I get into books every now and then for some good Sci-Fi or Fantasy, and have noticed how fiction books are following a disturbing upwards price trend recently.  With paperback books like this one - the Soulstealer War - selling for over 10 dollars even with the Amazon.com discount of 32% .... well, let's just say I don't have money lying around to feed a casual interest in newly published fiction like that.

The Commodore 64 had a good amount of well-written text adventures that were just as engaging, if not more so because of their interactive nature, and there are plenty that I have never tried out myself.  Since most are considered "abandonware", they're free for the downloading from sites like www.GB64.com.  The Enchanter series from Infocom was such as series that I knew of, but had never tried out.  Well, at least not until recently.  To sum it up, I enjoyed the experience very much (I'm still on the first one, but am looking forward to continuing in Spellbreaker and Sorceror).  So why the Enchanter series?

The first of the Enchanter series came out in 1983 and was a real breakthrough back then.  Most text adventures were very simply programmed with little in the way of juicy reading, and had parsers that made gameplay frustrating.  You can read more about C64 Text Adventures here, on another entry I wrote some months ago if you are unfamiliar with Text Adventures and how they work.  The Enchanter series was one in particular that was playable and actually fun.  And if you like reading (no this one is not for you "twitch gamers" or platform gaming types)  then you'll find plenty to like here as well with good atmosphere and room for your imagination to create what you don't see on the screen.  The spellcasting feature was also a nice touch, something else new and different at the time.

There is an excellent page up at the Infocom Gallery with shots of Enchanter boxart and paper insert scans HERE that I highly recommend.  Games like these can depend on a bit of lore to fully enjoy, and you'll find a nice writeup in "A Brief History of Magic" that was scanned in by a loyal fan.

From that site:

"In ENCHANTER, the first of a spellbinding series in the tradition of ZORK, you are a novice magician whom Fate has chosen to do singlehanded combat with a dark and fierce power. But wordly weapons will avail you naught, for your foe is the Evil Warlock who holds sway over the land.

To defeat him, you will have to match your skills as a necromancer against his, casting spells you have learned from your masters in the Circle of Enchanters and other incantations you will acquire as you proceed on your quest.

If you succeed, you will be elevated to a seat in the illustrious Circle; if you fail, your land will be doomed to an eternity of darkness."

For more background it's worth it to check out the Wikipedia Article on Enchanter as well.

For the game file, go to GB64.com HERE and download from the "Latif" link. 

Note the sequel links also on that page for Spellbreaker and Sorcerer.

If you're new to Emulating C64 games, follow my step-by-step tutorial HERE.

It's worth noting that Activision seems to hold the rights to Infocom games, so if you are sensitive about what is "abandonware" and what is not, you may wish to instead download and play something "safer" like the less involved and less sophisticated Castle of Spirits, which I reviewed some months back.

That said, as far as I know, Activision has not re-released any of the decades old Enchanter Series games, and as we approach 2010, the viability of the original floppy disks is certainly something I'd question.

Either way you go there a mind-boggling number of straight text adventures that were made for the Commodore 64 - 742 in English currently listed at GB64.  So if you're in the mood for some interactive reading on your laptop at night, give them a shot!