Issue No. 22 NOVEMBER 1985

FEATURES

OPINION
Which sees the start of a new section in which you can get on your soapbox.

DESIGN DESIGN III
In which the Loony Mancunians get arrested, and make a dog famous! (Well, nearly on both counts).

TAU CETI
The first of a trio of previews — a look at the game CRL will launch upon the world in time for Christmas.

THE ZOIDS ARE COMING!
The men from Martech come a very long way to show us how work is progressing on ZOIDS the computer game.

NEW COMPANY, NEW GAME
ROBOT MESSIAH’s the name of the game, ALPHABATIM’s the name of the company. Find out who’s writing the game and what it’s all about...

WEEE SPLAT!
Not so much jumping for joy... more jumping for charity. Intrigued? Read on.

FLIPPING THE PAGES
Sean Masterson takes a look at what goes on between the pages of Fantasy Gamebooks, and pauses to pass on a little gossip too.

A LOOK AT SOME OF OUR COMPETITORS
We see what they’re up to and learn of the problems they have in getting review copies of games.

ON THE COVER
Susan Rowe’s meticulously executed watercolours make their appearance this month in our pages, rather than on cassettes and Christmas cards!

DIY

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’
CRL sponsor a CB compo with copies of CONVOY the video on offer. All this to get you in the mood for their game JUGGERNAUT. Twenty five copies of the game up for grabs too.

DON’T DILLY DALEY ON THE WAY
Fifty copies of the octet of events which is DALEY THOMPSON’S SUPERTEST on offer.

HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO
McMillan are so pleased with their book and software package on WORLD CUP SOCCER that they’ve arranged for a VIP visit to Spurs. Fifty copies of the footie package will go out free too.

STEVE DAVIS SNOOKER
A trip to the Mercantile Credit Snooker championships and copies of the game on offer in this CDS competition.

SCOOBY DOOBY DOO
Design a couple of bespoke snacks and win a Scooby Pack in honour of Elite’s latest release which features SCOOBY DOO in The Castle Mystery.

REGULARS

EDITORIAL
and indexes.

MERELY MANGRAM
Lloyd gets over the post PCW show blues and looks into his software crystal ball.

NEWS
A quick check up on what’s happening, where and to whom.

FORUM
Out with the Hermes and on with your letters. Lloyd is flooded out with BUG BOX entries this issue, too.

CRASH COURSE
Rosetta looks long and hard at Longman software.

LUNAR JETMAN
What dey got under deir kilts? Will all be revealed? For answers to these, and several other burning questions, turn to page 94.

PLAYING TIPS
Where the Candyman runs riot yet again, and upsets those of you who can’t resist the temptation to read and try his tips. It’s your own fault you know — you could skip to the next bit which is

LLOYD MANGRAM’S HALL OF SLIME
This issue, a double dose of gore!

CRASH HOTLINE AND ADVENTURE CHART

TECH NICHE
In which Franco continues his examination of fast storage media, and Simon Goodwin gets into gear with TECH TIPS on the Microdrive. Mr Bates, meanwhile, looks at more MIDI.

ADVENTURE TRAIL
It’s houseparties all the way with Madcap Manor and Glengarry Hall on the agenda.

SIGNPOST
Pointing the way to success in adventureland with coded hints and tips together with a bit of general adventuring chit chat.

RESULTS
Which begins with a look at some of your efforts in the Design a Sign comp.

FRONTLINE
Sean Masterson has his name cruelly carved up in the headline, but gets down to a bit of stategic stuff nevertheless.

Next month’s CRASH goes on sale from 21 November, not having a copy is like asphyxiating — slooowly...

REVIEWS

- Astroclone Hewson Consultants

- The Custard Kid Fun ’N’ Games

- Daley Thompson’s Super Test Ocean

- Deeds of Glengarry Hall Terminal

- Elite Firebird

- Fairlight The Edge

- Fighting Warrior Melbourne House

- Great Fire of London Rabbit Software

- Impossible Mission US Gold

- Madcap Manor Gilsoft

- Magic MacMillan

- Marsport Gargoyle Games

- Maze Craze Partyline

- Orm and Cheep MacMillan

- Quann Tulla 8th Day

- Riddler’s Den Electric Dreams

- Seventh Cavalry Black Knight

- Starquake Bubble Bus

- Ten Pack Automata UK

Publishing Executive

Roger Kean

Editor

Graeme Kidd

Technical Editor

Franco Frey

Art Editor

Oliver Frey

Production Designer

David Western

Production Assistants

Gordon Druce, Matthew Uffindell

Software Editor

Jeremy Spencer

Adventure Editor

Derek Brewster

Sub Editor

Sean Masterson

Staff Writer

Lloyd Mangram

Contributing Writers

Chris Passey, Robin Candy, Ben Stone, John Minson, Mark Hamer, Gary Liddon, Julian Rignall, Gary Penn

Client Liaison

John Edwards

Subscription Manager

Denise Roberts

Mail Order

Carol Kinsey
Cover by
Oliver Frey

Transcriptions

Matthew Wilson, http://www.crashonline.org.uk/

Additional review transcriptions

Chris Bourne, http://www.zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/

Thanks to those CRASH authors who have allowed their work to be reproduced.

This month we kick off with another new corner, a corner in which you can express your opinions at slightly longer length than Lloyd will let you in the FORUM. A sort of Hyde Park corner in print... get on your soapbox and send in your rant, praise or purple passage. We’ll even pay money (tea kitty willing) for pieces accepted for OPINION. This month, Cathy Foot has something to say about microdrives.

MICRODRIVE REVISITED

Do you remember reading the following about eighteen months ago?

“EPIC LOGUE
Certainly the most exciting aspect of the ZX Interface 1 is the cheap and fast Microdrive storage system, which opens up a whole new world of adventure, and possibly, arcade games. It will be interesting to see what price level will be set for Micro drive cartridge software”

Franco Frey, CRASH May 1984

If you do, then you are probably a long term reader of CRASH and the owner of, dare I say it, a Microdrive?

Well, what have we seen released on cartridge in the last year or so, anything? Nothing? Not much. Let’s face it, I cannot think of a single game issued on Microdrive first, and those that are available on both Microdrive and cassette are far and few between.

The reason I remember that article so well is that we have just decided to subscribe AND buy those back issues that we’ve missed due to depending on our local newsagent, and the May 1984 issue was one of those we missed. I therefore got to read the article I’ve quoted from here not at a time when we were considering buying the little beast, but when we have two of the brutes in the house — I think the highest number we’ve had at a time is five, last Christmas.

Remember Franco’s words? He pointed out some of the possibilities... adventure games bigger and better than The Hobbit and Valhalla; less than nine seconds to wait before a game loads rather than up to four minutes. “No doubt,” you read, “adventure game writers are, at this very moment, labouring away frantically at their first Microdrive epic and we will see some results in the near future”.

So, what went wrong?

There ARE some games available both on tape and Microdrive nowadays, but I don’t know of any that were issued first on Microdrive, nor any that are bigger or better on cartridge. One or two software houses do allow us to copy games to cartridge — Five Ways Software, for instance, trust us to copy Rally Driver to Microdrive, giving us the joys of fast access and an amazingly pleasant feeling of being trusted. Several firms provide utilities on cartridge as well as cassette — in fact most utilities can be acquired on cartridge... but not much in the way of games software.

Why is this? It seems there were two main problems facing the software houses last year, the first being that no-one was willing to risk entering an unknown market with, perhaps, too few buyers in it; secondly, and most important, was that by the time software houses felt that a sufficient number of Microdrives has been sold, they had discovered the worm in the apple.

‘Worm?’ I hear you cry, ‘What worm?’ The worm of Sinclair’s quality control department. If it doesn’t work, send it back! Fine when you are buying items in ones, twos and threes, but what about a firm which buys several thousand Microdrive cartridges and has to send half of them back because they don’t work. And what about software house’s quality control? Will they have to test EVERY cartridge they sell, or just pass the buck on to us, the consumer and run the risk of getting an unfair reputation for poor quality goods?

I spoke to Tim Langdell of Softek, which markets The Artist and The Writer on Microdrive at the PCW Show. He told me that they arrived at the show on the Wednesday with four items on cartridge, three of which had failed by Saturday lunchtime.

Walking round the show, I enquired of other firms whether their games would be released on Microdrives, and they all expressed similar opinions to Tim’s. (As it happens, I seem to have been lucky — apart from cartridge blow-ups due to passing electric trains and my own ham-fistedness — I have only had two duff cartridges in about a year.)

I just wish firms would allow us to SAVE from cassette to Microdrive — but I suppose that would lead to an increase in piracy...

Once more, however, we stand at the dawn of another era — again we watch in amazement at the unveiling of another LITTLE BLACK BOX for the Spectrum. The Mikro-Plus from Mikro-Gen. The same bursts of applause, the same hopes for more and better games are raised. This little box upgrades your Spectrum’s memory to 64K by using a shadow ROM. AND programs which run with it can be transferred to Microdrive. If software houses begin to release games on the Mikro-Plus under licence, our Microdrives could see a new lease of life...

DESIGN DESIGN BIT NUMBER THREE

In which the Saga is continued by Simon. Or is it Psi? Graham is getting married, Poddy’s going to be famous and the lads nearly get nicked taking photies for the inlay of a game...

Rubber band wars nearly become an international incident, as the DESIGN DESIGN Designers loose off a few shots into the Ludlow void. A man in a car by the name of McCracken wasn’t too impressed...

