The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian - Quick Review (MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari-ST game)

‘The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian’ was slightly behind the times at its time of release but is now a fantastic example of a text parser adventure game with a sly sense of humour and some really challenging gameplay. 

Developer: Game Crafters
Genre: Graphic adventure
Release date: 1992
Platforms: MS-DOS, Amiga and Atari-ST
ESRB: E - Everyone.  

The game was released in 1992 though it looks to be from a much earlier time due to not embracing the movement into a point and click interface that Sierra had started using. The game has been re-released as freeware so the original copy protection at the start of the game is now just for show, anybody can play the game for free. If you want to play it, you can pick it up from the developers web site here.

 

The story of ‘Maddog Williams’ is fairly standard of an adventure game; Maddog is an inventor and an antique’s shop owner who goes on a quest to rid the land of an evil wizard called Serik after stumbling along a kidnapped princess and saving her. If you’ve ever played any of the old 'King’s Quest' games by Sierra then you will feel right at home with this one and there are also plenty of humorous references to these older Sierra graphic adventure games.

The controls of the game take a little to get used to, especially the controls during combat as sword fighting is in real-time rather than being turn based. Maddog himself is moved about using the arrow keys and combat is dealt with by Maddog continually swinging his sword whilst you advance, retreat, spin and swipe by moving him about. Aside from this ‘Maddog Williams’ plays very much like a text adventure but with VGA graphics and the game revolves around the use of its text parser to interact with the game world. For those unfamiliar with these a text parser means that the player must type in commands in order to interact with things such as typing in ‘Look at drawers’ or ‘open drawers’ to see what’s inside them. Items that you pick up in the game can be used and combined together to form new ones and this is what constitutes a lot of the in-game puzzles.

There’s an instant charm with ‘Maddog Williams’ due to its vibrant appearance and interesting surroundings, the storyline is very easy to pick up and your surroundings feel open, flexible and detailed. There’s so many opportunities to die that it’s a little ridiculous and I remember, upon stumbling into some kind of cavern with a girl tied up on the table surrounded by hooded figures, that it would be a good idea to march on over to them. Unsurprisingly I didn’t live through that experience and I was treated to, in graphic detail, what happened to Maddog in text descriptions. I later realized there was a hidden passage within the wall that I was supposed to climb through. The complete lack of hand-holding is actually a breath of fresh air compared to many modern games however and it’s fairly standard to do a lot of saving and reloading with these early 90s games. 'Maddog Williams' felt very much like a point and click but with keyboard support and the puzzles, storyline and overall gameplay experience are all very enjoyable. It’s a shame the same cannot be said for the combat which is clunky, difficult to control and extremely deadly when you’re actually trying to face down an opponent. A very convenient ‘training’ option is available for you at all times to hone your sword fighting skills but I would have preferred turn based combat rather than awkwardly walking around backwards, swinging my sword. 
 

Another problem is that usually, in games that utilize text parsers typing, the game would be paused when you type. Unfortunately, in 'Maddog Williams' this is not the case so often you must type commands very quickly in certain situations where time is about to run out. It’s not unusual to have to reload the game multiple times so you already know what you’re supposed to be typing in unless you are extremely good at thinking, and typing, on your feet. The difficulty level of the game is very much set by your own personal skill in not just typing but controlling Maddog and solving puzzles but, with enough practice, these are problems that you can adjust to. Whilst the game’s graphics were by no means top-end at the time I found them pleasant, fairly detailed and very reflective of the overall feel and atmosphere of the game. The audio can be a little rough in places but the music is really quite lovely and, whilst the sound effects are in no way realistic, effort has been taken to make the game world come alive with many sights and sounds. Overall, you’ll get several hours of play out of this game depending on how versed you are with item combination focused puzzles so for hard-core point and click or retro Sierra game players this should be just the right level of challenging. 

The Good:

• Fairly challenging but not too frustrating
• MIDI music nicely ties in with the theme of the game 
• Alternate endings makes for a little replay value 
• Great humour, very likeable characters 
• Some very good puzzles

The Bad:

• Combat far too clunky with weird logic
• Quite a short game with not a lot of depth 
• Save game function can stop working, multiple saves recommended
• Lack of pausing when typing causes problems

The Score: 6/10

Last thoughts: It's a shame they never brought out a sequel, as a free game this is a really fun way of spending an evening and the humour and style is very likeable.