This is one of those games that you can't say very much about without weakening the impact, but I'll say what I can. The content can be broadly described by two words: violence and gimmicks. Despite some structural allusions to Zork, it's story-driven (or possibly gimmick-driven) with no puzzles, except insofar as the story itself is rather puzzling. Nightmarish, disjointed, short enough to be played at one sitting, does some interesting things technically (including some tricks that I didn't notice until poking around in my second play-through). Far from perfect as a work of art, but I don't count the time spent playing it as wasted.

Rating: ****

Reviewed by Carl Muckenhoupt (19 Sep 2000)

shrapnel.exe (142.45 KB)

MS-DOS executable (version: 1.01)

ACgamesForPalm.zip (638.44 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: 1.01, ported by Trevor Menagh, converted to PalmOS .prc file)

shrapnel.txt (998 bytes)

Author's notes

shrapnel.z5 (96.00 KB)

Z-code 5 executable (version: Release 1.01)