Hello everybody! Back again, though this time all on my own. Not a Stafford in sight. Why? I hear you ask. Simple, he’s run away. Please do not panic at this earth shattering news, Graham is still part of the team, but he’s moved to Birmingham. The reason behind this is really very simple, Graham has made a boob of the first magnitude. He’s going to get MARRIED! (Thousands of female Crash readers swoon with frustrated passion.) Sorry girls, you’ve missed your chance, you’ve all been outwitted by one Ruth Williams of Wales.

On the twenty first of December, in a small Welsh town called Ruthin, there will be a gathering of Programmers, Programmers’ relatives, Programmers’s Girlfriends and large numbers of Ruth’s family. The uphost of all this is fuss is that Ruth becomes a Stafford, and Graham gives up girlfriends, for food processors, washing machines, three piece suites and of course Ruth. We, meanwhile have to rummage through the bowels of our respective wardrobes/cardboard boxes to find suitable attire for such a high society function. God knows what Wook will do if they give him anything less than a pint pot to drink out of.

Less of Graham’s social problems, and on to what he’s been working on. Graham’s Game has now been officially named, it is no longer known as Graham’s Game, but is now dubbed 2112AD. The reasoning behind this is twofold: first this was the day they stormed the Bastille!, which ties in with the scenario of overthrowing a form of government, and secondly the 21st of the 12th is the date of Graham’s wedding!!!!!

(Just to amend my first statement, I am no longer alone, there appears to be some sort of ‘Jamming session’ going on. A friend of ours by the name of Abdul, is the proud owner of a Yamaha Music Computer. He’s written some software for it, and Simon is busy putting it onto eprom for him. Meanwhile the ‘lads’ have found the Yamaha.)

Anyway onto what 2112 AD is looking like. Graham has gone away and come up with a new method of projecting 3D Graphics. Imagine, if you will, a camera mounted above and behind your player. This tracks forward and backwards as you move, with objects disappearing as they go out of your field of view and reappearing as you move back again. I still don’t know exactly what this is going to look like, but the day before he ran away to Birmingham, he had a demo going which looked like a small piece of the Parthenon wandering about in a field full of Simmons drums. Still I have every confidence that Stuart will be able to make things look a bit more credible. KY, by the way, has now been christened a little more sociably as Poddy after Jeremy’s animated hearthrug. Graham is currently developing the icon driven control of Poddy, but you’ll have to wait till next month to find out what this looks like; I haven’t seen Graham since he disappeared in an Astra stuffed with ironing boards, coffee tables, teles and the like.

Graham is in for a shock if he comes back to Manchester for a weekend. What was his bedroom is now an open plan office in which I have my desk, phones, photocopier etc, and Simon has his computers. It’s quite a nice atmosphere, but the real reason for the move is that the view is better from this room. It also means I can watch Simon writing Forbidden Planet. Well I say writing ... a more accurate statement would be watching Simon’s frantic bursts of typing, separated by screams, beatings of Spectrums and shouts of ‘Hey Si, come and look at this!’.

As well as a lot of computers, Simon has also put a 200 watt valve amp in the office. I had some misgivings about this from the start. My worst fears were proven the other night. Mott had come round to see us, and after a few pints in the Junction, he fell asleep on the sofa with his head inches away from one of my speakers. Spotting an opportunity not to be missed, Simon fired up his mega-amp and into one end he plugged a signal generator, and into the other he plugged my speaker. A few seconds later Mott’s head (and in fact most of the room) was bouncing about at 50hz. Mott however, refused to wake up; even when my bass unit exploded Mott still slumbered on. In all fairness to Simon, it only took him ten hours and an access card to replace my mangled bass unit.

Apart from moving furniture about the house and causing things to explode, Simon has been writing bits of Forbidden Planet. The inevitable Design Design style front end is written, complete with multiple high score tables, strange responses and things drawn in the border. If time permits, Simon intends to have a screen editor in the high scores, thus enabling one to edit someone else’s entry.

As to what the actual game itself is doing, well remember the towers in Dark Star? Imagine not being able to see past them. Yes folks Forbidden Planet does proper windowing. You can see through the force fields on Forbidden Planet, though you can see through the holes in them. Also look out for intelligent missiles which follow you about with embarrassing consequences. There will be a way of coping with these nasties but you will need to have found (or deduced) the relevant I.F.F. code for the area your ship is in. If you’re wondering what this is and how you find it, well, you will have to wait and see.

We have spent a few nights and many gallons of petrol driving about Wales with Keith Jordan, our photographer, in search of the picture for the cover of F.P. As is our luck, this involved yet another run in with one of those day-glo coated Range Rovers, the ones with all those pretty blue and red lights on top. There we were at three in the morning, halfway across a motorway bridge, innocently wandering about on the hard shoulder with a camera and tripod, when out of nowhere there materialised a Police car. Not surprisingly a Policeman got and and told us to go away before we got run over. He’d got a point I suppose, but Keith was more worried about the two hundred foot drop off the bridge — he can’t stand heights! To let Keith calm down we gave up the motorway bridge in favour of the top of a cliff and a tele-photo lens. Keith was getting a little hysterical by the end of the night! The funny thing is, the photo we are probably going to use was taken on a canal bank at about ten feet above sea level. Thanks must also be expressed to Keith for leaving his camera with us, thus enabling us to take the photos for the Amtix competition.

Well that’s about it for this month’s instalment of Designasty, (Question:- can’t we have a Joan Collins? She’d do wonders for us at trade fairs!) so I must now go away and worry about such things as the Amstrad Computer Show, which occurs this weekend, and how to persuade Simon to get his nose and soldering iron out of that Yamaha, and put this article onto tape in a form that Cwash’s word-pros can understand. See you next month, I’m off to Securicor with some more tapes for you lot!

TAKING A SHUFTI AT TAU CETI

In which SEAN MASTERSON gets some hands-on experience with the new game from CRL, due out in time for Christmas.

One thing about being a Crash minion — there’s no rest for the wicked. And so it was on a sunny morning in late September (in fact it was late in the morning, but you wouldn’t believe the relationship I have with British Rail) that I entered Crash Towers with a smile on my face, ready for a peaceful day at the office. On entering the chambers of the Holy Ones, I was introduced to Ian Ellery and Pete Cooke from CRL.

‘They’ve come to show us their new game,’ said Jeremy in his usual explanatory manner. ‘Ah...’ I said, wondering if this meant that I couldn’t grab an urgently needed coffee. ‘So look after them and do a preview. Bye.’ Whereupon Jeremy retreated to his Amstrad, muttering something about the superiority of CPM as opposed to MSDOS. The two bearded men from CRL looked horrified that they had been left in the hands of someone who was obviously only moments away from death through overwork. But, as with all good stories, everything worked out for the best, as you will see...

Pete Cooke, the programmer, is obviously into science fiction and admits taking inspiration from authors like Niven and games like Elite. I soon realised I was dealing with a man of taste. ‘Elite was good — very good. But I knew something could be done with solid graphics and shading,’ Pete explained. He reached for the microdrive...

Bottom left, the blue rectangle will be used as a text-display screen. At the moment it’s showing a couple of Pete Cooke’s commands to the program! Meanwhile, on the main display you’ve just shot and killed a nasty...

Tau Ceti is only set a hundred and ninety years from now — relatively soon for a game scenario with such a history behind it, and involving such technological advances. Tau Ceti’s history is in the form of Pete’s own vision of the future: Humankind invents the interstellar ram-scoop, an efficient way of travelling between the stars at sub-light speeds. Colonisation of nearby worlds follows and this includes an expedition to Tau Ceti because it has a G type star (similar to our Sun).

Colonisation of Tau Ceti is successful, but eventually links with Earth are lost and the colony is destroyed. A recolonisation attempt takes place and reports are sent back of robot activity being maintained on the planet Tau Ceti III. Shortly afterwards, contact with this mission is lost and it is presumed destroyed. Better prepared, a second expedition sets out from Earth. In 2174 AD the expedition arrives...

Defence robots continue to patrol the cities of Tau Ceti III, following their original instructions to eliminate intruders even though their masters have long since died. Your mission is to explore the planet, and shut down the main reactor which powers the defence robots. This may be achieved by collecting segments of cooling rods which have been scattered across the cities and need to be assembled and installed in the main reactor. Needless to say, the robots don’t want you to succeed and so they threaten death at every turning.

You pilot a craft despatched from your mothership and sit in the cockpit with the screen display in front of you. Pete hadn’t quite finished coding the display when he showed me the game, but all the major elements were there. The main window can display a planetary map which reveals the pathways between cities (useful for Inter City warp travel — they do it better on Tau Ceti III!). This window also provides your view onto the cityscape when you are exploring at ground level, and is used for the construction and placement screens for the cooling rod puzzles.

Below the main screen there’s a text input display for special commands. On the right there is a clock (presumably running to Ceti III mean time), compass, view confirmation (such as front, back etc) and various status indicators. All are clearly laid out and the ‘control panel’ effect works very well. The main thing missing from this version was the small area map which had yet to be added.

Once you enter a city, you may begin your explorations. Most of the landscape before you will be in the form of hi-tech ruins. Various robots will inhabit the city and they are your main worry. Some are harmless, like the hoppers and the servo droids. Others are more deadly, like the saucers, and attack you instantly with laser beams. You have a variety of weapons to counter them with. Lasers are cheap on energy but not overly effective. Missiles are deadly but you have a limited supply. You also have anti-missile missiles for point defence.

