Crapman was originally featured within the Synergy megademo and later released as a standalone product in 1993. Most Atarians rate this as one of the best Pac-Man games, with spot-on perfect gameplay: those pesky ghosts are clever, and a cunning level design helps make this extremely challenging.
The graphics are marvellous, and the Scavenger music is just perfect - gorgeous and timeless! Crapman may have a silly name, but it's a fantastic twist on the original and immensely addictive. Right, I cannot stress this enough, stop what you're doing and play this game right now. Possibly the best Pac-Man clone?
Every so often, a game is released that breaks the mould and blows you away. Virgin Games released this remarkable point-and-click adventure in 1992, a game of great charm with much lore and character. Interestingly, it was developed by David Sykes and Tony Warriner of Revolution Software and appears to be their only Atari ST game. A shame, as I cannot help but wonder what else they might have made.
The story begins with you waking one day to find yourself locked in a dungeon. You are a nobody, a peasant named Diermot, who were part of an attempt to free the village of Turnvale from Selena and her army of Orc lookalikes, the Skorls. That campaign ended in tragedy, and everyone was killed! Whilst the bloodshed raged, you bumped your noggin and were knocked unconscious, only to be captured.
Rubbing away the sleep from our eyes, we awake in jail with a bad-tempered Skorl as our guard...
The intro is fascinating to watch. Like a 16-bit mini-movie!
I love the opening scenes, which nicely introduce you to the world you're in.
As you begin to explore, you meet new people like this old chap idly relaxing...
It's Like Having A Second Life!
Before you immerse yourself in this wonderful adventure set in a gorgeous Olde English setting, let's see the basics: this point-and-click adventure is controlled with the mouse: the left button moves you around the screen and also displays status and object information. The right button is used to command and interact with characters /etc. This system is well-designed, intuitive, and easy for this old man to master.
Having woken up in jail, your first task is to escape, so it's fortunate Skorl's aren't the brightest bulbs in the box (by a long shot!). Your progress hinges on careful exploration, examination and communication. So pick up every object; you never know when you might need it. Talk to everyone and see what information they can share. Sometimes someone might ask you a favour before revealing anything.
What sets Lure of the Temptress apart from other games of this ilk is its Dynamic Hint System. The gameplay is experienced in real-time, with the populous merrily going about their business while you go about yours. This creates a believable living world where events continue whether you are present or not.
This world is populated by some of the most entertaining and delightful characters that will win your heart. Just start a chat with someone in a tavern, for example, a dialogue guaranteed to entertain! This charm and charisma are evident from the start when you rescue a fellow inmate named Ratpouch, who instantly becomes a loyal friend. Well, when he's not in the pub! But watch out because he doesn't half get himself into trouble by saying the silliest of things to other characters. Such a mischievous guy and a best friend.
Unlike many graphic adventures that can leave you hopelessly stuck, progression often feels logical and rewarding. Solutions usually arise from observing the world, understanding character relationships and making use of information gathered. While some challenges will still test your patience (trust me on that), the game rarely descends into the sort of obscure puzzle design that plagues other adventures.
Let's take a look at a few more screenshots with subtle hints...
It's worth exploring everywhere and chatting with everybody... Even the half-naked man!
Or you could play dress-up and enjoy being a dude in a dress. Incognito is fun!
Relax. Have a beer and chill with your mate Ratpouch. Maybe you'll hear something interesting?
Looks And Audio
This adventure is visually stunning, and the artwork is a pure delight, perfectly capturing the enchanting medieval setting. The characters move with smooth animation, and I adore the intricate details, such as the bird perched on the fence for a few moments before taking flight. Such a delicate touch adds to the scene’s beauty and is impressive to witness during play. It’s these little details that enhance the atmosphere.
The sound effects are the only weakness, but don’t misunderstand me - they’re beautiful and crafted from high-quality sampled sounds. However, some screens lack background audio, which, in my opinion, slightly detracts from the game's overall beauty. Perhaps that’s the floppy disk’s capacity limitation?
I'm moaning about, right? Let's take a look at a screen, you will see a lot of...
Oh no, it's game over for another fallen adventurer. They think it's all over? It is now!!
The CryptO'pinion?
Undeniably an impressive adventure that you’ll thoroughly enjoy. It’s hilarious, captivating and incredibly addictive, so I recommend making time for this game. Take notes and engage with everyone - yes, even those who might seem like a bum or a pub wacko knitting. Everyone has a story to share.
It keeps you on your toes with its unpredictable twists and turns cleverly woven into the storyline. It’s a massive adventure that might even lead you to fall in love (you'll see). Personally, I’d rank Lure Of The Temptress as one of the best adventures for the Atari ST, just a hair’s breadth away from absolute perfection.
Here's a thought: why not ditch TOS for a spanky installation of MiNT? That's been done - it's called ST MiNT by Marcello, based on Cripple MiNT (w/ extras). It's intended for a 4MB ST running in High Res, and all you need is a spare SD card for your Ultrasatan (or similar), to fly free in a multitasking world!!
I've installed this myself, and it's shockingly easy to get up and running. It's an impressive product...
Installation is easy, and Marcello has even provided helpful instructions to recreate the image. However, I thought I'd also add my own experience just for us Mac folk - but it's dead easy to do on any computer:
1) Download ST Mint disk image. 2) Insert the SD card(if an alert appears, choose ignore) 3) Open up Terminal.app and enter in three commands: 3a) diskutil list(this displays the necessary information to identify your SD card - diskX on my iMac was disk1) 3b) diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskX(now that you know the device ID you can unmount it - but leave physically inserted!) 3c) sudo dd if=st_mint-0.7.img of=/dev/diskX(dd is the command that transfers the data onto the SD card and will take several minutes. Enter your password and wait!!) 4) Now eject and insert the SD card into your ultrasatan 5) Switch on the Atari ST and enjoy a baby MiNT OS
This next bit is optional and only for those struggling to identify the SD card device ID. This is a copy of my Terminal activity, and, as you can see, I entered the "diskutil list" command twice. Once before I inserted the SD card, and afterwards just to compare the differences in its output (before running the above)
iMac:~ ataricrypt$ diskutil list /dev/disk0 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 999.3 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3 /dev/disk3 (disk image): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: Apple_partition_scheme +18.1 MB disk3 1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk3s1 2: Apple_HFS Flash Player 18.1 MB disk3s2 iMac:~ ataricrypt$ iMac:~ ataricrypt$ diskutil list /dev/disk0 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0 1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 999.3 GB disk0s2 3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3 /dev/disk1 (internal, physical): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: *1.0 GB disk1 /dev/disk3 (disk image): #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: Apple_partition_scheme +18.1 MB disk3 1: Apple_partition_map 32.3 KB disk3s1 2: Apple_HFS Flash Player 18.1 MB disk3s2 iMac:~ ataricrypt$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1 Unmount of all volumes on disk1 was successful iMac:~ ataricrypt$ iMac:~ ataricrypt$ sudo dd if=~/Desktop/st_mint-0.7.img of=/dev/disk1 Password: 1228800+0 records in 1228800+0 records out 629145600 bytes transferred in 986.684138 secs (637636 bytes/sec) iMac:~ ataricrypt$
