Spellbound (video game)

Spellbound is a text adventure game with static graphics, developed and published by David Mullich's Synapse Software in 1985. It was available for the Atari 8-bit family of computers and the Commodore 64.

The game puts the player in the role of a stage magician named Gillaume "Billy" Finkelstein. Billy, suffering from a case of stage fright, accidentally summons a demon and must then find a way to banish it back to its realm. This involves solving a series of puzzles, exploring different locations, and interacting with various characters and objects.

Spellbound is known for its humorous writing style and challenging puzzles. The game's parser, responsible for understanding player commands, allows for relatively complex sentence structures compared to other adventure games of the time. The graphics, while static, were considered visually appealing for the platforms on which the game was released.

The game was marketed as a "parody" of the popular Infocom text adventure games of the era, and included several in-jokes and references. The packaging itself was designed to resemble a book, further highlighting the game's narrative focus.

Spellbound received generally positive reviews upon its release, with critics praising its humor, puzzles, and overall gameplay experience. It is considered a notable example of the text adventure game genre from the 1980s.