Because you will sometimes be operating in night zones, you have an infra-red vision capability which you can use — alternatively you can set off a flare. When I played this unfinished version, my ship was indestructible and I could wipe out everything in sight. Of course Pete Cooke intends to change all this by the time the game is released in October — but I didn’t mind. I actually did well on an arcade game for once!

If you find what you’re looking for then the best move is probably to leave straight away. A kind of matter transport network still exists, linking the cities in a complex grid which you can examine from your planetary map. You can find operating jump-junctions in every city but they have a limited number of destination points. Journeying between the cities is accomplished by entering the vicinity of one of the jump points (they have four, cornered boundaries at the limit of their effectiveness) and setting up the right command. An interesting ‘hyperspace’ sequence follows and when it is over, you are in the next city.

As you fight or explore your way around a city, the day is going by, the sun changes position accordingly. This results in what is one of the most cunning features of the game. As the angle of incident light changes, so do the images of the buildings and robots. Shadows lengthen and silhouettes appear, until total darkness eventually envelops the landscape. If you fight by nothing but starlight, then all you see are the vaguest of outlines and the occasional laser beam. That’s why you need the Infra-red option. On the final version, infra-red will actually turn things red on black but at the time of writing, everything was yellow on black. Flares will only last a moment but they should provide quite a stunning effect because they, as well as lasers, will cause reflective flashes on nearby objects. The robots also will explode in different ways, depending on their design.

CRL are justifiably proud to be publishing Tau Ceti. Graphically it’s quite different in terms of the use of light and shadow and some of the displays I was treated to were quite stunning. It’s difficult to describe the effect when a robot flies by and you turn around to follow it, seeing it in silhouette as it flies towards the sun, before exploding across the screen as a homing missile plunges into its rear armour! Look out for Tau Ceti. It promises to be very good indeed.

THE ZOIDS ARE COMING, THE ZOIDS ARE COMING!

After his experiences of playing with Zoids in a London caff, surrounded by the members of the Electronic Pencil Company, it seemed natural to let Jeremy Red Horn the Terrible Spencer loose on DAVID MARTIN and CHRIS FAYERS from Martech when they travelled all the way up to Ludlow to let us have a sneak look at the new Zoid game, THE BATTLE BEGINS...

IF IT HADN’T been for their Zoid breaking down David and Chris would have made Ludlow in much better condition than they did. As it was they were forced to drive, in a car. Now it was inevitable that a visit from the Zoid providers was going to arouse more than a passing interest from the Zoidless ones in the office. It was all we could do to stop Graeme rummaging his way through David’s briefcase trying to scrounge yet another pre-historic/future fighting monster. As soon as he realised that David hadn’t come bearing Zoids he went into a corner and sulked, well, only until David produced the the partially completed Zoid game, The Battle Begins.

David Martin chanced upon the Zoids in foreign parts. The idea of writing a series of games around these new toys struck him like a blast from a diaphanite laser. Since so much imagination has gone into the design of the toys the same would have to be done for the games. You may remember from an earlier CRASH that the Zoids game is being designed by the Electronic Pencil Company of Fourth Protocol fame. Chris Fayers, who accompanied David to the Towers, is the man responsible for stuffing all of the ideas and imagery into a Spectrum.

The control console from ZOIDS. Eight icons give you access to controls, while a central map shows you where you are. At the top is a continuous readout of your Zoid’s general state of health — a ‘heartbeat’ — while at the bottom is the area for text messages including status readouts. Supplementary information is presented in windows, which zoom out of the main display... in this case a close up of a mine, called up via the information icon.

The main idea behind the game demands that you are not simply sitting inside a Zoid steering it from left to right. After all a Zoid is no mere machine, it is a mechanised animal, it thinks for itself and reacts to its environment according to its disposition. They possess their own survival instincts and to a very large extent their own sense of purpose. The enemy Zoids are ‘piloted’ by androids but you must pilot whichever Zoid you start off with, and learn to understand the way a Zoid reacts to its environment so that you can manipulate it.

The control panel in front of you offers a series of icons that represent the interface between yourself and the Zoid. The icons are the means by which you invoke certain functions. For example to move from one area to another you select the MOVE icon and then move a cross over the map until it is over the location you wish to visit. At this point the Zoid takes over and finds a route between the points taking into account the terrain and any obstructions that may represent a danger either to itself or to you.

When you come face to face with another Zoid with whom you have ideological differences, you may want to blow it to bits. This means activating your battle systems. On one mini-screen you see a 3D picture of the enemy Zoid and another showing a bird’s eye view of your Zoid and the enemy Zoid, on a Tron-like grid. After firing a missile you are able to pilot the weapon to its target, and you can see, on a mini-screen, a forward view taken from the missile’s camera as it wings its way to the target.

Another icon is STATUS. This provides you with a continuous readout of a function. Perhaps, for instance, you need to keep a constant eye on the state of the weapons systems, in which case this is constantly displayed on the status screen, but if at any time another function begins to fail to the point where the Zoid is unhappy about it, then it interrupts your readout and presents you with a warning. Whatever you decide to do, your action can be vetoed by the Zoid because one of its overriding programs is that of self preservation, which in the long run is no bad thing as you are, after all, inside the creature.

Your task in the first game is to destroy the Red Zoids. The only safe way of doing this is by enlisting the help of your ace Zoid, the mighty Zoidzilla. While he is not indestructable he is more than a match for all but two of the Red Zoids. However the best laid plans of Zoids and men oft come to naught...

The story so far: Rather unwisely, Zoidzilla, anxious to get into battle, has tried to make his entrance from space, through the planet’s atmosphere without protection. The result is that Zoidzilla has been rendered into many parts, scattered across the planet. Before you can hope to rid Zoidsville of the evil Red Zoids you must recover Zoidzilla’s component parts. This involves making planetfall and scooting around the place. At first you are given a Zoid of a pretty low order, but you are given upgrades as you defeat other Zoids and move nearer to your goal.

The game allows for a total of nine levels of strategy, but that’s not to say that a pure arcade fan cannot derive a lot of fun from the game because it can be played at a lower level, so long as you give up the ultimate aim of Mighty Zoidzilla. While you cannot complete the game without getting yourself fully involved in its strategy, it is also true that a strategist would need a good measure of arcade skill to cope with the demands made by the action part of the game.

David and Chris resisted all normal means of extracting information, even a bear hug from Aunty Aggie in mail order failed to elicit the inner secrets of the game. However from what they let slip it’s quite obvious that there will be a dire need to call up outside help through use of one of the icons. A quick radio call to base might be useful in all sorts of tight spots, but the nasty leer on David’s face when he explained why one might call up base, made us all uneasy — so take care when dealing with your base. Something else we learned was that you would be well advised to check over any Zoids that you dispatch, to see what you can recover from the carcass. However, it’s very clear that everything you learn about the planet you are on, the enemy cities and many different types of Zoids, can only be learned from experience. Each enemy Zoid has an intelligence of its own and strengths and weaknesses peculiar to that Zoid. The strategy of the game demands that you discover for yourself how best to deal with the multitude of problems that await you.

METALLIC MESSIAH

It all happened at the Personal Computer World Show. It almost happened at the Newsfield stand, where Mr Urquart downed a few cans of the complimentary lager we had in store for chums. But happen it did. Somewhere, at the PCW Show, on the Saturday, an agreement was signed between Mike Baxter (a Big Cheese at Solutions PR), Christian Urquart and Mike Smith (programmers).

Thus was a new software company by the name of Alphabatim born. Christian, Mike and and Mike came to Ludlow the other day, to show us how work was progressing on Robot Messiah. This is what we saw...

By the time you read this, what with the delay involved in typesetting and printing, Alphabatim’s first game should be on the streets. When we saw Robot Messiah most of the screens had been committed to Spectrum memory and Microdrive cartridge, the animation sequence for the main character had been finished and the game designed — but the finished game was still a couple of weeks away.

Robot Messiah is an arcade adventure which stars a worker robot by the name of Sid. Sid’s mission in life is to save the downtrodden worker robot race on an android-run planet from an eternity of slavery.

Eons ago, the planet was visited by humans who designed and built a robot mining operation. Androids — with human traits such as ambition, determination and greed — were put in charge of the worker robots which actually did the mining. The humans left — and never came back. But the worker robots continue to labour in the catacombs, driven on mercilessly by the android race of robots, forced to continue mining the rare minerals contained in the planet’s crust. The androids merely pile up these minerals on the planet’s surface, using them for decorative purposes.

Conditions in the mines are horrific. The worker robots live and toil in an environment full of acidic dust which attacks their circuits and bodyshells, corroding and damaging them beyond repair. Driven on by unpleasant gnome creatures, worker robots do not survive very long in the mines. They slow down progressively, finally crumbling into dust which is trodden underfoot by their replacements, sent in by the androids.

A classic case of slavery. This state of affairs could have continued for eternity, but one android, amongst all the rest, was different — Socrates. Socrates believed that all robots, worker and android, were built equal and said so. This did not go down well with the other androids, who saw revolution on the horizon... so they punished Socrates by reprogramming him and sending him to the mines as a worker robot. So that he should suffer, it seems they only reprogrammed him partially — leaving elements of his original persona intact.

