The Coveted Mirror
The once peaceful Kingdom of Starbury is in peril, as the black-hearted Voar
has stolen the Wizard Munjistan’s Coveted Mirror. After accidentally
shattering the Coveted Mirror into five separate pieces, Voar uses his
remaining four pieces to make take power as the king of Starbury. He rules
over the population with the near omnipotence granted by the remaining pieces,
spying on all who might oppose him. Powerless to directly oppose Voar,
Munjistan casts a spell that secrets the remaining fifth piece away from
Voar’s grasp. The time awaits for one who is pure of heart to gather the
hidden fifth shard of the Coveted Mirror, and make the mirror whole once
again. By doing this, the evil power of Voar shall be put to an end forever.
The Coveted Mirror is an early PC adventure with optional graphics, and a
text interface. The player must solve numerous exploration puzzles by typing
in text commands. The player travels about the land of Starbury in search of
the fifth piece of the Coveted Mirror. Unusual for text adventures, the game
also includes arcade sequences, and several puzzle sequences.
There were two releases of The Coveted Mirror. The original 1983 release
contained a more primitive parser system that only understood VERB NOUN
entries. The game was re-released in 1986 using Polarware’s Comprehend engine,
which allowed the player to use full sentences to communicate.