THE SPECTRUM GAME DATABASE

DRUID

PUBLISHER
Firebird

AUTHOR

YEAR
1986

CATEGORY
Arcade Adventure

DESCRIPTION
Druid is a Gauntlet clone with slightly more depth.

CONTROLS
Keyboard, Kempston, Cursor

 KEYS :   Left            - Z
          Right           - X
          Up              - K
          Down            - M
          Fire            - SPACE
          Toggle Water/Fire    - P
          Electricity spells

          Cast Key        - 1
          Cast Invisibility    - 2
          Cast Golem           - 3
          Cast Chaos           - 4

          Control Golem (keys)      - A
          Control Golem (joystick) - A + H

Note: Joystick controls for 2-player game only!

INSTRUCTIONS
Four skulls of immense evil power have been brought together by
the Princes of Darkness and placed in a tower. The skulls are now
spreading misery and decay throughout the land and you, as an
aging Druid, must destroy the evil skulls and thwart the Princes.
 
Like Gauntlet but with certain subtle differences. For example,
you can cast various types of spells. Offensive spells available
are based on Water, Fire and Electricity while other rarer but
more powerful spells include Key (opens doors), Invisibility,
Golem (creates magical assistant - of which more later) and Chaos
(smart bomb). Each time a spell is cast your capacity for casting
that particular spell decreases, and the counter under the
respective icon at the top of the screen will show this.

Around the castle are many demons of different types which will
attack you on sight (as you might expect). Each type of demon
requires a different type of spell to kill it - a Fire spell
would not kill a fire-resistant demon, for example. If they
contact you they will drain your energy. This can however be
ragained by standing on one of the Pentacles of Life that are
scattered around the tower.  Chests are another source of useful
power, but careful thought is needed before selecting an item
from a chest; they are magically trapped and taking one item will
destroy all the others in the chest. Hint: a map might be
useful...

If things are getting a bit too hectic, casting the Golem spell
creates a magical servant who can be controlled by separate
keyboard commands or a second player. The golem can be given
three commands: send, follow and wait and has its own energy bar
which is drained in the same way as yours. However, its touch is
instantly fatal to demons!

SCORES RECEIVED
Crash "A compelling demon-bashing game." RATING : 90% (CRASH #35,
December 1986)


NOTES
Druid was one of quite a few Gauntlet clones that appeared around
1987, including Ranarama, The Dandy, Into the Eagles Nest and
Storm.