English is not my native language, so I apologize for any mistakes I may have made. Although I have received the generous help of some friends, translating an adventure is such a complex task that there are likely things that have escaped their correction. If you find any errors or anything you think could be improved, I apologize again and kindly ask you to let me know. Thank you in advance.

  En Español aquí.

The Story

‘In an ancient civilization, Muha Dicramba, a priest of the darkness, not exactly the brightest in the temple, is tasked with solving the mystery surrounding the crime of a wealthy merchant, murdered despite being in a completely locked room. His only clue is a strange dagger, but he has the unsolicited help of the goddess of darkness herself, who somehow seems to be implicated in the crime’.

The Game

The Dark Dagger is a text adventure for Zx Spectrum for 128K (tape).

To play The Dark Dagger, you need a real 128K Spectrum or an emulator program like Retro Virtual Machine 

The game consists of two separate and independent parts, no access key is needed to play the second part, although because it is the conclusion of the story that begins in the first, it is advisable to play the first part before, However, in the options menu it is possible to read a summary of what happened in the first part.

Advice

The game responds to actions like VERB + NAME, such as EXAMINE STATUE, although sometimes you may need more information, for example EXAMINE STATUE OF THE GODDESS (if there were several statues).

The directions are N, S, E and W, plus UP and DOWN, and sometimes IN and OUT.

The most used verbs are GET, DROP, TALK (with someone), PRAY (prayer), EXAMINE, GIVE and OPEN, although to finish the adventures it is necessary to use other appropriate words to the situation that you will have to discover..

Other commands used and necessary are I or INVENTORY to see what we carry on, SAVE, LOAD, RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD to record and save on tape (physical or virtual) and in memory and HELP to receive information like this.

Note that text interpreter only recognizes the first five letters of each word.

Credits 

Code and graphics:

Eduardo José Villalobos Galindo - EJVG -@Eduvillagal

Testing:

José Luis Cebrián @jlcebrian, Luis Javier Capote Pérez The Dragon’s Lair

Correction of texts:

Juan José Muñoz Falcó @Juanjoide

Traslation correction:

Richard Leggett, André Leão Planeta sinclair 

Software: 

DAAD by Tim Gilberts, Graeme Yeandle & Huw-Hamer Powell, DAAD Ready system by Uto , Interpret ZxDAAD128 by Cronomantic , ZX Paintbrush by Claus Jahn

Special thanks:

Uto @uto_dev, Cronomantic @cronomantic, and José Luis Cebrián @jlcebrian for the technical help and patience. Also thank the CAAD staff, their advice and support,  and all those who contribute in any way to keep the adventure alive.

EJVG, November 2024

For any comments, requests or suggestions, write in the comments or contact me at:

Reception

Modern Retrogaming News on YouTube

Listen on Spotify to a playlist of songs specially curated for this game.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2iBZECClp5XAFn5Iq2IYq7?utm_source=generator