For many years Socrates labours in the mines, and gradually his dream of liberating the workers from their pointless labours fades. The acid dust takes its toll on his components. He is on the point of giving in, and allowing his lifeforce to ebb. Then news of Sid, a worker robot who speaks of overthrowing the androids and preaches rebellion reaches the expiring Socrates. Forcing his circuits to remain active, Socrates finds Sid and tells him that beyond the mines a greater hell can be found — a maze of tunnels and caves which contains a sinister test centre. Scattered around this complex are three fragments of program which, if collected and assembled together, could be used to reprogram a worker robot and convert him to an android.

The ailing Socrates convinces Sid that salvation for the worker robots is attainable. Socrates finally allows himself to cease to be, once he has passed on the secret of the fragmented program, and starts to crumble into dust. Sid, however, sets out on his quest... to find the elements of the program that will allow him to become an android and save the slaves. He is to be the Robot Messiah.

You control the Saviour of the Robot Race in the game — who is a strange looking figure. At first glance Sid looks rather like a cross between a Woodentop and a Flowerpot Man! That’s not being rude... he just moves in a rather odd way. When he jumps, instead of the more usual sproing from a standing start seen in jumping games, Sid sort of coils himself up, bending down, leaning his chest forwards and swinging his arms behind his back before unwinding like a spring and leaping. It’s really quite a neat bit of animation — very endearing.

As in most multi-screen arcade adventures, the rooms are full of rampaging nasties which Sid will have to shoot or avoid. And there are puzzles to solve and articles to collect on the way to finding the three program segments which will spell ultimate liberation for the workers.

Shuffling through his box of Microdrive cartridges, Christian loaded screen after screen into the Spectrum. “Look at that palm tree”, Mr Smith chipped in, “isn’t it great? We were wondering if we could put a coconut in there, so it could fall on Sid’s head...” Pointing out the yellow slave robots, mentioning the range of objects that would be lying round in the caverns, Mr Urquart explained how the blue gnome in the game was going to be ‘fairly intelligent’ and hunt Sid down. All the while, Sid stumped round the few locations that were ready for him, and sproinged across gaps in the floor and leaped onto platform.

A very good looking game indeed, this one. This year, there could be another Christmas hit programmed by Christian Urquart... a bit different from the last one, Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. We’ll be reviewing the full game next issue. Promise.

FIGHTING WITH A FANTASY

Many computer games and Adventure Gamebooks have their roots in the same soil, and recently they have been moving towards each other. SEAN MASTERSON takes a look at some of the tales behind this publishing success story and investigates the interface between book and computer game.

GROUPS AND INDIVIDUALS

n their time at the keyboard, most computer gamers have spent some of it trying to escape from the deepest of dungeons or attempting to defeat the deadliest of dragons. Many of these are also likely to play Role Playing Games (RPGs for short) which adorn the market nowadays. These games, typified by such success stories as Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller involve highly complex group sessions, organised in the most abstract way. Participants often spend days or even weeks developing character backgrounds to play, which are formed from a mixture of the player’s imaginations and mathematical notations (as an expression of the relevant rules system). An arbitrarily appointed referee designs the actual plot for the upcoming adventure. When all is ready, the group meets and a free-form game commences in the form of group discussions and dice rolls cross-referenced with the rules.

The games themselves can last for months or years if intelligently played and refereed, and once finished, the same rules and players may start the whole process again. The objectives are as abstract as the games themselves with monetary rewards or power and personal fulfilment available to the successful character. Players participate for the fun of the affair.

In the UK, two names come to mind more than any others: Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone (see CRASH 13 February — Here there be Monsters). Whilst they have yet to achieve massive appeal in the US where role playing began, they dominate the UK and European gaming world for two main reasons. Firstly, they had the foresight to see that Dungeons & Dragons was destined to be a runaway success, and as a consequence of this flash of inspiration, formed Games Workshop, the most successful specialist games company this side of the Atlantic. The second reason is that between them, they invented the Fighting Fantasy phenomenon.

Selling Fighting Fantasy isn’t only a matter of writing the books and marketing them, it’s also a case of promoting the concept generally. FIGHTING FANTASY — THE INTRODUCTORY ROLE-PLAYING GAME is Steve Jackson’s handbook on how to write your own fantasy adventures.

GAMES FOR THE SOLE

ighting Fantasy is, in effect, a solo role playing game in the form of a paperback book. The first of these was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Now, there are seventeen books in this series alone (though more of them are being written by guest authors) and there have been a variety of new, independent series by other authors and publishers.

Many hard core RPGers have laughed at the relative simplicity and limitations of such game books but they have, if nothing else, been responsible for a whole new breed of role players, as they serve as a perfect introduction to youngsters barely in their teens (at one point, the average age for a role player was about 19). It may be of interest to note that many of the authors now writing these Adventure Gamebooks, (as they are more generally known) are ex-Games Workshop employees. This is not unusual as being an ex-Games Workshop employee myself, I’m fully aware that being an absolute games nut was one of the qualifications for the job!

In fact, these games are more similar to computer adventure games than true role playing games, as both are aimed at the single player, and both have option restrictions (due to the nature of the media) that would not be present in a conventional RPG. This has led to computer spin-offs of the books. Messrs Livingstone and Jackson have had a computer version of their first book released (Warlock of Firetop Mountain, programmed by Crystal) and The Way of the Tiger series about a ninja warrior, written by Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson, who is ex-features editor of White Dwarf magazine, is about to be converted for the popular home micros by Gremlin Graphics.

The Way of the Tiger series is based around Avenger, a ninja warrior of unparalleled skills and deadly powers. His adventures all centre on scenarios calling for him to defend the weak and downtrodden. The Gremlin Graphics team are working in close co-operation with the two authors, and Gremlin’s Ian Stewart says the series will offer the best in gameplay and graphics.

With the type of stories most popular In adventure gamebooks, it isn’t surprising to see an adventure-based software house like Adventure International also involving themselves, and as we have reported before in CRASH, Steve Jackson’s The Swordmaster series is still under development with AI.

YOU, THE HERO

dventure Gamebooks have now reached massive proportions and they frequently dominate the children’s best-sellers lists. The Fighting Fantasy series proved hugely successful from the start, and having encouraged many other series, it was inevitable that the genre would begin to move away from its origins in D&D in search of a wider range of storylines — and a wider audience. From the traditional swords and sorcery approach, some adventure gamebooks have moved as far as a ‘Mills & Boon’ romance type, employing the same basic techniques as their hack and slay predecessors! Puffin’s Ice Dancer by Elizabeth Buchan and Tessa Strickland puts YOU into the whirlwind action of the ice skating champ — The Olympics are on the way and YOU, an exceptionally talented young skater, have a chance to compete for your country. But beware! The path to fame and success is not easy. There are unexpected dangers to face, enemies to outwit and, above all, a gold medal to win...

Note the use of the word YOU. There has long been two schools of thought when it comes to involving the reader in a gamebook — should the hero/ine be nameless, so that the reader, YOU, can play yourself, or is it better for the author to provide a named hero/ine with which the reader/player identifies? In the main, the former school of thought seems to be the most popular, and in this respect adventure gamebooks are unusual because in almost every other medium you can think of, a named central character (the ‘I’ or ‘HE/SHE’ of a book, film, computer game etc) is considered essential to enjoyment.

However, one area where gamebooks and computer games tend to be alike is in dual authorship. Not every computer game is written by a team or a duo, but most are, and most popular gamebooks are by two authors as well. Although the individual’s labours may be split in any number of ways, there seems to be a tendency for one to be the gameplay expert (devising the combat systems etc) and the other to be the ‘novelist’; similarly with computer games, where the game design and programming expertise are becoming slightly separated elements. Dual authorship can often lead to personality clashes of course, and the role playing and adventure gamebook market has had plenty of those besides ones peculiar to itself.

Almost every gamebook relies on black and white illustrations to add to the atmosphere, partly because they are fun to have, but partly because the atmosphere normally created by words in a novel is generally lacking when text sections are broken up as much as they are in adventure books.

Some of the illustrations are pretty dreadful, but Granada’s "Golden Dragon" series have some excellent drawings, like the two shown here, one of which seems to rely heavily on horror actor Vincent Price’s features...

The illustrations by Russ Nicholson are from No 4 In the series, THE EYE OF THE DRAGON written by Dave Morris.

Moving away from the more traditional sword and sorcery approach, recent Adventure Gamebooks have delved into the classic young people’s adventure story. THE FEATHERED SERPENT is a Nancy Drew & the Hardy Boys story in Armada’s "Be a Detective" series. A priceless Mexican treasure of burnished gold lies at the end of the quest — which clues should the famous sleuths follow? Only YOU can decide!

This book, more traditionally, follows the adventures of the gang without you involved in the storyline.

This illustration by Leo Hartas shows how far adventure gamebook artists will go to create animation in their pictures, emulating the movement of animated computer graphics by using techniques borrowed from comic strips. See how the perspective on the sword arm heightens the effect that the monster is slashing at you from the page. This one is from No 3 in Granada’s "Golden Dragon" series, THE LORD OF SHADOW KEEP, written by Oliver Johnson.

Elizabeth Buchan & Tessa Strickland’s ICE DANCER, No 5 under the Puffin Adventure Game Books Imprint. Aimed more at girls than boys, there’s gold at the end of this one too, but in the form of an Olympic medal.

