FRAKTURED FAEBLES
(American Eagle Software/Phoenix Software)

Written: 1985 by Dale Johnson

Genre: Comedy/parody

Runs on: Apple II

Review by: Dorothy Millard (Apple Version)

An evil witch has cast a spell upon you and you have been deposited into the middle of a strange forest. Luckily the witch did not take away your power to resolve puzzles. This is the short introduction and there are only a dozen locations in Fraktured Faebles. The game commences with you in the middle of Fraktured forest under a big tree and from here you will visit a golf course, the Three Bears House and Gramma’s House. Although there aren’t many locations there is lots to do in each one. You will meet the rabbit, Rip Van Winkle, the Mad Hatter, Gramma, the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood, the three bears (including baby bear), a prince and Sleeping Beauty.

On loading you are presented with a reasonably good (for its age) hi-res graphic. Fraktured Faebles uses verb/noun parser to communicate with the game. As the name implies, some liberties have been taken with many common fairy tales. It is an interesting game and the puzzles had me thinking. I particularly liked the Abracadabra bees puzzle. It was very clever. For its age Fraktured Faebles is quite good and worth playing. Clues are scattered throughout the game to point you in the right direction. This game has a lot more "meat" than earlier games I played such as Captain Cuckoo or ET Comes Home.

Vocab/parser 3

Simple verb/noun parser

Story 6

Atmosphere 6

Graphics 4

Overall 5