Clyde's Adventure is a puzzle/platform game, in which you play the wizard Clyde, who must explore a castle in his search for gems and treasure. To complete a level, you must collect all the treasure and gems on the level, find the exit and escape.
There are, of course, many obstacles to be overcome throughout your adventures. First of all, the castle that Clyde is exploring is full of nasty booby traps. Also, many teleporters, switches, magic walls and other obstacles make the search for treasure more difficult.
The game would not be too hard to beat, if you weren't given a "time limit", so to speak. You're not limited by time, as in other games, but by your energy, which decreases over time as you perform various actions, such as jumping, walking and falling. You can also use Clyde's magic wand to interact with the environment, and to perform actions such as flipping switches and digging through blocks. You can collect energy powerups throughout the levels to lengthen the amount of time you can spend solving puzzles. If your energy reaches zero, Clyde dies with a shriek, and you must restart the level.
The puzzles are mostly fairly easy to solve, at least for the first few levels, but the limited amount of energy
makes it difficult to complete some levels, as they are confusing to navigate, and you may find yourself backtracking, and thus losing energy, to find the way out, or to obtain that last bit of treasure. Therefore, it may be necessary to replay some of the levels in order to find the most efficient way to finish them.
Overall, the 32 levels of the game are very well thought out, and have a wide range of difficulties. They are divided into two chapters of 16 levels each, with the first being shareware and the second available upon registration. The levels get somewhat repetitive, however, due to the game's inherent simplicity. In fact, it is very easy to simply pick up and play - all the information you need is right there on the screen (the number of crystals you have collected, your remaining energy, and the treasure you are seeking), and the controls are very easy to get the hang of.
I would recommend Clyde's Adventure to anybody seeking a decent puzzle or platformer game for DOS.
