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Spellbound (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Spellbound is a computer game that was designed and programmed by David Jones
with music by Rob Hubbard
and released in 1985 for the ZX Spectrum
and Amstrad CPC
(also with Ed Hickman) home computers. Versions for the Commodore 64
(with Richard Darling) and the Atari 8-bit computers
(with Adrian Sheppard) and an enhanced 128K Spectrum version with music and additional graphics were all released in 1986. It is the second game in the Magic Knight
series and was published by Mastertronic
as part of their Mastertronic Added Dimension label.
with a collection of other characters and must rescue his friend Gimbal the wizard. Gimbal has become trapped by a self-inflicted "white-out" spell whilst trying to create a better-tasting rice pudding
. Magic Knight must rescue Gimbal from his self-inflicted imprisonment and then ensure both he and the castle's other inhabitants are all returned to their correct time and place.
, the game is less action-oriented and more of a graphic adventure although it still contains some platform game
elements.
The player controls Magic Knight as he wanders around the castle. As well as the player character, the cast also contains various other characters who have found themselves there. Like Magic Knight, these characters move around (albeit off-screen, they are always static when on-screen) and can fall asleep and grow hungry. Magic Knight needs to look after and "maintain" these other characters (as well as himself) and this adds a further strategic element to gamplay.
Magic Knight interacts with his environment and other characters using a drop-down window system called "Windimation" full of commands such as "take object" and "talk to character". Because of this, much of the gameplay is quite similar to later graphic adventures such as The Secret of Monkey Island
. Most of the games puzzles are solved by using objects in the correct place or giving objects to the correct character and then having them assist you. Another method of solving problems is to use Magic Knight's spellcasting abilities. Most of his spells require him to have collected certain objects first.
The castle itself consists of several floors (including a roof garden
and a basement
) that can be accessed via a lift
. Some of these areas are only fully accessible once some puzzles are solved.
Magic Knight only has a certain amount of energy and if he runs out of this he dies and it is game over. His energy is depleted both by moving between rooms and when dangerous objects such as bouncing balls hit him. Finding a way of topping-up Magic Knight's energy is one of the first puzzles the player must solve. There are also a few rooms that cause Magic Knight to die just by entering them. These can be passed by solving puzzles.
The game is also played against a time limit: there are only 48 hours of in-game time until Gimbal is destroyed by his spell and Magic Knight and the other characters are trapped in the castle forever.
(1986) and Stormbringer
(1987). Both of these games have similar gameplay to Spellbound.
) and the threat of legal action by Mastertronic.
Mastertronic claimed that the code was so similar that the anti-hacker protection they had written into Spellbound was largely unchanged. The protection relies on the fact that the Spectrum holds numbers in BASIC
programs twice in memory, one (ASCII) copy for displaying on screen and one (binary, tagged as unlistable by a CHR$ 14 character) copy for executing. These are usually the same but by directly amending the appropriate memory address they can be made to differ. This is used by Spellbound as a rudimentary form of protection; after loading the game, the copy for execution jumps to the proper start point, but the copy for display shows a different address pointing to a routine which displays a greeting to the hacker ("HELLO HACKER / FANCY MEETING YOU HERE !") and resets the computer when a key is pressed, thus making the proper start address harder to find. This message was changed in Crime Busters to read "NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NAUGHTY,NICE TRY! / !" but the BASIC loader does not have the same protection so there is no way of executing this code without prior knowledge of its existence in Spellbound.
The routine was later amended in the 128K version of Spellbound to show multiple screens of text and to play the game's music in the background; the messages are as follows: "HELLO HACKER. / FANCY MEETING YOU HERE ! / SPELLBOUND 128K COPYRIGHT 1986 / BY DAVID JONES", "IF YOU HAVE A PROGRAM THAT YOU / WOULD LIKE TO PUBLISH WHY NOT / SEND IT TO US? / MASTERTRONIC / 8-10 PAUL STREET / LONDON EC2A 4JH", "OTHER MAGIC KNIGHT PRODUCTS :- / THE GAMES FINDERS KEEPERS AND / KNIGHT TYME / ALSO AVAILABLE IS THE T-SHIRT / AND COMING SOON THE ADVENTURE / GAME BOOK", "PRESS ANY KEY TO SEE WHAT MY / SPECTRUM DOES WHEN I KICK IT!". As with Crime Busters, there is no reference to the start point of this routine so prior knowledge of it is required in order to see it.
