What foul sorcery is this?!

 Here's something i came across during my travels on Youtube: A complete playthrough of the Commodore 64 game Sorcery:

 Original video located here. Accessed 22nd August 2016

You hear people of today describe the 8-bit era (or the 3rd console generation if you prefer) of gaming as being populated by games that are of brutal difficulty. People talk of the Mega Man games and the original Castlevania as being really tough, much like how Dark Souls is described today.
Mind you, that kinda does make sense from a designer's perspective because whatever the game may lack from a technical standpoint, it makes up for in offering a challenge. Make the game too easy and people won't have any reason to play it beyond the first successful completion.

Which now brings me to Sorcery. I played a lot of games on my C64 as a kid and this was indeed among the hardest I've played. This down to two factors: Firstly, this game was nothing short of vague in exactly what is trying to convey. Looking at the video over two decades later however and it seems clear: The player is required to pick up certain objects and use them in a particular combination. And, naturally, there are numerous red herrings abound which makes success in the game more a case of trial and error.
Secondly, there is a time limit that is nothing less than punishing: As established above, the player would need to apply trial and error to find the successful path to victory but the time limit does not allow for such experimentation. Thus it would seem multiple attempts would be required to find the successful path.
Make no mistake: there is little room for error. As indicated by the video ab0ve, the player would need to rush through the game and have their health drained with the dangers lurking at every turn. There are potions that can restore the player's health but they are more a hindrance when the greatest enemy is the clock. If anything I'm surprised someone actually managed to beat this game.

Mind you, when I originally played this, I figured that the vial of poison would be the item that would secure victory. I tried to persuade my brother but he was unconvinced.
Now, years later, it seem that I was right :)