From the British co-Granddaddy, Steve Jackson, APPOINTMENT WITH F.E.A.R. takes the Fighting Fantasy genre away from its sword and sorcery beginnings into the world of the future.

COMBAT STATUS

he games industry itself, is full of problems. More people get sued in any given week than the software industry manages in a year. The English market, though proportionately smaller than its American cousin, is far more stable. This is due to the large ‘bible bashing’ contingent which, in the States, has declared RPGs as the work of the Devil! Indeed they have gone so far as to accuse Gary Gygax (of D&D fame) of being the Devil’s patsy. They are now taking TV and radio airtime to enforce their philosophies.

As an example of the scale of the problems these people create, consider the case of Proctor & Gamble, a massive international pharmaceuticals company. Their company logo is remarkably similar to TSR’s. It depicts a man in the Moon, looking at the stars. TSR’s shows a bearded wizard in a half moon, surrounded by stars. According to the bible-bashers, this is conclusive evidence that TSR are in league with the Devil. Unfortunately, their Divine Insight failed to stop them from confusing TSR with Proctor & Gamble. The result has been that the latter company has had up to 20,000 phone calls of an abusive or threatening nature — per day. As a result of this, Proctor & Gamble have dropped the logo that successfully headed their company for 150 years! They are now seeking legal action against ‘those they feel responsible’ for their troubles.

Companies are also highly protective of their game products and trademark just about anything that falls within their grasp. For instance, Americans spell the word ‘traveler’ with only one L. Consequently, when the Illinois based Game Designers’ Workshop (no relation to Games Workshop) brought out their best-selling SF game, Traveller, two L’s were used to distinguish the product and the name was trade-marked. One of Steve Jackson’s early Fighting Fantasy books was called Starship Traveller. Now, for the English market, this is not particularly unusual, as it employs our spelling of the word. This little detail failed to impress GDW who claimed that it was a breach of copyright and threatened action against Mr Jackson!

If it wasn’t enough to have games personalities and companies creating hassles for each other left right and centre, more problems are created by the obscure nature of the products themselves. Earlier this year, Games Workshop ordered a product from an American company called Steve Jackson Games (different Steve Jackson, I’m afraid — now that has led to some funny incidents). Steve Jackson Games manufactures the highly successful Car Wars (reminiscent of Games Workshop’s Battlecars computer game), winner of many of the industry’s top awards. It’s a game with RPG overtones where the players build and control futuristic vehicles, armed to the teeth with lasers and missiles and duel against each other. The supplement to this game, which Games Workshop ordered, was called The AADA Vehicle Guide. In effect, it is a manual of pre-designed vehicles for the players to use in their games. Unfortunately, a customs spot check at Dover resulted in the product being impounded for several months because they claimed it was a mail order catalogue of terrorist weaponry!

The fun doesn’t stop there. Many of the games employ the use of unusual dice called polyhedra dice, for the purposes of generating different probability curves. Because these dice aren’t generally available, they are often included with the game. However, when it can be avoided, are they left out and you have to purchase them separately. This may appear awkward but there is logic behind the move. Books and magazines are exempted from VAT. Since most RPGs come in form of collections of rules books, if dice are excluded from the packaging, the products may be marketed as ‘boxed books’ and therefore carry no VAT. Games packaged with dice must be sold as ‘games’ and do carry VAT and are, therefore, disproportionately more expensive. This has led to countless problems with customs and tax officials and on at least one occasion, a company has had to withdraw every copy of the game from the shelves and repack it with dice.

FRESH BLOOD AND BUGS

he games industry is still a great one however. It grows and becomes more commercial every day but it’s an industry of imaginations with room for fortunes to be made if you have a good idea and take the right route.

Chaosium are an American company who produce games of consistently amazing quality and ingenuity. One of their greatest success stories is the game Call of Cthulu based on the horror mythos invented by novelist HP Lovecraft. Apart from being a beautifully and carefully created game, true to the atmosphere the late author adored, it has some very interesting features. Most games award some kind of ‘experience points’ for well played characters. These allow a character to become more skilled within his chosen class or profession as the campaign progresses. This means that a Fighter gains better chances of hitting creatures with a sword for instance. A magician finds that his spells succeed more often and that he has access to more powerful magic. Such a system, Chaosium decided, wasn’t really in the spirit of a horror story. In fact, in most Lovecraft stories, the main character usually dies either because the horrors that he faces are so powerful, or he goes insane because they are so obscene. Consequently, in the game, each character has a number of sanity points which diminish as they uncover more of the erudite lore! Successful play requires the players to skirt around the edge of the problems they face whilst still trying to learn as much as possible and warn the rest of mankind. Major confrontations result in almost certain instant death for the characters.

Suspense becomes the name of the game and the characters know that their situation is desperate and their cause almost lost, right from the moment that they begin play. In a morbid way, it can be amusing to see total beginners getting wiped out after spending their first hour arming their characters to the teeth.

After all these tales of horror and woe, it’s reassuring to know that the industry has a sense of humour as well. There was once a game called Bunnies & Burrows — try and imagine what that was like to play. The funniest aspects of gaming, however, derive from the almighty cock-ups pervading almost every rules system ever devised, which resemble the ubiquitous ‘bugs’ to be found in almost any computer game program.

One of the prolific (American) Steve Jackson’s games magazines, The Space Gamer, has a column called Murphy’s Rules to bring some of these details to the hobbyists’ attention. Some of the items lucky enough to grace its pages are hilarious. In Blade’s Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes it is possible for an average car to be driven headlong into a tank (demolishing it in the process) and remain driveable, 50% of the time. In GDW’s Azhanti High Lightening (a game set aboard an enormous space ship), it is possible to have an infinite number of dead bodies covering an area of floor 1.5m x 1.5m and still have a fully laden character pass through without any problem whatsoever!

But these little ‘bugs’ only reflect relatively tiny errors in what are really incredibly complex rules systems and as the games are themselves designed to be altered to suit individual tastes, they cause no problem. Gamers take a far more participative approach to their games than computer gamers can ever hope to.

The hobby does not appear to be the fad which many hard-core wargamers once accused it of being. It offers more scope to the imaginative, than any group pastime yet devised. The hobby was born out of a love for things of a complex nature such as Tolkien’s books, Wargaming, and the era of progressive rock. It may sound like a strange mixture of inspirations but it’s true. There are a myriad of philosophies as to what makes a good game, or indeed what makes a good player but this is a healthy sign for the hobby and the more these arguments take place, the more their outcomes will add to adventure gamebooks. One day the areas of computer gaming and Role Playing are destined to overlap and that should provide us all with games more imaginative and fulfilling than any seen to date.

The ever increasing popularity of Fighting Fantasy and Role Playing looks set to bring more ideas, egos and costly arguments into the field of battle. I, for one, will be there to see it!

ON THE COVER

Susan Rowe has a particular affinity for Wizards — they’re one of her favourite subjects. Susan’s wizards have illustrated games produced by Quicksilva and The Edge, as well as on the cover of a certain computer magazine by the acronym of C&VG. There’s more to Susan than wizards, however. Her work is very delicate and detailed, executed in watercolours — very different from the work of airbrush merchants (such as her husband, David) who are much more common in the software illustrating world.

THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER. Illustration from TALES FOR A WINTER’S NIGHT fairytale collection, used on the 1983 QUICKSILVA Christmas card

In the mid seventies Susan Rowe studied illustration at Brighton Polytechnic. Like all the other students on the degree course, she exhibited her work at the end of year show organised by the college for graduating students to display their talents. Susan’s chosen specialism was for children’s book illustration and she was approached at the exhibition by Roger Dean, a local man who was setting up a publishing business. Immediately after she graduated Susan was commissioned to illustrate The Water Babies and she began a successful career as an illustrator working for Dragon’s World and Paper Tiger.

Susan became involved with the software industry in 1981 — she produced the painting for Quicksilva’s Christmas card and was invited to paint pictures for cassette inlays by the company. Castle of Jasoom, The Wizard, Velnors Lair, and Mighty Magus are all included in Susan Rowe’s portfolio of Quicksilva covers.

Rather than produce a large expanse of painting and achieve detail by reducing the original, Susan prefers to work small in the first place — her original paintings are generally about the same size as the printed artwork. She works exclusively in watercolours, occasionally using a pen for textures and painting, not surprisingly, on water colour paper. ‘I have always preferred working small — I once did a mural for a shop when I was sixteen, but since then I haven’t moved away from working close up on a small painting. The largest piece of work I have done recently was A3 size, and that was quite a departure for me!’

Susan’s style is suited to detailed work: ‘If I produced larger paintings, they would have to be reduced to fit the space allocated for them during printing, and much of the detail would be lost. It would be pointless to work any larger.’

When it comes to illustrating a book, Susan is not given a brief which details the scenes the publisher wants illustrating. Instead she will read through the book herself, marking the passages which she feels a child reading the book would want to see in a picture. Illustrating a book can take as much as two years — not that long a time, given that each painting can take three weeks or so. Susan’s style is appealing to children — this is not a deliberate attempt to paint for children: ‘I know that children like detail, lots of little things in the corner, and I just draw what I want to once I’ve chosen the text to illustrate. I don’t set out to produce a painting specially tailored for children — I just paint!’

CASTLE OF JASOOM cassette inlay

When it comes to illustrating software, Susan takes a similar approach, loading the game and playing it for a while whenever possible. Her interest in wizards and fantasy subjects lends itself well to certain game scenarios.