David Jones (programmer)
David Jones is a former freelance computer game programmer who was prolific in the mid-to-late 1980s. He is best known for the creation of the cult computer game character Magic Knight in his 1985 game Finders Keepers for the Mastertronic budget label and released on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC,...
with music by Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard
Rob Hubbard is a music composer best known for his composition of computer game theme music, especially for microcomputers of the 1980s such as the Commodore 64...
and released in 1985 for the 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...
and 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,...
(also with Ed Hickman) home computers. Versions for the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
(with Richard Darling) and the Atari 8-bit computers
Atari 8-bit family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers manufactured from 1979 to 1992. All are based on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU and were the first home computers designed with custom coprocessor chips...
(with Adrian Sheppard) and an enhanced 128K Spectrum version with music and additional graphics were all released in 1986. It is the second game in the Magic Knight
Magic Knight
Magic Knight is a computer game character created by freelance programmer David Jones in his 1985 game Finders Keepers for the Mastertronic budget label. Finders Keepers is a flip-screen platform game released on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX and Commodore 64...
series and was published by Mastertronic
Mastertronic
Mastertronic was originally a publisher and distributor of low-cost computer game software founded in 1983. Their first games were distributed in mid-1984. At its peak the label was the dominant software publisher in the UK, a position achieved by selling cassette-based software at the £1.99...
as part of their Mastertronic Added Dimension label.
Plot
Magic Knight is transported to a castleCastle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...
with a collection of other characters and must rescue his friend Gimbal the wizard. Gimbal has become trapped by a self-inflicted "white-out" spell whilst trying to create a better-tasting rice pudding
Rice pudding
Rice pudding is a dish made from rice mixed with water or milk and sometimes other ingredients such as cinnamon and raisins. Different variants are used for either desserts or dinners. When used as a dessert, it is commonly combined with a sweetener such as sugar.-Rice pudding around the world:Rice...
. Magic Knight must rescue Gimbal from his self-inflicted imprisonment and then ensure both he and the castle's other inhabitants are all returned to their correct time and place.
Gameplay
Unlike the previous game in the series, Finders KeepersFinders Keepers (computer game)
Finders Keepers is a computer game written by David Jones and the first game in the Magic Knight series. It was published on the Mastertronic label for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX and Commodore 64 in 1985...
, the game is less action-oriented and more of a graphic adventure although it still contains some platform game
Platform game
A platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
elements.
The player controls Magic Knight as he wanders around the castle. As well as the player character, the cast also contains various other characters who have found themselves there. Like Magic Knight, these characters move around (albeit off-screen, they are always static when on-screen) and can fall asleep and grow hungry. Magic Knight needs to look after and "maintain" these other characters (as well as himself) and this adds a further strategic element to gamplay.
Magic Knight interacts with his environment and other characters using a drop-down window system called "Windimation" full of commands such as "take object" and "talk to character". Because of this, much of the gameplay is quite similar to later graphic adventures such as The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island is a graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by the same company after its name was changed to LucasArts. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series...
. Most of the games puzzles are solved by using objects in the correct place or giving objects to the correct character and then having them assist you. Another method of solving problems is to use Magic Knight's spellcasting abilities. Most of his spells require him to have collected certain objects first.
The castle itself consists of several floors (including a roof garden
Roof garden
A roof garden is any garden on the roof of a building. Besides the decorative benefit, roof plantings may provide food, temperature control, hydrological benefits, architectural enhancement, habitats or corridors for wildlife, and recreational opportunities....
and a basement
Basement
__FORCETOC__A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, car park, and air-conditioning system...
) that can be accessed via a lift
Elevator
An elevator is a type of vertical transport equipment that efficiently moves people or goods between floors of a building, vessel or other structures...
. Some of these areas are only fully accessible once some puzzles are solved.
Magic Knight only has a certain amount of energy and if he runs out of this he dies and it is game over. His energy is depleted both by moving between rooms and when dangerous objects such as bouncing balls hit him. Finding a way of topping-up Magic Knight's energy is one of the first puzzles the player must solve. There are also a few rooms that cause Magic Knight to die just by entering them. These can be passed by solving puzzles.
The game is also played against a time limit: there are only 48 hours of in-game time until Gimbal is destroyed by his spell and Magic Knight and the other characters are trapped in the castle forever.
