This is Paul Panks RPG #2 of this competition, written in BASIC. Spoilers for the funny bit about the setting are below, so if you plan to play this you should do so before reading the review.
You can’t fight here. This is a sacred place.
First, the good thing: Smurfworld made me laugh.
On to the bad things:
- There is a shop which has only two items. The player starts with 1000 gold and so can immediately buy both of them. Furthermore, gold is used nowhere else in the game. Therefore the shop (and the system where you can sell items to get more gold) is entirely pointless.
- In fact, most locations in the game are entirely pointless. Also, there are rooms which suggest things (like talking to a NPC, or resting) but no verbs exist to do those things.
- There are only two monsters in the entire game that prevent you from going anywhere. In fact, it is highly recommended that you avoid all other fights, because nothing is gained from them; while you get gold and hit points back, gold is useless and you nearly always lose more hit points than you gain back.
- Once initiating a fight the game runs itself. There is no strategy at all.
- Wow, harsh on Brainy Smurf.
Reading the source code reveals that some monsters are supposed to drop items when killed. This would provide some motivation to engage in fights other than the two required ones, if it weren’t for the bug that prevents the items drops from ever actually working.