Acheton
From IFWiki
 Adventure  Underground |
| Acheton | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | David Seal, Jonathan Thackray and Jonathan Partington |
| Publisher(s) | Topologika |
| Release date(s) | 1978 (approximate creation date), commercial releases include 1984 (BBC version) and 1988 (Sinclair version) |
| Authoring system | T/SAL |
| Platform(s) | Phoenix mainframe, Amstrad, Atari, BBC, Electron, Master, Nimbus, PC, Sinclair, later Z-code |
| Language(s) | English |
| License(s) | Former commercial |
| Multimedia | |
| Color effects | none |
| Graphics | none |
| Sound/Music | none |
| Ratings | |
| Cruelty scale | Cruel |
How It Begins
You are standing on a good road leading northward to a farmhouse and westward to a forest. Inside the building, you can easily find some keys, a shiny brass lamp, an empty bottle – and an aerosol can. If you explore the surrounding area, you will discover a locked steel grate set in a depression, but heading downwards might not lead to the expected result.
Notable Features
- The game is heavily influenced by Adventure, including many similar settings and puzzles. It is, however, exceptionally cruel, with many ways to die without warning.
Trivia and Comments
- Acheton is one of about fifteen classic adventure games written in the 1980s on the Phoenix IBM mainframe computer at Cambridge University.
- The title "Acheton" is a confection of "Acheron" (the river that dead used to cross in order to get to Hades) and "Achates" (minor character in Virgil's "Aeneid").
Versions
1.005
- The version converted to Inform to run on the Z-machine by Graham Nelson and Adam Atkinson.
Links
General info
- Acheton (archived) - at Baf's Guide.
- Acheton - at IFDB.
Reviews
- Review by Matthew Russotto - at rec.games.int-fiction.
- Contemporary review of the 1988 Sinclair edition by Mike Gerrard in Your Sinclair magazine.