Jewels of Darkness

Developer(s)	Level 9
Publisher(s)	Rainbird Software
Platform(s)	Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Amstrad PCW, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Macintosh, MS-DOS, MSX, ZX Spectrum
Release	1986
Genre(s)	Text Adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player

Jewels of Darkness (formerly the Middle-Earth Trilogy) is a trilogy of text adventure games by Level 9. The individual games were initially released separately in 1983. They featured some themes inspired by the books of J. R. R. Tolkien and so became known as the Middle-Earth Trilogy.

In 1986 the three games were revised, expanded and rereleased together as a compilation. For legal reasons the references to Middle-earth were removed and the trilogy was retitled Jewels of Darkness. The games now featured simple static graphics.

The Games

Opening screen of Colossal Adventure for DOS

Colossal Adventure

An expanded version of the original Adventure by Will Crowther and Don Woods

Adventure Quest

Similar in structure to the previous game; the player must defeat the Dark Lord.

Dungeon Adventure

A continuation of the previous game; following the defeat of the Dark Lord, the player must explore his tower looking for treasure.

Reception

Computer Gaming World stated that the compilation's claim that the games had been "significantly revised to incorporate the latest innovative techniques" was false. It described the puzzles as illogical, the Commodore version's graphics as "crude", and, like the parser, below the standard of previous Firebird text adventures.

External links

• Jewels of Darkness at SpectrumComputing.co.uk
• Jewels of Darkness at MobyGames
• Jewels of Darkness on the Amiga at the Hall of Light (HOL)
• Jewels of Darkness at Lemon 64
• Jewels of Darkness at Lemon Amiga
• Jewels of Darkness at The Level 9 Memorial
• Jewels of Darkness at The Bird Sanctuary
• Images of Commodore 64 version of Colossal Adventure box and manual at C64Sets.com