Susan is fascinated by literature and art produced at the turn of the century in the Victorian and Edwardian eras and admits to taking some influence from book illustrations produced then. She admits to a strong interest in William Morris who was something of a Victorian Renaissance Man (!) whose decorative influence has had an effect on Susan’s work. In this light, it is not surprising to learn that Susan is interested in botany: ‘I suppose I’m a bit of a botanist on the quiet, if I’m given the opportunity. For relaxation I’ll happily potter about in fields or in the garden — where I grow some of my reference material — just looking at the plants and flowers.’

Given her natural talent for detailed paintings and her love for things botanical, it might seem logical for Susan Rowe to produce an illustrated botanical work? ‘No, I couldn’t. I’ve no desire to work from life, I’m much happier working on fantasy pictures...’

With two artists in the house (David, Susan’s husband acts as her agent as well as producing his own paintings — See CRASH 15, April 1985), do things become a little fraught at times as deadlines approach? ‘No, it works very well. If we were working separately, shut up alone for most of the day, it would be easy to get too involved in painting. As it is, we can share artistic problems and paint together in the evenings when the outside world is less likely to interrupt. On occasions we collaborate on a painting, with David doing the airbrush work leaving me to fill in the detail — it can work well. We can communicate as people and as artists and it’s good to be able to discuss an aspect of the painting you’re working on with another artist.’

An interesting marriage of talent, Mrs and Mr Rowe. On the one hand the painter of striking and eyecatching large paintings; on the other the meticulous, delicate painter of detail.

KEPT IN THE DARK

WHO’D HAVE GUESSED IT? What a cunning move on the part of Sir Clive — launching a 128K Spectrum in Spain, with a Spanish keyboard and some Spanish firmware.

The timing is interesting, as is the co-operation with a Spanish company, Investronica. According to the press release which confirmed the rumours that a Spanish 128K Spectrum was on the way, the new machine is “the result of a joint programme undertaken by the two companies over the last six months”.

It’s not surprising, given the grief handed out to Sinclair Research by the money men in The City, that the company has entered into partnership with a foreign company. The Spanish-speaking world represents a massive market for computers, and Spain’s eagerness to buy up the Dragon when no-one else wanted can be seen as an indication of the desire for computer technology in Spain. And the deal must have been done at a time when confidence in Sinclair Research was at low ebb back in the UK. Lucky Investronica, lucky Spain!

Now Investronica will be building the 128K Spanish Spectrum, which will no doubt be sold not only in Spain but throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Britain will benefit, but it is the Spanish workforce that will be kept busy, and the Spanish balance of payments that will probably benefit most. Which is ironic, given the way in which Sir Clive was feted by the British Government and financial institutions until comparatively recently. Without being too jingoistic, it’s a shame the Great British Boffin’s 128K Spectrum couldn’t have been financed and manufactured in this country — but then again, a few months ago Sinclair Research was on the verge of total collapse if some commentators were to be believed, and the City was, and probably still is, convinced that the home computer boom is over. The Spanish must view things differently.

But Sinclair is recovering from the summertime blues by all accounts. Apart from the slimming down operation and a few changes at the top, the major act of retrenchment was the abandonment of the Cambridge HQ — an award winning conversion of a Victorian mineral water factory. It’s been a case of ‘back to the Metalab, folks, while we work this one out’.

And it seems the problems the company faced have largely been worked out. The Dixon’s Deal, bundling the Spectrum with a host of other goodies has taken care of the pile of stock that Sir Clive was left with at the start of the year, and the price cut on the QL has had a very positive effect on the level of its sales.

Sinclair Research’s share of the home computer market in this country rose dramatically during August, according to one survey. The Spectrum Plus now accounts for over half the home computers sold — small wonder Sir Clive was reluctant to introduce a 128K version of the machine just yet. A spokeswoman told us that a 128K version might be on the UK market by Spring next year, but insisted there were no firm plans at the moment. And the policy from the PR point of view is to be as unhelpful about the Spanish machine as possible, it seems. English magazines won’t be supplied with 128K machines for review by Sinclair — as far as the company’s concerned, the machine is irrelevant in the UK.

Which it has to be, really. Imagine, if everyone knew that a 128K Spectrum was definitely going to be available in the Spring — for a price that would have to be around the £150/£170 mark to compete with the QL and Spectrum Plus — would the Spectrum Plus be the big seller at Christmas?

So it’s not so surprising that the new machine was born abroad after all. It’s unlikely that even the most enterprising importer will manage to get the Spanish 128K into this country, modify it and be able to sell it at a realistic price. Spectrum Plus sales will be safe over the Christmas period, with the 128K safely on holiday in Spain earning revenue in a whole new marketplace. Everyone at home, meantime, is kept in the dark ages of 48K.

NEWS INPUT

THE FAME IN SPAIN FALLS MAINLY ON THE NAME

A new Spectrum with 128K memory was launched in Barcelona at the end of September. The machine is the result of months of collaboration between Sinclair Research and Investronica, the Spanish firm which has the exclusive distribution rights to the Spectrum in Spain. Apparently, development work on the new machine was funded entirely by Sinclair’s partner in the venture.

Rumours have surrounded the 128K Spectrum for some time, and the appearance of a 128K machine on Investronica’s stand at a foreign computer show has not put paid to speculation. Full technical details of the Spanish machine have not been released by Sinclair or Investronica, leaving room for continued gossip on the form that such a machine will take when it appears in this country.

It seems that Sinclair is aiming for a low profile in the UK for the Spanish machine — the hardware is apparently not being made available for review. “We don’t feel it’s appropriate to talk about it in Britain,” commented a spokesperson for for Sinclair Research who would only intimate that a new Spectrum might be launched in the UK this spring.

As we went to press, a company called Zeta Services was considering the possibility of importing modified versions of the Spanish Spectrum to gazump Sinclair’s official UK launch. It appears, however, that apart from conversion costs, the possibility of having to pay extensive import duties on the machines as well as running the risk of copyright infringment — all for a very low margin — might make the whole proposition unviable.

SINCLAIR SPECTRUM SALES SOAR

“and only short way into selling season...” says spokesperson

Sinclair’s share of the British home computer market rose by nearly 20% during the four weeks ending 7th of September. While the QL has made major gains owing to the price cut, the Spectrum Plus now accounts for more than half the home computers sold in this country.

The survey was carried out by Audits of Great Britain — an independent market research company of repute — and Sinclair Research is understandably pleased with the outcome. “... as always, Sinclair holds the key to volume sales this Christmas,” commented Alison Maguire, Marketing Manager for the company.

BACK TO SKOOL

The sequel to Skooldaze is finally here. Indeed, it arrived in the office about five minutes ago! In Back to Skool you have the opportunity to get up to even more mischief in the new school term — and you can even visit your new girlfriend, Haley, who’s at the girls’ school opposite yours. (What if you’re not a chap, eh? — ED.) Since the game arrived too late for review, and Lloyd had scampered back to his cottage for a couple of days off, here’s a quick run down on what it’s all about:

You have to get your (stolen) report back into the headmaster’s safe. Unfortunately, the key to the safe is around the headmistress’ neck! This leads to a variety of complicated, funny but necessary nasty deeds on your part, which include letting mice loose, stealing sherry, getting a frog to attack the headmistress, hassling the caretaker... basically, all the things that go on every day in all good schools! (Don’t you dare use the ‘Approved School’ joke here — ED.)

There’s even a bijou love-affaire-ette! As you may have guessed, every time you get caught doing something naughty, you are given lines. Collect ten thousand of those and you’re expelled.

There’s quite a bit more to this sequel than there was in Skooldaze, and the graphics have been considerably improved. Again, by the time you read this, the game should be in the shops.

WORDPRO COMP ON CARDS

Oxford Computer Publishing (OCP) are well pleased by their new wordprocessor for the Spectrum, which goes by the name of Word Manager. From what we’ve heard so far, Word Manager outperforms Tasword II on ten fronts — sounds impressive, and all for £12.95.

A certain Mr Bruce Everiss is working for OCP on the promotion front, Our Competition Minion Writes amongst other things, and he has been in touch with a proposal for a competition. Sounds great, we say — especially when we hear the first prizes are to be Wafadrives (reviewed in the Niche, this issue). Ten runners up will also receive a set of OCP’s complete works on the Spectrum, which represents around £130 of software.

Full details of the competition and a detailed review of Word Manager should appear next issue.

HOPPING MAD?

Virgin Games have acquired the Rabbit Software name and intend to use the label to sell mid-priced titles on the a range of machines, including the Spectrum. This prompted the Virgin team to dress up in bunny suits, dash off to the local park and hug a tree while trying to look cute and endearing.

Nick Alexander, Big Bunny on the Virgin team (in the black cossie), sees the label supplying good, unusual software at a price people will be willing to pay: £3.99. The first of these games, The Great Fire of London is reviewed in this issue’s Frontline.

Steve Turner and alien friend discuss ASTROCLONE

CLONE’S THE WORD

...As regular readers of my ramblings will know, I like Hewson’s launches. Not only the food and drink, either. They actually have new products to show — not just the promise of, ‘one day soon ...’

When I spoke to Steve Turner at the last but one of these, (a rambling or a launch? — ED.) he let on that his next ‘adventure movie’ would take the techniques seen in Dragontorc into space. What he failed to mention was that Astroclone would see the return of the Seiddabs, those backwards baddies from Hewson’s history, who were never restrained in coming forward — and blasting you.

