It's well known that Apple II is a computer with a lot of excelent text and graphic adventures were published at the start of 80's. The Cranston Manor is certenly one of them, written by Ken Williams and Harold DeWitz and published by On-Line Systems in 1981.

You must get into the Cranston manor and found the sixteen treasures that are inside of it. Like in other text or graphic adventures of that time you are moving through the game by typing words NORTH, WEST, EAST or SOUTH (or its shortcuts N, W, E, S) to change position and move from one to another location. At each location you can investigate environment. For those purpose you can use the word LOOK. When you find some objects, which may be usefull in the game, you can examine or take them by typing two words: verb (GET, CLIMB, PUSH, PULL, etc) then object name (LANTERN, BALL, AXE, etc). Every object you taken will be put in you inventory. The contents of inventory you can view by typing word INVENTORY.

At the start you are standing on main street. Moving through the streets you will find a lot of objects, traps and clues which can help you to solve the puzzle. The game abound of locations that complicate orientations. Because of that, we suggest you to draw a map on paper and mark every location, how you get in and which is possible exit. For example, when you enter the building, in all rooms a suit of armor follow you and disables you to take any object. So, to solve this problem you must get a cheese then find a cage and catch a mouse. Then, when you release a mouse, a suit of armor will disappear and you can take an object.

P. Penski

Video file by: Retro Games Blog