Waxworks is a text adventure game by Brian Howarth

Brian Howarth

Brian Howarth is a computer game programmer. He wrote many interactive fiction computer games in the early 1980s in a series called Mysterious Adventures....

 and Cliff J. Ogden. It was originally published by Digital Fantasia in 1983 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...

, Commodore Plus/4

Commodore Plus/4

The Commodore Plus/4 was a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite ; it was billed as "the productivity computer with software built-in"...

, 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 BBC Micro

BBC Micro

The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation...

.

The story is about a waxworks

Wax museum

A wax museum or waxworks consists of a collection of wax sculptures representing famous people from history and contemporary personalities exhibited in lifelike poses....

 in which the protagonist is trapped. Escaping involves finding statues of famous people (like Hillary

Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Percival Hillary, KG, ONZ, KBE , was a New Zealand mountaineer, explorer and philanthropist. On 29 May 1953 at the age of 33, he and Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay became the first climbers known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest – see Timeline of climbing Mount Everest...

 and Tenzing

Tenzing Norgay

Padma Bhushan, Supradipta-Manyabara-Nepal-Tara Tenzing Norgay, GM born Namgyal Wangdi and often referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer...

).

Whilst some of the statues are exceptionally easy to identify, others are not so simple without acquiring the necessary clues earlier in the game. For example, identifying the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...

 is exceptionally problematic without first finding a clue to his whereabouts. It was also noted that, owing to limited graphics capacity, several of the statues bear a striking resemblance to actor David Niven

David Niven

James David Graham Niven , known as David Niven, was a British actor and novelist, best known for his roles as Phileas Fogg in Around the World in 80 Days and Sir Charles Lytton, a.k.a. "the Phantom", in The Pink Panther...

.

Critical reaction

CRASH

CRASH (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 reviewed Waxworks in their July 1984 issue. The text parser was described as "eccentric" but with "some noteworthy flexibility", being a modified verb/noun form that also allows adverbs and conjunctions ("QUICKLY GET THE LAMP, SWORD, CLOAK AND STAFF", for example). The graphical display was also highlighted, making up for the absence of long room descriptions.

External links

• Waxworks at World of Spectrum
  World of Spectrum
  World of Spectrum is a website devoted to cataloging and archiving material for the ZX Spectrum home computer popular in the 1980s, and has been officially endorsed by Amstrad which holds the rights to the ZX Spectrum brand...