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The Star Portal

Author:Michael Detlefsen
Genre:Science Fiction>Space Exploration
Released:1988
Review:

The portal in the name is a booth capable of teleporting you at random to various other booths like it throughout the galaxy. Thus, an exploration of various planets (eight in all). Atmospheric in some places, funny in others. It is possible to win without visiting a planet twice, but only if you know what you're doing. The author shows some disdain for mazes, but still includes outdoor mazelike areas. Suffers badly from early AGT parsing - many objects can only be referred to with the right verb, and some verbs are unintuitive (for example, the only way to use a swiss army knife is to "open" the appropriate tool.) A few time limits, a smattering of death, two GAGS monsters, and one riddle. One of the few games with convincing cave scenes.

Rating: ***

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (30 Jun 2000)

Competitions/
Awards:
Honorable Mention, Softworks AGT contest 1988
Downloads:
portal.zip (237.93 KB)
AGT executable (version: 1.03, bundled with MS-DOS runtime)
portal_s.zip (58.30 KB)
AGT source code (version: 1.01)


Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive
Copyright © 2012 Carl Muckenhoupt
All reviews included in this site are copyright © the credited author of the review.