Walls of Illusion

Germany

Softwave Games/Motelsoft (developer and publisher)

Released in 1993 for Atari ST

Date Started: 16 February 2025

        

Almost four years ago now, I covered Arcan (1993), Motelsoft's version of Dungeon Master. (For some reason, Motelsoft called themselves Softwave for that game.) Walls of Illusion is Arcan with a new set of maps. I don't think there has been a single mechanical or graphical change. The game notes promise that Walls is harder than Arcan, which is borne out by my experience.

   

If any backstory came with the game, it's been lost, but an early message suggests that the goal is to reach some sort of enemy named Bragis. As with Dungeon Master, the game is much more about mechanics than plot. There is no character creation; every player starts with four characters named Malcolm, The Turk, Harry, and Laura. They have different values in strength, condition, health, and magic power. Although any character can level in any class, it's clear that Malcolm and The Turk are meant to be the front-line warriors and Harry and Laura are meant to be the primary spellcasters. The game starts them in an appropriate arrangement.

    

     

Each character has a (textual) level in five classes: warrior, gladiator, sorcerer, wizard, and healer. All characters start as "green beaks" and from there move to "beginner," "adventurer," and so forth up to "master" or something like it. You level by actually using the associated skills. I think the gladiator class is associated with missile weapons, warriors with melee weapons, and the rest with various spells.

 

The characters start on the main level of a dungeon of at least four large levels, interconnected by stairways, pits, and (probably) teleporters. As a Dungeon Master clone, Walls is primarily about two things: mechanical puzzles and real-time combat. In neither area does the game live up to Dungeon Master or even Eye of the Beholder, but as an inexpensive shareware title, it has some charm.

       

      

I've mapped maybe 600 squares so far on four levels, and it has been very linear. The game begins in the middle of a four-way junction with starting treasures in all directions (a bronze sword, an apple, a knife, and something I didn't write down). Two squares in any direction, however, there's no choice but to fall down a pit. The level below has four doors, all locked, so there's no choice but to fall down yet another pit. The level below has only a small area to explore before you reach a set of interconnected stairways that take you a level above the original level. There's more to explore here, but inevitably you have to return to the main level by, you guessed it, another pit. (You don't take damage by falling down pits, but you do by testing walls for secret doors.) The bottom line is that at any given moment, at least so far, there's only one way to go.

     

The mechanical puzzles include buttons on the wall (some quite small), doors that need keys, doors that need coins, pressure plates on the floor, levers (some of which have to be pulled twice), illusory walls (it's right there in the name!), walls-on-wheels that you have to drag out of the way, teleporters, and invisible barriers. None of them are as creative as some of the puzzles in Dungeon Master, but they do require careful mapping so you can determine what effect a button, lever, or pressure plate has on the wall configuration.

       

A roomful of pressure plates.

     

Like Arcan, the game has a limited number of enemy types. There have only been three so far, all variants of the same sprite: melee attackers in red robes wielding staves; melee attackers in blue robes carrying swords and shields; and spellcasters in green robes carrying staves. (As always, when I talk about color, you must mentally insert the words "what I perceive as" before the color.) They're hard enough that there really is no choice but to resort to tricks like the "combat waltz," although the game anticipates this by having enemies move in irregular patterns. Enemy spellcasters can kill the starting party instantly, and in my case they were responsible for a lot of reloads.

         

      

As I explored, I slowly amassed bits of equipment: bronze swords, leather pants, leather jerkins, daggers for throwing (and, annoyingly, picking up again afterwards), food, and arrows (but no bows yet). I found my first spell, "Power Spell," which improves combat damage for a time. A missile spell called "Thunderball" followed, finally giving my rear characters something to do.

     

Unfortunately, just a couple of hours into the game, I'm completely stuck. I can't find any way forward. I have four doors for which I haven't found keys, two doors that just won't open, and four doors leading to a central chamber on Main +1 that seem to open with something inserted in a slot (the previous game used coins), but I haven't found any coins. I believe I've tried bumping into and dragging every wall, and I've looked at them all twice for tiny buttons. I've fallen down every pit and fiddled with every button and lever (there are none that have no obvious effect). I've considered the possibility that keyholes or slots might want some equipment other than keys or coins, but nothing has worked. Unless another player finds the way forward or finds hints (I've searched, but perhaps there's an obscure German site I'm missing), I may have to put this game in limbo.

   

Oh, and my characters are starving. You find food and water in the dungeon, but not enough. There's one place that I'm sure is supposed to be a refillable fountain, but I can't get anything to happen there with my canteens or water flasks.

     

        

I'll be so annoyed if the way forward is something obvious. Irene is always accusing me of "man-searching," in which I ask something like "Where are the Triscuits?" while they're right in front of me. I sometimes get the same kind of blindness in RPGs.

In case no help arrives and I can't figure it out, I should note that Motelsoft says on its web site that Walls is its last game for the Atari ST. It is credited to Harald Breitmaier and Heinz Munter, the founders of the company. We'll continue to see their work well into the 2000s.