The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
In Valhalla the characters move through various Nordic locations with accompanying text at the bottom of the screen detailing all character actions. It is set mainly in Asgard and Midgard, though when the character dies, it reappears in Hell (Niflheim under another name) and is able to walk out.
The game's text parser understands most multi-part sentences, as long as they are written using the words listed in the manual. Listing the accepted words was not seen in most similar titles of the time.
Development
The publishing house Legend, founded and managed by John Peel, had previously published titles under the Microl label which financed the development of Valhalla. The game was developed by Richard Edwards, Graham Asher, Charles Goodwin, James Learmont, and Andrew Owen using a system they named "Movisoft" which Peel hoped would become "the adventure game equivalent of CP/M". The system occupied 4K of the game footprint and used machine code, with the rest of the game engine and text parser written in Sinclair BASIC. The C64 version of the game was released in the first half of 1984 and featured larger and coloured character graphics.
The cover of the game, as well as the loading screen, features a drawing of the Sutton Hoo helmet, an artifact from the 7th century believed to have belonged to King Rædwald of East Anglia.
