A Wondrous Adventure

“Wonderland” is a fun, whimsical version of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” The game, developed by Magnetic Scrolls and distributed by Virgin Mastertronic, opens on a beautiful summer day with Alice and her sister resting along a winding river bank. Bored with her sister’s company, Alice embarks on her adventure.

Play pretty much follows the familiar plot of the story with the usual cast of characters: the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts and the others. And, while playing, it is as if you were reading “Alice in Wonderland.” This game does not feel like your typical adventure game.

It is quickly apparent that as a text-based adventure game, “Wonderland” leaves its forebears in the dust. Multiple windows allow players to choose any of several different ways to communicate with the game and to customize the screen layout.

All game communications can be done through the text window. However, instead of typing all instructions, the player can retrieve a “point and click” compass and open windows to hold inventory, see available objects in a room, color graphics and a map.

But the installation can be tough.

The instructions are very explicit, with lots of helpful suggestions, but some of the features may not work on some IBM clone computers. (We had a lot of problems on our computer, but we installed the game on another clone and everything worked smoothly.)

The game’s designers do a remarkable job replicating the look and feel of these familiar characters. The text is well written, recalling the flavor of Carroll’s own wonderful prose. “Wonderland” is a lovingly crafted game with lots of features to titillate the bored adventure lover.

WONDERLAND

Rating: ****IBM & compatibles, Tandy 1000s; 640K required. List: $59.99.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.