I don't think that ruins it, really. It's also quite a loved game, although it hasn't been recreated like DM has. The lack of instructions was just criminal - there was a lot of the game that you had to learn by trial and error and you weren't given a lot of guidance!
The multi-way switches were a bit cheap, but the atmosphere and the little details were wonderful. The engine was very technically strong, too.
You should definitely check out Legend of Grimrock (and its Ishar-inspired sequel?) if you haven't already. I think they're on sale at the moment.
Speaking of Ishar, its copy-protection on the Atari deserved mention. Absolutely loaded with checksums, and it jams the reset vector, and it skews a protection track between two tracks and repeatedly changes tracks and reads at the same time to try to pick it up (which is what that strangled sound from the drive is!). I doubt that does your drive a lot of good, and it failed sometimes, which was… irritating.
Haha, I could never make my mind up about the lack of instructions. As a framing device - "I've just woken up on a space station and know nothing" - it did the trick. Still damned painful though!
The atmosphere really was very special, the small effects of hearing space-station doors opening somewhere, and waiting for the new horror to be found after you've just wasted oodles of cash on a new weapon you can't operate and don't know what ammunition to buy for... special times.
Thanks for the recommendation, Legend of Grimrock looks great :-)
The multi-way switches were a bit cheap, but the atmosphere and the little details were wonderful. The engine was very technically strong, too.
You should definitely check out Legend of Grimrock (and its Ishar-inspired sequel?) if you haven't already. I think they're on sale at the moment.
Speaking of Ishar, its copy-protection on the Atari deserved mention. Absolutely loaded with checksums, and it jams the reset vector, and it skews a protection track between two tracks and repeatedly changes tracks and reads at the same time to try to pick it up (which is what that strangled sound from the drive is!). I doubt that does your drive a lot of good, and it failed sometimes, which was… irritating.