Back in the 80s I ran a very successful adventure-game company - Zenobi Software - and had this game turned up on my doormat I would have signed it up in a heartbeat,

'The Eye Of Borrack' is a great return to those days of yesteryear, packed full of intrigue, mystery and problem-solving - all peppered with a genuine sense of humour. You will get to meet some great characters (one or two eccentric ones) and to travel far and wide over hills, dales and snowy mountain-tops - not forgetting a couple of forays underground.

On the way you will encounter the obligatory bear (luckily this one is dead), a tribe of natives and some swashbuckling seamen. You will journey over land, under land and navigate the oceans deep. You will tramp through Tropical jungles, long-forgotten civilisations and meet up with a tribe of natives (and their chief).

There are loads of 'treasures' to collect, scores of locations to discover and more than a sprinkling of tasks to undertake. You will have to turn your hand to being a 'wheelwright', 'bridge-builder' and 'rat-catcher' - to name but a few. But in the end there is only one profession that will see you through to the final scene - that of being a 'true adventurer'.

So do yourself (and the writers of this great game) a huge favour and buy it now ... you will not regret it and to be honest, you know it makes sense ...

... a big 'Thumbs Up' from me and an even bigger one from everybody who plays it !!!

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adventure games are dead, they've been telling us for decades, yet new games keep coming out of the woodwork. most are point & click, sure, but don't think for a minute that text adventures (or interactive fiction) are dead. there's no end to them either, they're just not in the limelight anymore, like they used to be when the genre was supposed to be alive.

the eye of borrack is one of those text adventures, old-school and unforgiving in most respects, but has a few modern features to make life a bit easier. there's a manual in the install folder you might want to check out if this is your first foray into the genre, or if it's been a while since you played something like this, but I'll briefly explain how it works.

you wake up in a hut, the game shows you a picture of it (there's one for most major locations), describes what's around you and where the exits are, and waits for instructions. for example: examine chest (this one is very important!), look under bed, take mattress, and for navigating, simply north, west, up, down, etc. you can use abbreviations, n for north, i for inventory, etc. but also more complex sentences, like drop penny into machine.

this all sounds great, but even after a few hours I was struggling with figuring out what the game wanted me to type exactly. a simple 'use' command is frowned upon, and while some things simply work, like 'make axe', more often than not you have to be more specific than logic (well, my logic) would dictate. it's been tweaked a bit though and now the game is more lenient, so 'take sword' works without 'from chest' if there's only one sword and one chest and the chest is unlocked and open, just to give an example.

the game is technically turn-based, stuff only happens when you type something, and each action takes a turn, so if you 'take all' and there are three objects, it will take three turns. if you don't type pause, every 30 seconds a wait command executes and time passes, but this is mostly irrelevant and the clock at the top only shows the actual time in the real world.

there are some timed puzzles in the game though, and torches only last for a while, so be careful (you can extinguish them when they're not needed, kinda work like a flashlight). also, alt-tab unpauses the game, so maybe don't do it while dealing with a timed section. windowed mode might get added at some point to alleviate this.

you can also die, but there's an oops command, basically undo, works for a single turn, might be enough or not, so make sure to save often, which you can do anytime, but there's no autosaving. the game has 100 save slots, though you have to switch between them manually, but when you start the game after your first session, it asks if you want to continue your last save or start a new game. very convenient.

inventory management can be pain. I hate weight/size/item limits in games, and in an adventure I always expect more or less bottomless pockets, as you have to deal with a lot of items, so it was quite a surprise when I found myself unable to move because I was overburdened. you can drop stuff anywhere and go back to them later, or hand over a few items to companions, there's even a handy 'where is x' command to locate items you've already found, but all the back and forth, especially at the beginning, got on my nerves pretty fast. then again, I'm not a patient person and I like my creature comforts, but you also run into your first companion (or pack mule) relatively early.

as is customary with text adventures, it's advised (and fun) to draw your own map, which is easy enough, squares with a location name and some notes, connected by arrows to know where you can go. auto-mapping is in the game's future, and at first I wanted to wait until it gets implemented, but I'm glad I didn't. I sometimes miss games that need you to take notes and such.

the writing is fine, funny enough, shame about the quite frequent typos (much fewer since release though), the pictures serve their purpose, and I loved that there's audio, bird noises, wind, etc. and the occasional music, which adds a lot to the atmosphere, but you might want to know that audio settings are only available via commands, such as sound off, music 50, etc.

can't tell you much about the story, and wouldn't want to anyway, as that's what the whole game's about, all I know is that it's a weird place, seems fantasy-like at first, but there are robots and such as well, and a bunch of treasured items to find and deposit to win. you'll meet companions on the way and visit many different places. I've already explored a huge forest, found a giant mushroom village, a regular village, been in the mountains and in some mines, and this was just the beginning.

