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.















































