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 and it's obvious why 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. Quite possibly the best Pacman clone?
Every so often a game is released that breaks the mould and completely blows you away. Virgin Games released this point-and-click adventure back in 1992 and it's something quite remarkable. A game of great character, lore and charm. Interestingly, it was developed by David Sykes and Tony Warriner of Revolution Software and appears to be their only Atari ST game. I hate it when that happens as I cannot help but wonder what else they would have made...
The story begins with you waking up one day, only to find yourself locked away in a creepy dungeon. You are a nobody, a peasant, and are called Diermot. You were previously part of an attempt to free the village of Turnvale from Selena and her army of Orc lookalikes, called Skorls. Sadly, that campaign ended in tragedy and everyone was killed! Whilst the bloodshed reigned, you bumped your noggin and were knocked unconscious only to be easily captured.
Upon waking, you find yourself banged up in jail with a bad-tempered Skorl as your guard. Yikes!!
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!
Lure Of The Temptress is something in which to become lost. Immerse yourself in this wonderfully crafted adventure taking place within a gorgeous Olde English setting. It's a point-and-click adventure controlled using the mouse: the left button guides your character around the screen and can also display status and object information. The right button is used to command and interact with characters and more. This system is well-designed, intuitive and easy to master.
Gameplay is experienced in real-time with the populous merrily going about their daily business while you go about yours. 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. Ie, easily fooled. Throughout, your progress will be down to careful exploration, examination, and communication so pick up every object because you never know when you might need it. Talk to everyone and see what information they can reveal and sometimes somebody might ask you to do them a favour before divulging.
The world is populated by some of the most entertaining personalities and delightful characters that will certainly win your heart. Just start a chat with someone in a tavern, for example, a dialogue guaranteed to entertain! This charm and charisma are displayed early on as you rescue a fellow inmate called Ratpouch who immediately becomes a loyal friend. He is actually good company and will often try to help - when he's not in the pub that is! 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.
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 one of the most visually stunning 16-bit games I have ever played. The artwork is an absolute joy and perfectly sets the mood for a wonderful medieval setting. The characters move with smooth animation and I love those added intricate details - like the bird which sits on the fence for a few moments before flying off. A delicate touch to the scene and impressive to witness during play. It's things like that which make you appreciate the atmosphere.
The sound effects are the only weakness but please don't misunderstand me - they are beautiful and made from high-quality sampled sounds. However, there are also some screens that don't have any background audio at all. I personally found that a little disappointing in comparison to the rest of this beautiful game.
I'm moaning about nothing there, aren't I? Well, let's take a look at one final screenshot that you will see a lot...
Oh no, it's game over for another fallen adventurer. They think it's all over? It is now!!
The CryptO'pinion?
Lure Of The Temptress is most certainly an impressive adventure and one you will adore getting to grips with. Hilarious, captivating and very addictive so my advice is to make time for this wonderful game. Make notes and talk to everyone. Yes, even those people who may resemble a street bum or a wacko in a pub knitting. Everyone has a tale to tell.
You never know what the game will throw at you next. Such a massive adventure with so many twists and turns cunningly interwoven into its storyline. Heck, you may even fall in love... I shall say no more about that! Personally, I would rank Lure Of The Temptress as one of the best adventures for the Atari ST and a pinch away from total perfection.
Here's a thought: why not ditch TOS for a spanky installation of MiNT? This has been done and is called ST MiNT by Marcello. It's based on Cripple MiNT (w/ extras) and is intended for a 4MB ST running in High Res. All you need is a spare SD card for your Ultrasatan (or similar) and you're flying free in a multitasking world!!
I've installed this myself and it's shockingly easy to get up and running. It's an incredibly impressive product!!
Installation is very easy and Marcello has even provided helpful instructions to recreate the image. However, I thought I'd also add my own installation 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. Okay, here 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 the 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$