I didn't get very far, about 20% according to the score, but explored quite a lot of the game world, and when I wasn't struggling to make the game understand what I wanted to do, I enjoyed walking around, drawing my map, making notes, trying to figure out what to do next and how.

I don't think it's a good introductory game to the genre, you might want to try something shorter and simpler first, but it's really cheap, and not because of low production values or length, so if you're a fan of interactive fiction, give it a shot.

I wish all the game data weren't packed into a single file though, because even the smallest update means the entire game (about 350mb) has to be re-downloaded every time instead of only a fraction of it.

having been born far after the text based adventure genre, and much more used to mainstream rpg's I wasn't sure what to expect from this game. After an hour of wandering around the world trying random words to see what happens and encountering the bizarre characters that inhabit this world the change in pace and lateral thinking required to proceed was refreshing. A brilliant game found somewhere I really wasn't looking. Now I just need to find where I put that axe down...

Have played a bit and generally enjoyed (but also kind of hated) this blast-from-the-past text adventure. It suffers from the problems that these games suffered from 30 years ago when I played the original zork, adventure, scott adams etc - basically there are not enough clues on the correct terminology to use or how to proceed when you get stuck. I will keep plugging away.

Growing up on the text adventure games of Magnetic Scrolls and Level 9 in the second half late 1980s I never really understood why modern interactive fiction games neglect graphics -as if having images in a text adventure game would be some kind of a 'sacrilegious' thing. Fortunately The Eye of Borrack breaks this curse. While the game is perfect for hardcore text adventurers, it also has some very nice graphics (cell-shaded, if I am not mistaken?) - around 80 images. The layout with colored text and the 'pull off' mechanism of images reminds me thus both ZX Spectrum and Magnetic Scrolls Amiga/Atari ST text adventure games. I am still in the early phase of the game, but it constantly keeps up my interest with its archetypical fantasy setting, lively (moving) characters, and even some very nice ambient sounds. The puzzles as far as I am in the game seems to be very good and the Parser is quite strong, understanding complex commands - although sometimes you have to spend little time to find the right world, but it never becomes frustrating. As some others mentioned earlier, the game is really a little "gem", and strongly recommended for everybody into old-styled graphical text adventure games. It is in one hand a tribute to the genre, but on the other hand and artistic product on his own right. I hope there will be more similar products like that in the near future, as I feel there is still a lot of potential in these types of games - especially in the graphic representation. It is easy to imagine what could be produced with modern tools of graphic design and in the involvment of some artists.

Only a little way in, but I can already tell this is a little gem. If you were a fan of the 8 bit text adventures back in the day, then you'll love this. It's an excellent attempt at recreating the feel and atmosphere of a bygone era; it has puzzles, fantastic descriptions, and a nice pinch of humour. A great little game!

Being a big text adventure fan back in the eighties I was so excited to find this game!
Reminding me of Magnetic Scrolls The Guild Of Thieves. I loved it.
This is a huge game as text adventures often are. It took me 50 hours to complete. The game therefore is a bargain. I would have paid a lot more.
There are some great puzzles to solve. You will need a lot of paper to make maps.
Yes there are the same frustrations of finding the right words needed, but it wouldn't be a text adventure without that.
Please make more games like this.

This is the second text adventure that I've played from these guys, but it might be their first released.. I've been a massive fan of this genre, so it's great to see it make a comeback.

The Eye of Borrack is a classic fantasy text based game, with some great humour, a powerful parser, challenging puzzles and some lovely images. It really reminded me of the old school games, especially the works of such greats as Magnetic Scrolls and level 9, which in my book is a very good thing.

Overall a great, fun game, and worth anyone's time .

This a creative game with NPCs you can communicate with and lots of good solid puzzles. The artwork works well but can be removed for a text only experience. A lot of fun and worth your time!

Note: Be sure and read the manual as it has lots of good tips on how to play and how to use the game's interface. They did this deliberately to make it feel more retro! Very cool!

A highly interesting game with an intriguing, mysterious world and a rather intuitive command set allowing the player to carry out whatever action seems relevant to the situation most of the time.

Now, I'm used to 1st/3rd person 3D RPGs where movement is unrestricted but other than that the experience feels like I still have a large number of choices (sometimes more) compared to your average 3D RPG.

So far I have found the game refreshing and its problem solving challenging and satisfying and so I'd recommend anyone to get this game for themselves.