Sequels
There were a further two Magic Knight games released. These are Knight TymeKnight Tyme
Knight Tyme is a computer game released for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and MSX compatibles in 1986. It was published by Mastertronic as part of their Mastertronic Added Dimension label....
(1986) and Stormbringer
Stormbringer (computer game)
Stormbringer is a computer game written by David Jones and released in 1987 by Mastertronic on the Mastertronic Added Dimension label. It was originally released on the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and MSX. A version for the Atari ST was published in 1988. It is the fourth and final game...
(1987). Both of these games have similar gameplay to Spellbound.
The Crime Busters controversy and anti-hacker protection
A game with striking similarities to Spellbound, called Crime Busters, was released in 1986 but featured a detective in a mansion. This game was withdrawn following a demand for a written apology from the author of Crime Busters (Harry S PriceHarry Price (games programmer)
Harry S. Price was a programmer for the ZX Spectrum. He became infamous in 1986 when a game he had programmed, called Crime Busters, published by IJK was alleged by Mastertronic to have been heavily based on pirated code from their own release Spellbound. Price initially denied the allegations but...
) and the threat of legal action by Mastertronic.
Mastertronic claimed that the code was so similar that the anti-hacker protection they had written into Spellbound was largely unchanged. The protection relies on the fact that the Spectrum holds numbers in BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
programs twice in memory, one (ASCII) copy for displaying on screen and one (binary, tagged as unlistable by a CHR$ 14 character) copy for executing. These are usually the same but by directly amending the appropriate memory address they can be made to differ. This is used by Spellbound as a rudimentary form of protection; after loading the game, the copy for execution jumps to the proper start point, but the copy for display shows a different address pointing to a routine which displays a greeting to the hacker ("HELLO HACKER / FANCY MEETING YOU HERE !") and resets the computer when a key is pressed, thus making the proper start address harder to find. This message was changed in Crime Busters to read "NAUGHTY NAUGHTY NAUGHTY,NICE TRY! / !" but the BASIC loader does not have the same protection so there is no way of executing this code without prior knowledge of its existence in Spellbound.
The routine was later amended in the 128K version of Spellbound to show multiple screens of text and to play the game's music in the background; the messages are as follows: "HELLO HACKER. / FANCY MEETING YOU HERE ! / SPELLBOUND 128K COPYRIGHT 1986 / BY DAVID JONES", "IF YOU HAVE A PROGRAM THAT YOU / WOULD LIKE TO PUBLISH WHY NOT / SEND IT TO US? / MASTERTRONIC / 8-10 PAUL STREET / LONDON EC2A 4JH", "OTHER MAGIC KNIGHT PRODUCTS :- / THE GAMES FINDERS KEEPERS AND / KNIGHT TYME / ALSO AVAILABLE IS THE T-SHIRT / AND COMING SOON THE ADVENTURE / GAME BOOK", "PRESS ANY KEY TO SEE WHAT MY / SPECTRUM DOES WHEN I KICK IT!". As with Crime Busters, there is no reference to the start point of this routine so prior knowledge of it is required in order to see it.
Allusions
- Many of the other characters in the castle are based on legend or spoofs of fiction, for example "Samsun the Strong" (presumably based on the Biblical SamsonSamsonSamson, Shimshon ; Shamshoun or Sampson is the third to last of the Judges of the ancient Israelites mentioned in the Tanakh ....
) and "Florin the Dwarf" (a spoof of Thorin OakenshieldThorin OakenshieldThorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain is a major character in The Hobbit and is mentioned in passing in The Lord of the Rings...
from The HobbitThe HobbitThe Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
). There is also an appearance by a BansheeBansheeThe banshee , from the Irish bean sí is a feminine spirit in Irish mythology, usually seen as an omen of death and a messenger from the Otherworld....
, a legendary CeltCeltThe Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic ghost.
- The only utterly useless item in the 48K version is the Prism. This is an unflattering reference to Prism Consumer Products after negotiations for Jones to write Spectrum software for the TopoTopoTopo or TOPO may refer to:* Topo , a civil parish in the municipality of Calheta, in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores* Topo , in climbing, a guide for a crag or climbing area...
robot fell through .
External links
- 1985 review of Spellbound from CrashCRASH (magazine)Crash was a magazine dedicated to the ZX Spectrum home computer. It was published from 1984 to 1991 by Newsfield Publications Ltd until their liquidation, and then until 1992 by Europress.-Development:...
magazine.