Nor did he reveal that the game would have three distinct parts. Closest to Dragontorc is the ground combat phase, where you move your warrior around enemy bases, but with more complex commands and animation than in the Maroc games. Then there’s a Defender style, space shoot ’em up and an overall strategic phase when you deploy your forces to best effect.

Nine months of hard work later and once again, out rolls that good ol’ Hewson hospitality as Steve proves that old maxim; you’re never alone with a clone. And by the look of Astroclone, you’ll never be lost for things to do — it’s more packed than the bar was.

Eventually, as the party dispersed, I cornered the talented Mr Turner and asked, ‘What next?’ The answer could be a wargame, as he’s become increasingly interested in the strategy aspects of gaming. Whatever it does have, I bet there won’t be a single grid reference in sight...

Not to be left out from a good in-house launch, SOUTHERN BELLE programmer Mike Male took a break from converting his train simulation for the C64 to show his face

Andrew Braybrook throws down a joystick challenge to JR and anyone else in the vicinity — it’s amazing what you can get people to do for the camera!

THE END OF AN ERA? OR JUST A LITTLE CULT?

Automata have released details about the solution to one of the longest running and best known computer quizzes in the UK — Pimania. After many years of puzzling by dedicated Pimaniacs, the game has finally been solved — having been cited in a divorce case and caused mental anguish across the globe.

Winners of the now fabled Golden Sundial were Sue Cooper and Lizi Newman who finally made the crucial connections which led to the reward. For Pimaniacs everywhere who nearly made it, the answer lay in the fact that just as the constellation of Pegasus was near the ‘Seven Sisters’ of the Plough, so the correct ‘White Horse’ is near the ‘Seven Sisters’ chalk cliffs in Sussex. To open the Ultimate Gate of Pi, you stood in the Horse’s Mouth (that being the 21st location), had the seven objects sacrificed beneath the Gate and entered the final key — 22. Pi (22 over seven) was a clue right from the word go! The sundial was found at noon on the 22nd of July.

The partners of Pimaniacs currently contemplating petitioning for divorce may find it cheaper to invest in a copy of the complete solution, available from Automata UK. But it’s not over folks! The little cult is not yet dead, according to Christian Penfold of Automata, but is alive, kicking and releasing a Ten Pack.

ALPHABATIM IS BORN

Visitors to Crash Towers this month included Chris Urquart, Mike Smith and Mike Baxter, who together have formed Alphabatim, a new software company. They came to show us how work was progressing on Robot Messiah their new game.

Having sorted out the preview which appears elsewhere this issue, they were treated to the now traditional CRASH hospitality — including several pints of Old Flatulence Bitter. They were so impressed by Ludlow’s charms that they stopped the night and had their first board meeting the next day!

TRIP TO GRAX

In which John Minson is invited to see something interesting...

As I left The Edge after my sneak preview of Fairlight, author Bo Jangeborg made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: Would I like to see Grax some time?

Now what, I hear you asking, is Grax? Some sort of obscure fish dish from Bo’s native Sweden? A roaming monster from Fairlight’s dungeons? Neither — Grax is the programming utility at the heart of the Worldmaker technique which gives Fairlight its realistic solidity.

Bo Jangeborg gets his head down to some serious work with GRAX — the utility that helped make FAIRLIGHT possible

Those of you who’ve used The Artist, would feel at home with Grax. Using a variety of graphics techniques, such as advanced rubber banding, where a line can be moved and stretched from a point, and a total of 26 different fill patterns, it’s comparatively simple to create an overhead perspective view of a room.

Once you have the layout in place you position pre-drawn features such as windows and doors where you want them. First comes the basic picture, which can be manipulated, reversed and generally fiddled around with. Then it’s put into position in the picture — and the system allows floors to continue through openings.

Apart from being very simple to use, the system is very compact. Bo has found a way of reducing all these room details to a minimum of code. While Grax was originally developed to produce half screen illustrations for Quilled adventures, it’s now a fully-fledged graphics mini-language with developments in the pipeline which will take it much further. You should be able to include figures in pictures, for instance...

So why’s this all so important? Bo’s returning to Sweden and his own company, Xcellent Software but he’s leaving Grax behind. It should form the basis for a series of diverse adventures from The Edge. Perhaps more importantly, it will eventually be possible to buy Grax as a utility — perhaps in a form for illustrating adventures to begin with, but one day you might be able to create your own Fairlight type adventure as easily as you can write a text adventure with The Quill today.

MELBOURNE MUSIC

With the launch of Melbourne House’s eagerly awaited Lord of the Rings coming ever nearer, news has come in (to this poor minion’s desk) about their other impending releases. Big Daddy’s Wrestling is the latest game from the team responsible for The Way of the Exploding Fist. Gyroscope which has been worked on by various teams at Melbourne House, is a weird arcade game where you have to control a... guess what? The catch is, some of the terrain is very tricky indeed!

Finally, there is the Wham! music program which our very own Maestro, John Bates has already had a peek at and seems quite impressed with. Full review next ish.

BEST EVER PCW SHOW

According to the organisers, this year’s PCW show, held at Olympia in September, was an astounding success, despite the supposedly poor state of the market. Over 63,000 people visited the show over a five day period. Including people coming back into the show, more than 70,000 people crossed the threshold, making it the largest computer show ever held in the UK.

AN END TO THE WAITING

Digital Integration, the people who created the phenomenally successful Fighter Pilot have announced their latest creation. Tomahawk is ready at last and will be previewed on Wednesday October 16th, which means it should be in the shops as you read this.

Tomahawk is based on similar principles to Fighter Pilot but this time, you’re controlling a Hughes Apache attack helicopter, flying over advanced 3D graphic terrain.

A SOFTWARE SEXTET FROM LONGMAN

A slightly different format this month, as I look at six programs from Longman Software in their Early Learning series. Longman have built up a solid reputation as respected publishers of educational book materials, and they are now attempting to extend their success into the field of computer software, aimed particularly at the home market. The blurb on the attractive packaging tells us that 'each program is based on well-tried educational theories, brought alive by the creative wizardry of modern technology. Your children will be spellbound... The wonder of the computer, the power of its appeal and the balanced variety of games and activities will keep your child fascinated, absorbed and learning.'

Well, this certainly sounds good, but do the programs live up to these claims? The six programs fall into two distinct categories: a, b, c, ... Lift Off! and Wild Words aim to encourage word recognition and spelling while Countabout, Hot Dot Spotter, Sum Scruncher and Robot Runner try to develop counting and number skills. Each package contains a sheet of notes for parents giving easily followed instructions on loading the program and playing the game, as well as a very useful section, Other Things To Do, which suggests some additional (non computer) ways to encourage the specific learning activity.

The acquisition of literacy and numeracy skills is, of course, extremely important, and many parents, wishing to do their best for their children, purchase software which claim to stimulate children towards acquiring these skills. A word of caution for parents, however: you child's school is likely to have a carefully constructed syllabus for teaching letter and number work. If you are in any doubt about how to use a computer program to supplement this work, it might be a good idea to contact your child's teacher for a chat.

A, B, C... LIFT OFF!

Producer: Longman Software
Author: Micromega
Price: £7.95

This letter and word-recognition program is in two parts. The alphabetic order game displays at the start a picture of an apple, the word ‘apple’ and the letter A. The player is then asked to press the next letter, and is rewarded with the picture of a bus, the word and the initial letter. Pressing ENTER changes the game to A. B, C Lift-Off! The screen shows a conveyor belt for loading crates onto a rocket. The child has to match the object which appears on the conveyor belt with the correct word displayed at the top of the screen. If the word and object match, the S key (for Snap) is pressed, and when the rocket is fully loaded with its six objects, it takes off.

This is a simple but useful program which young children will enjoy, though the speed of the Snap game is too fast for the lower age range.

COUNT ABOUT

Producer: Longman Software
Author: Micromega
Price: £7.95

Another number game, Count About attempts to give practice in addition and subtraction in the number range 1 to 9. A number of objects appear on the screen (birds, clocks, crocodiles etc) together with a simple sum. For example, if two objects are displayed on screen, the player might be instructed to ‘Make 6: 2 plus ? equals 6’. If the correct number key is pressed, the equivalent number of objects appears on the screen together with the completed sum.

Visually this game is much more appealing than Hot Dot Spotter, and the sort of structured reinforcement approach it involves is quite useful in achieving its limited objectives.

HOT DOT SPOTTER

Producer: Longman Software
Author: Micromega
Price: £7.95

Hot Dot Spotter is a very simple number game. The player has to count the number of dots on a dropping ball and press the corresponding number key. The game starts fairly slowly, using low numbers, and as the player’s skill improves the game becomes faster and more difficult. The scoring system is dependent on how quickly the correct key is pressed, and the notes tell us that ‘seeing your score mount closer and closer to the High Score as you successfully catch each ball is a great thrill’. Unfortunately, my team of testers didn’t seem to think so! I’m afraid I found this game to be educationally sterile. There was little motivation for the player, and the number skills involved could have been practised to greater effect with dice and bits of cardboard.

