Welcome to my play through of The Seventh Link, this is the first part of many.

This is a classic CRPG for the Tandy COCO3 computer.

7L : Title Screen

It is freely available from its original author Jeff Noyle, see here http://www.distantsystems.com/personal/jeff/coco.htm

Seventh Link does not come with manuals, so we must puzzle things out for ourselves.

Lucky for us Jeff provides some information on the keyboard commands and we can find a synopsis online.

You can see from the command listing that its very Ultima ish.

This is probably the ultimate RPG for COCO3 enthusiasts, and it is obviously an Ultima clone in its parentage.. It has a classic 'demo' reel like Ultima III and Gates of Delirium

7L : Demo Reel

You will notice right away, this game is using the power of the COCO 3, we have more colours on screen

Let us begin the game...

7L : Start

Grimjak the male ranger opon conquering the Gates of Delirium sojourned forth opon the land of Elira. Just north, I see my first destination a castle. Checking my provisions, 100 hitpoints and 350 food I start me trek to the castle.

7L : Castle

Thinking this game would have a lot of Ultima-isms, I scouted the edge of the castle, and sure enough around the back I find a lonely little man, who gave me a good clue, "The magic user's guild is below us."

7L : Hidden People

Talking to the guards gives me the typical "Move Along" wheres as everyone else that wanders around gives me nothing in response.

I meet a man in the middle of a river, and no way to get to him. Checking out the castle I find the usual stuff, armour, weapon shop, bakery and a temple.

I find a sign next to some salty water, 'DRINK at pools of earth-sprung water'.

7L : Free Gold

In the north east of the castle there is an unprotected room and within were several chests for the taking. I immediatly grabbed them, took some acid trap damage but made out like a bandit! Lots of elir for me.

With this extra money, my first priority was to get a weapon and armour.

7L : Shopping

Underneath the south-western corner, is a healer who can heal, cure or resurrect.. Which is great but there is a free healing + curing pool juuuust around the corner! North of the healer I came across a locked cell, but me with no keys to open it. That is just one of many locked doors I'll have to come back and try.

Climbing down the ladder in the north-east, and going through a lot of round-about maze like passages, I came across a shop, which I guess is the mage guild only its more like a thieves guild since they are selling keys and torches.

Since I had found a few chests and got more Elir I bought a few keys

Unlocking some doors aroound the castle, I found a another way to the outside ring and found a man who gave me another clue, "Seek you the wise knight in the hidden islands of the far southwest."

Going back to the room with the locked door near the healer, I unlock and enter. The man says "My abilities are at your disposal." I ask him to JOIN me. Hagromil the human thief joins my party.

North of Hagromil's cell I find two locked doors... Thats always a sign! Lets check it out.

After a lot of exploring, I've come to learn, well so far, if an NPC is not stationary, they are not worth your time. Only if they are stationary do I follow up on them.

7L : Ship

After much faffing about with locked doors, I find a ship, mine for the taking! Yay

7L : Bug!

Hmm I fired through the wall at the healer.. oops.. the cannon went through the wall and killed them. Lets hope I dont need some resaurection...

I found an NPC that told me "The thieves guild is in the south-west"

Sailing around I find an underground island, in the middle is a sign that reads "In the dungeon surrounded by water, klimb up one square behind the recharger - Peter Howell"

7L : Gates of Delirium
OMG! I'm back in the Gates of Delirium!

Just north of the island is a whole room full of chests. JACKPOT! Lots of elir here.

I think I have found all I can find here, so I'm off to explore another town.

--

So far, I am enjoying it as its been about exploration and I've had no fights yet. I'm unsure if I have found everything I need to find in the start town or not. Time will tell. It is definitely a step up from GOD and its nice to see it using the range of COCO3 abilities.

I've only found one bug so far, that I know is a 'bug', which was the ship firing through the wall. The oddity I think is that some walls are marked as see-through, which is why you can see the healer on the other side to begin with. There are quite a few of these types of wall around, but most block your vision.