Spellbound looks like any other platform game of 1985 until you press fire. Then a window opens over the screen with a list of things Magic Knight can do, a pointer picks one, and a second window opens on top of the first. Through those windows he examines objects and people, casts spells and, once he has found the wand of command, gives orders to the seven other characters trapped with him in a castle, who may or may not obey. It cost £2.99. “Even if it were priced around the ten pound mark I’d still recommend it as a bargain,” CRASH wrote, “but for £2.99 you’d be MAD not to buy it”: MAD being Mastertronic Added Dimension, the new label it came out on.
Fast facts
- Author: David Jones, who is not the Dave Jones of DMA Design.
- Publisher: Mastertronic, on its Mastertronic Added Dimension (MAD) label, £2.99.
- Series: the second of four Magic Knight games: Finders Keepers, Spellbound, Knight Tyme, Stormbringer.
- CRASH: Smash, 95%, Christmas Special 1985.
- Machines: ZX Spectrum, then the Commodore 64 (reviewed by ZZAP!64 in June 1986) and the Amstrad CPC, where it was sold in the Magic Knight Trilogy.
Gimbal’s rice pudding
The plot is a joke. Magic Knight’s tutor, Gimbal the Wizard, wanted better-tasting rice pudding, and a slip in translating his incantation “from ancient English to slightly less ancient English” trapped Magic Knight and seven others from different slices of history in a summoning spell. Magic Knight has 48 hours to send everyone home, starting with Gimbal, who has put himself under a white-out spell. The castle has seven floors of seven or eight screens each, joined by a lift at the left-hand end. His only possession at the start is an advert: read it, and it tells you that David Jones wrote Spellbound and that you should go and buy Finders Keepers.
The windows
CRASH called the system Windowvision; Your Sinclair and Sinclair User, reviewing the later games, called it Windimation, and the reviewed David Jones entry traces the other names the press used. Up and down move the pointer, fire opens the sub-menu, and every option also has its own key, “thus avoiding any hassle for people who’re a bit kack-handed when it comes to using the pointer”. New options, shown in white, appear as Magic Knight finds objects and powers. Examine a character and a small picture of them appears with their strength, happiness, stamina, spell power and food; examine an object and you learn its weight, its magic power, and whether it can be read or dropped. Weight matters, because the more Magic Knight carries the faster his strength drains, and at zero the game ends.
The other captives are the game’s puzzle. They wander in a daze and have to be told to eat, drink and rest; neglected, they die, and unhappy, they sulk and refuse orders. They also hold objects Magic Knight needs and will not hand over. The solution CRASH found was simple: “Command a character to go to sleep and anything they have can be easily pilfered.”
It was not the first adventure played by pointing rather than typing. Beyond’s Shadowfire, reviewed by CRASH in June 1985 at £9.95, was controlled entirely through icons. But CRASH’s reviewer thought the menus “about the best selection method for using and interacting with objects and characters I’ve seen yet”, and said they made Shadowfire and Ocean’s Frankie Goes to Hollywood “seem awkward and outdated”. Another reviewer liked them because they “cut out the need for mega quick reactions which other arcade adventures depend on”.
Two years in the charts
CRASH printed two charts each month, both voted by its readers: the Hotline Top 30 for all games and the Adventure chart. The magazine called them “Britain’s most important popularity chart — for Spectrum Software, at least”, an analysis “of who’s playing what” rather than of sales. Spellbound spent more than two years in them.
| CRASH issue | Hotline | Adventure |
|---|---|---|
| 26, March 1986 | 18 | — |
| 30, July 1986 | 5 | 3 |
| 31, August 1986 | — | 2 |
| 33, October 1986 | 15 | 3 |
| 44, September 1987 | — | 1 |
| 60, January 1989 | — | 2 |
In October 1986 Knight Tyme, the sequel, sat one place above it in the Hotline chart, and the Adventure chart’s commentary had Spellbound and Lord of the Rings arguing “about second and third places” behind Heavy on the Magick. In September 1987 it reached number 1 in the Adventure chart, with Knight Tyme third and Stormbringer sixth, and CRASH marked down another budget game that month for borrowing the Magic Knight games’ pull-down menus. In January 1989, more than three years after release, it was still number 2, behind only The Hobbit.
Sources
- CRASH issue 24, Christmas Special 1985, p. 26: Spellbound review (Mastertronic, MAD range, £2.99, author David Jones; the plot, the Windowvision menus and the other characters; Frankie and Shadowfire; 95%).
- CRASH issue 17, June 1985, pp. 16–18: Shadowfire review (Beyond, £9.95).
- ZZAP!64 issue 14, June 1986: Spellbound review (Commodore 64).
- Your Sinclair issue 19, July 1987, and Sinclair User issue 65, August 1987: Stormbringer reviews (Windimation).
- CRASH issues 26, March 1986; 30, July 1986; 31, August 1986; 33, October 1986; 44, September 1987; 60, January 1989: Hotline and Adventure charts and their commentary; issue 30 and 31 on what the charts measured.
- CRASH issue 44, September 1987: Streaker review (the comparison with the Magic Knight games).
- Amstrad Action issue 31, April 1988: Magic Knight Trilogy (Mastertronic (MAD), £2.99 each).