Crypt of Medea is an adventure

Adventure game

An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

 video game written by Arthur Britto and Allan Lamb. It was published for the Apple II

Apple II series

The Apple II series is a set of 8-bit home computers, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977 with the original Apple II...

 by Sir-Tech

Sir-Tech

Sir-Tech Software, Inc. was a United States-based video game developer and publisher founded by Robert Woodhead and Norman Sirotek. While the original company closed its doors in 2001, its Canadian counterpart Sir-Tech Canada continued to operate up until late 2003.Sir-Tech is best known for the...

 in 1984

1984 in video gaming

-Notable releases:* May 10, King's Quest , the first animated adventure game, the first in the King's Quest series, and the first to use the AGI engine.* June 4, Nintendo releases Donkey Kong 3...

. Crypt of Medea is one of the early text-based adventure game

Adventure game

An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

s to make use of graphics, but the game is still controlled through the use of text commands in the traditional style of text adventure

Interactive fiction

Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...

 games.

The game begins with the player trapped inside Medea's

Medea

Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...

 crypt, and the goal is to find a way out. To do so, the player must make use of a variety of items and avoid falling victim to a number of enemies and traps.

Plot

After falling unconscious during a late night drive, the unnamed protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

 wakes up in an unfamiliar tomb. This tomb is the crypt of Medea

Medea

Medea is a woman in Greek mythology. She was the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, niece of Circe, granddaughter of the sun god Helios, and later wife to the hero Jason, with whom she had two children, Mermeros and Pheres. In Euripides's play Medea, Jason leaves Medea when Creon, king of...

, and it is filled with hostile creatures and deadly traps. The protagonist is forced to explore the crypt in hopes of escaping.
Very little plot is made available to the player during the course of the game. No information is given about how the player ended up in Medea's tomb, and no background information is ever given about Medea. In fact, the protagonist does not ever encounter Medea during the course of the game, and the only mention of her is through an inscription that she wrote.

Gameplay

The game's environment is divided into a series of distinct sections. Each section is represented with a picture and a text description. Objects or creatures that the player can interact with will be visible in the picture and described in the text description. The player can move from one section to another by moving in one of the cardinal direction

Cardinal direction

The four cardinal directions or cardinal points are the directions of north, east, south, and west, commonly denoted by their initials: N, E, S, W. East and west are at right angles to north and south, with east being in the direction of rotation and west being directly opposite. Intermediate...

s or occasionally through other actions (such as going up a staircase, going down a hole, or swinging across a ravine).

One of the primary gameplay mechanics in Crypt of Medea is the use of items. Items can be found in many locations throughout the crypt, and the player can carry a limited number of these items at any given time. Often one or more items are the key to solving a puzzle or defeating an enemy that blocks the player's progress. Since the player can only hold a few items at once, inventory management is often a crucial factor to the player's survival.

Reception

At the time of its release, Crypt of Medea was considered a fairly graphic and adult game due to its detailed descriptions of violent deaths. Kim Schuette, author of The Book of Adventure Games, described Crypt of Medea as "a humorless and gruesome game, full of blood, gore, and little else." The cover of the game even describes Crypt of Medea as "an adventure game for the very mature and strong of heart."

However, the graphic nature of the game did not prevent critics from enjoying the game. Robert Reams of Computer Gaming World described Crypt of Medea as "an example of a mature and excellent product" and an "excellently designed game." He praised the game for its controls and for having a level of challenge that is enjoyable for both novice and expert players.

External links

• CryptOfMedea2001 - Contains a working version of Crypt of Medea and a text version of the hint sheet that comes packaged with the game.