbed tail. The wyvern is found in heraldry. There exists a purely sea-dwelling variant, termed the Sea-Wyvern which has a fish tail in place of a barbed dragon's tail...

s, goblin

Goblin

A goblin is a legendary evil or mischievous illiterate creature, a grotesquely evil or evil-like phantom.They are attributed with various abilities, temperaments and appearances depending on the story and country of origin. In some cases, goblins have been classified as constantly annoying little...

s and vampire

Vampire

Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...

s. Axil can defend himself using magic to stall or kill these creatures. Not everyone in the dungeon is an enemy, some inhabitants (such as Apex the Ogre) are friendly unless provoked and can be conversed with.

The dungeon itself is separated into several distinct levels which Axil can travel to and from at will provided he can find the staircases up or down.

Critical reaction

Reviews of the game were highly positive all round, with the only common criticism being the blocky graphics, which were due to the Spectrum's limited 48k of memory. To reduce the memory impact of the large animated graphics, the programmers blew up single graphic cells to create all the sprites and foreground scenery in the game, effectively reducing the resolution of the graphics but compressing them in memory and so increasing the amount of space available for game content.

Finishing the game

The game could be finished in three different ways, each way being of
varying difficulty. Expansion packs were planned to continue the
adventures of Axil, but these never came to light.