Their next graphic release in early 1985 was 'Emerald Isle'. It was only the second of their games to have been initially designed by a freelance contributor. You began the game hanging from a tree in your parachute, and soon found yourself entering a city. From here you would discover a competition where the prize was to become ruler of the island! As with 'Eden' it was quite a tough game to finish, but I spent a good few months on and off battling my way through to the end. The graphics were of the same dubious standard as 'Eden' although they were now taking up practically half of the screen in height and width. One snippet of trivia - 'Emerald Isle' was originally to feature a cannibal cook pot scene. This was removed quite late on in case it was seen to be racist. It was also the last of their adventures written with their 'old' system.

The new system was written in 1985 and it improved on speed and compression and added multi-tasking and a radical new parser. Another change saw the reduction in packaging size to a small black micro cassette box. This debuted with their next release, 'Red Moon'. The theme of 'magik' was strong in this fantasy game, and it had a very atmospheric plot behind it all. The graphics were still dodgy, but this didn't matter when the game was this good. Another new element was introduced into 'Red Moon'. For the first time, a few role playing style stats were implemented into the fighting scenes. This seemed to alienate a few adventure players, whilst others (me included) felt that it gave the game an added depth. It was also the first Level 9 game that I solved without having a full score. In fact, I was quite a few points short when I completed it. Apparently this was a deliberate ploy by the Austins to allow more players to be able to finish their games.

'Red Moon' had only one real fault in my opinion. Iron would inhibit the use of magic, so if you were carrying anything made of iron or an item of that kind was in the same location, you were unable to cast any spells. Unfortunately, the game treated the save game feature as a spell so if you were carrying iron, you couldn't save your game position!

The release of 'Red Moon' in July '85 began Level 9's most intense release schedule yet, with a new game approximately every six months. Late '85 saw the publication of the concluding chapter in the 'Silicon Dreams' trilogy. Following 'Snowball' and 'Return to Eden', 'The Worm in Paradise' wrapped up the series in fine style. Set 100 years after the events in 'Eden', 'Worm' was by far the most political game that Level 9 had released. The themes present throughout the Silicon Dreams trilogy were very 'adult' in style and this is what made them so fascinating.

Appropriately, the game began with you in what turned out to be a very symbolic dream, chasing a giant worm that emerged from a rotten apple which then crashed through a wall to freedom. The dream ended when you climbed onto the back of a sleeping behemoth, took one of it's scales as a shield and approached the acid spitting worm head on, (if you knew which end was the head!). All of the usual robots, droids and technical hazards were there to thwart you, but the thing that finally defeated me was the infuriating Enoch Transport System. It was like a giant hub with differently coloured segments. You had to navigate this system to get to various locations, like flower shops, job centres, unemployment offices etc. Obviously the aim of the game was to save the planet but unfortunately I never got to find out what happened at the end.

By now Level 9 were at the pinnacle of their achievements. In the eyes of the press and their fans, they could do no wrong. Exceptional adventures were still being crammed into a minimum of 32k.

In the mid 80's they also produced a number of licensed adventure games for other publishers. Virgin Games released The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, the second of two games based on the books by Sue Townsend. Mosaic Publishing released the first (The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4) and they also published an adventure based on Terry Jones' 'Erik the Viking' in 1985. Level 9 then followed these up with a game based on that epic of Radio 4 dramas 'The Archers'. The text was allegedly created by the series own script writers to maintain the authenticity. However, I have my doubts that this game was ever released. Both 'Adrian Mole' games and 'The Archers' were multiple choice style games rather than real adventures, whilst 'Erik' had very basic graphics and very terse location descriptions. However, this didn't stop the first 'Mole' game from selling over 165,000 copies!

What turned out to be their last 8 bit only game was released in mid 1986, just six months after 'Worm'. 'The Price of Magik' was the sequel to 'Red Moon' and it continued the theme of 'magik'. A crazed magician had succumbed to the terrible price of magik, and it was your task to become as powerful as him, defeat him and yet avoid the same fate. It was another enjoyable and atmospheric adventure with dozens of objects and two hundred odd locations to explore. It also had a nice feature at the very end. When you had finished, you were given the option of a good or bad ending. In the good ending, your future showed that you would live in a luxurious castle and rule wisely. In the bad ending, you defeat the crazed Myglar but in the process your quest for magik turns you stark raving mad, and you are locked up in a mental asylum!

This was the last time that Level 9 employed their construction kit style location graphics. Having used them in five games, they decided that it was time for a change. The changes though were far more dramatic than even they could have foreseen. The 16 bit revolution entered the fray and Level 9 adventures were sadly never to be the same ever again. [more]