Reviewer: Dos-Games-Online
This adventure game is based on the Disney Cartoon with the same name, The Black Cauldron. You are Taran, an assistant Pig keeper, living in Caer Dalben. You notice that one of your pigs called HenWen has magical powers. The Evil Horned King wants to have the pig so he can locate the black cauldron, which he needs to rule the world. Your job is to stop the Evil Horned King.
When I played this game it gave me the real Sierra feeling, because of the graphic-style which you will also find in Police Quest, King's Quest, Space Quest and some more Sierra games.
Reviewer: Dos-Games-Online
Sierra On-Line has had such a long and successful run at creating video games for the personal computer that fall into the adventure game genre, that it is no real surprise that Walt Disney chose to use this publisher to create a conversion game from their movie, The Black Cauldron. Al Lowe and the writers and programmers at Sierra have quite a stable of adventure games, starting with the great and long running King’s Quest series. This game was released in the middle eighties, following the release of the movie. Being a fully licensed adventure, the user can expect to see some of his favorite Disney characters in the game. It plays in the side view, and was ported to multiple formats to capitalize on the popularity of the Disney film.
As would be expected of a game following a Disney movie, the Black Cauldron was geared for children. For this reason, Sierra chose to move away from the trend at the time, and abandoned the usual adventure game parser. It was instead replaced by function keys…the early ancestors of the icon driven point and click adventure. The user could access inventory items, look at things, and use items by simply clicking various FX keys.
The story of the game loosely follows the plot of the movie. The gamer will play the part of a young aspiring pig keeper named Taran. The evil Horned King is seeking the fabled magical pig Hen Wen, allegedly owned by the wizard Dallben. Hen Wen is supposed to be able to see the future and achieve visions that could conceivably lead the Horned King to the Black Cauldron, which would help him to rule the land.
The game is fairly mission driven, and the user must first navigate Taran and help him guide Hen Wen to the fairies while the Horned King’s dragons are trying to find him. There is a possibility that Taran will fail and the pig will be captured. The game does not end here, for Taran always has the chance to rescue her…not that it necessarily will work. In fact, rescuing Hen Wen will also lead Taran to some other helpful characters and their magical artifacts that can assist Taran in the remainder of the game.
This is a great game for children, both based on its subject matter and on the fact that game play was specifically geared for children. It was revamped from the standard style of game play to make it more useable for kids, and in the process gave birth to a new style of play. It is a great historical influence, as well as a conversion of a Disney favorite. It is a satisfying play.
Download The Black Cauldron (theblackcauldron.zip)
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