of locks and keys requires the player to complete each of its four levels in a particular order. To complete the game in its entirety would take several hours, which combined with the lack of a pause function (except on the IBM version), the necessity of remembering the location of dozens of rooms and keys, and the frenetic gameplay, meant that this was extremely difficult to accomplish. Each maze layout is named after a famous fictional detective or secret agent. Ports The VIC-20 port is 8K and contains only 32 levels, unlike the 128 in every other version. Reception Softline in 1983 stated that "Shamus is the best cross between arcade and adventure games currently on the Atari market ... To know it is to love it, play it constantly, and not get enough of it". That year Softline'''s readers named the game seventh on the magazine's Top Thirty list of Atari 8-bit programs by popularity, and in 1984 they named Shamus in tenth place for 1983. Electronic Fun gave the Atari version a 3 out of 5 review, calling the graphics "superb" and saying "this doesn't look like it could ever get boring." ROM Magazine gave the Atari version a 9.4 out of 10 rating, and Creative Computing suggested "Make sure you have no pressing appointments before becoming involved in a round of Shamus. Once you get going, you won't want to stop for a while." Ahoy! wrote in 1984 that Shamus for the Commodore 64 "is a thoroughly enjoyable game with all the action and suspense that both novices and sophisticated gamers will demand". In 1982, Computer Gaming World reviewed the Atari original, praising the animation and the "vastly superior graphics" over Berzerk, but complaining of the inability to pause the action and of a bug in the speed control. Shamus was considered "the most addictive" of the four games reviewed. Matthew J. Costello reviewed Shamus in Space Gamer No. 68. Costello commented that "Shamus'' is not easy, but the folks at Synapse are giving Atari owners their money's worth." The game sold 60,000 copies. References External links Mazes of Shamus 1982 video games 1999 video games Atari 8-bit family games Commodore 64 games VIC-20 games Detective video games Game Boy Color games Synapse Software games TI-99/4A games TRS-80 Color Computer games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games