Item - The Castle of Frome

(review based on the Spanish translation)

I usually hold a lot of respect for Edward Packard's work, not only because he is one of the pioneers of interactive fiction, but also because he took the genre in many interesting and innovative directions. However, I don't believe this book is one of his stronger works. The idea used here certainly has a lot of potential, but much of it is certainly wasted. First of all, the castle is not as interesting as it could be. The accompanying maps detail many rooms and areas that sound interesting, but several of them are just visual decoration, as there is no way to explore them in actual gameplay. This underdevelopment of the adventure is especially notorious in the two dungeon levels. While exploring the castle may prove to be fun, it's not really that interesting: you get to meet several nonplayer characters, but very few of them are developed in any interesting way, their descriptions and dialogue often being written in an extremely dry prose. There are few fantastic creatures to be found in the castle, and while the encounters with them feature decent writing, they don't do anything terribly interesting, nor do they play a major role in the adventure (though people may find the "trolls" of particular interest, considering they are depicted in a different way than that of Dungeons and Dragons or the Tolkien canon).

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is that the player character runs into castle guards at different points of the adventure. While the guards are usually as unsympathetic and featureless as Star Wars stormtroopers, there is a certain variety as to the punishment each of them applies (the most gruesome involves being tortured in a gas chamber). Speaking of punishments, I find it surprising that, while there are no death endings, the book is not overly sanitized, as there are choices which lead to near-death situations (though the character is always magically rescued and teleported to another point in the castle).

As far as gameplay goes, the book is the easiest in the series, though novices may find it a bit complex. The player needs to find the escape route and two critical clues in order to succeed. One of the clues is way too easy to find, while the other one at least involves solving a clever puzzle. Experienced adventure gamers won't have too much of a problem with it, though being jailed in the same cells over and over again, and always using the same escape strategy – which is what will almost certainly happen - can prove boring and frustrating after a while.

Overall I believe this is not too bad a book, but it's definitely not a favourite of mine. Fortunately, the later volumes in the series are much better. My advice is to get this book over with as quickly as possible and head on to book two, which is one of the best books in the series.

More reviews by Guillermo

[Rating: 2/10]
[Recommended? NO]

Based on my pre-existing familiarity with the Escape From Tenopia series, and as such the preconceived understandings I had going into those titles as an equivalent sort of spin-off to the popular yet awful Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks, my expectations for the more fantasy-rooted Escape from the Kingdom of Frome series were kept well in check before taking on the series' debut title, "The Castle of Frome". And while the formulaic tendencies and the flaws of its predecessors were definitely the dominant takeaway I had from this sparingly-detailed, underwhelmingly-written adventure, I was nevertheless at least a little relieved to discover how much more comfortable this book was with the format it had than its science fiction counterpart in Tenopia. Sure, the characters are completely threadbare (and are introduced without an ounce of considerable memorability), and yes, there are significant repetitions of what I would call an assault of information for the reader to figure out what to do with (even though it all, in general, doesn't actually mean anything within the reading experience or path-choosing). There's nothing conclusive or climactic with the puzzles - nothing there to put all this information to good use - just as there is little sense of purpose within the escape sequence. And above all else, there's the return of the infinitely striking featrue where the reader is unable to lose - and one must circle around until getting it right - in one long "can you find a way out" structural cycling exercise. But this book (and the series) seems a little more comfortable in its own skin than the other "Escape" stories, and as such this ends up reading just a little more immersively (though due to its many shortcomings, unnecessary difficulty for one's memory and generally short length, this doesn't save the book all that much in the end).

At the end of the day I found this book dissatisfactory and not worthy of recommending in the end; while the book (and series) held legitimate storytelling potential it was wasted due to the stylistic, structural and executive shortcoming of its design and featureless lack of intrinsic atmosphere. This is little more than a shallowly escapist enterprise to encounter - and you're not missing out if you pass on (or, shall I say, escape from) this largely forgettable escape sequence. ^^

(Mysteriously disappears into the shadows.)

More reviews by Shadeheart