ROBOT RUNNER

Producer: Longman Software
Author: Micromega (Tony Poulter)
Price: £7.95

Do you remember chanting out your tables at school? I certainly do (and I’m not that old!), though there was little emphasis on whether pupils actually understood what the recitations meant. Robot Runner gives children practice in the 2 to 9 multiplication tables. The player has to answer the sum correctly in order to move Robot Runner across the screen to retrieve the stolen treasure of Endor. There are, however, all sorts of obstacles to be avoided on the way. At the beginning, the menu allows you to choose which of the nine tables to practise — alternatively you can opt for a mixture. Instead of having to press the number keys for the correct answer, the player uses the two vertical cursors to increase or decrease the runner’s speed to the number wanted. Certainly, the game element in this program is much more interesting than in Sum Scruncher, and the game is quite a useful way of reinforcing the tables.

SUM SCRUNCHER

Producer: Longman Software
Author: Micromega (Tony Poulter)
Price: £7.95

Obviously, educational software aimed at the 6 plus age group has to provide a fair amount of entertainment, but this game fails to provide much entertainment or education. This time, the arcade routine features a serpent-patrolled maze in which Microbug is trapped. There are thirty five gates with numbers on them, and the idea is that when the problem at the bottom of the screen is solved, the player moves Microbug, using the four cursor keys, to a position directly below the gate displaying the correct answer. There are six levels of difficulty to choose from, ranging from easy addition and subtraction (though this ‘easy’ option includes sums like 59 plus 4 and 47 plus 7) to difficult division as in 56 divided by 7.

A major flaw in the game is that the numbers displayed on the gates are all two digits — so 5 is represented as 05 — and Microbug has to be positioned extremely carefully, directly below and between the two digits, before the number is accepted. This game provides nothing more than mechanical, repetitive exercises and children are unlikely to want to play it again and again.

WILD WORDS

Producer: Longman Software
Author: Micromega
Price: £7.95

Wild Words is a spelling game covering over 200 words which range from 3 to 14 letters in length. The menu offers 5 levels of difficulty — level 1 includes simple words like ‘bun’, while more complex spellings such as ‘people’ appear at level 5. When the choice of level has been made, the target word appears for a short time at the bottom of the screen. During the game, the player can see the word again by pressing H. The game element involves the child having to use the horizontal cursor keys (or 5 and 8 on the Spectrum Plus) to move Microchimp and his wheelbarrow across the screen to catch the correct letters falling from the top. The letters must be caught in the right order to spell the target word. After each word is correctly spelled, the child is rewarded with a tune, and the flower on the right of the screen grows one step further.

The children who tried this game for me didn’t think much of it and rapidly lost interest. The game was not strong enough to retain their attention, and they soon gave up, claiming it was ‘boring’. From an educational viewpoint, the program seemed to me to be extremely limited and totally lacking in flexibility. Spelling is taught most successfully when the words have some sort of context for the child — it would have been much better if the parent had been given the option of entering his or her choice of words for the child to spell, taken perhaps from a favourite book, or if the package had included some reading material which used the target words in context.

General Rating

All of the programs are well error-trapped but, with the exception of a, b, c... Lift Off!, they have little of real merit to commend them. This isn't to say that they are bad programs, but simply that they are no better or worse than other educational software which relies mainly on an arcade format to sweeten the drill/practice pill. They all run well, however, and are easy enough to use, but are lacking in flexibility and, generally speaking, belong more to the education system of the past than to the computer age.

The programs all cost £7.95 and will run on the 16 or 48K Spectrum.

Next month, I'll be looking at an outstandingly good series of early learning programs from Five Ways, entitled The Learning Box.

A Roundup of the Results...

A, B, C, Lift Off!

Educational Aim

letter/word recognition

Age Range

4-8

Control Keys

all letter keys used; S to snap

Use of Colour

bright & attractive

Graphics

In the letter recognition section, the pictures are rather small and a large part of the screen is unused

Wild Words

Educational Aim

spelling

Age Range

6 and over

Control Keys

H to see the word again, then cursor keys

Use of Colour

good

Graphics

uninspiring

Hot Dot Spotter

Educational Aim

number skills

Age Range

4-8

Control Keys

number keys only

Use of Colour

limited

Graphics

very dull

Count About

Educational Aim

addition and subtraction

Age Range

4-8

Control Keys

number keys only

Use of Colour

good

Graphics

good

Sum Scruncher

Educational Aim

number skills

Age Range

6 and over

Control Keys

cursor keys only

Use of Colour

bright and clear

Graphics

reasonably good

Robot Runner

Educational Aim

multiplication

Age Range

6 and over

Control Keys

cursor keys only

Use of Colour

attractive

Graphics

fairly good

THE EXPRESS GANG PART II

The crazy Express gang continues with two slightly more powerful adversaries. In the last issue, Sinclair’s MICRODRIVE and the TRITON QD disk drive both provided low-cost fast storage media at for less than £120.00. This issue sees another low cost contender, which is a direct competitor to Sinclair’s MICRODRIVE, Rotronic’s WAFADRIVE. The WAFADRIVE provides two disk drives, RS232 serial and Centronics parallel output ports for printers and communication handled with the extended Basic commands using streams and channels. In fact, the WAFADRIVE seems to convert the Spectrum into a full specification computer... well nearly.

The other contender is Technology Research’s BETA disk drive with the new updated disk operating system TR-Dos V4. This unit must be a little gem for games fanatics, as it allows them to store their hard-earned cassette software collection to disk for instant recall. If that isn’t enough, the system caters for random access data files, where any specified record may be read or written to — no more long wait cycles while skipping to the required record. Although the BETA disk commands reside in the operating system, they may be accessed from Sinclair Basic or machine code. The BETA interface unit is not expensive, but it does exclude the drives, so the complete system reaches normal disk drive price levels, which are certainly above those of the previously mentioned fast storage units.

In the next issue there are more drives to follow, including the KEMPSTON disk interface, the OPUS DISCOVERY and the TIMEX disk systems. The last of this series will feature a comparison table listing all the drives reviewed, so that the important decision of selecting the right drive for the right job will be that much easier...

ROTRONICS WAFADRIVE

HARDWARE:

The WAFADRIVE unit consists of a large black box containing two stringy floppy drives, the disk drive interfacing and the serial and Centronics parallel ports. It connects to the Spectrum via its flat cable to the system edge connector. There is a power indicator and each drive has a drive-active LED. At the rear of the unit are located the expansion bus connector and the nonstandard Centronics and serial connectors. Included in the package are two wafers, one blank, the other containing Softek’s Spectral Writer word processor.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:

The WAFADRIVE belongs to the group of stringy floppy drives. The wafers are ENTREPO stringy floppy cartridges with varying capacities of 16K, 64K or 128K (formatted). As the file storage is sequential, the access time increases linearly depending on the capacity of the cartridge. The access speed is improved with the use of a fast search speed for swift file location. The extended Basic commands made available by the Wafadrive Operating System (WOS) do not come into operation until the system has been initialised with a NEW * command. Once initialised, the WOS reserves about 2K of the Spectrum’s memory for its own use. The WOS resides in a special 8K ROM, which is paged automatically like Sinclair’s ZX Interface 1 ROM. The WAFADRIVE unit also incorporates a Centronics parallel and a serial RS232 interface, both accessed via the extra ROM commands. Software access to these ports is via the channels and streams procedure known to the ZX Interface 1 owners. The availability of the two ports means you can connect any low-cost printer via the parallel port, while at the same time communicate with another computer system via the serial port. The inclusion of a full-blown word-processing package converts the Spectrum into a ‘serious’ home or small business computer.

OPERATING SYSTEM:

Extended Basic residing in automatically paged ROM.

SYSTEM COMMANDS:

BREAK aborts execution of Basic.

CAT*"d:" displays the directory of the wafer in the specified drive.

CAT#"d:" loads in the directory of the specified drive without displaying it on screen.

CLEAR* closes all previously opened streams or data file channels and sets streams 0-3 to their default allocation.

CLOSE# stream closes the stream previously opened using OPEN # and sets streams 0-3 to their default value.

CLOSE#* stream closes the stream previously opened using OPEN # or OPEN #*. Closing streams assigned to data file output channels causes the file to be stored on wafer and the directory to be updated.

CLS* clears the screen but also resets the attributes to PAPER 7, BORDER 7 and INK 0.

ERASE*"d:filename" removes the specified file from the wafer. Wild card facility operates with ERASE.

FORMAT*"R"; baudrate sets the RS232 transmit/receive data rate. Default value is 1200 baud.

FORMAT*"d:wafername" formats and names wafer.

INKEY$ #stream; variables reads next single character from previously opened input channel, via assigned stream.

INPUT #stream; variables reads data from previously opened input channel, via assigned stream.

LIST # stream, line lists program, starting at optional line number, to specified stream.

LOAD* "d:filename" loads specified program, Basic or machine code. LOAD* alone loads first program in directory of wafer in default drive.

MERGE*"d:filename" merges specified Basic program with that currently stored in memory.

MOVE * "d:filename1" TO "d:filename2" makes a copy of file specified in filename1, optionally giving it the name specified in filename2. Wildcard works with MOVE.

NEW clears Basic program and also resets the WOF, freeing the reserved RAM.

NEW* initialises the WOF, reserving around 2K bytes for the directories and extended system variables.

NEW* clears the Basic program area without resetting the WOF.

OPEN #stream, "channel" opens the specified stream and assigns it to the specified channel.

OPEN#* stream,"port" opens the specified stream and assigns it to the specified port.

OPEN#* stream,"d:filename" opens the specified stream and assigns it to a data file channel. The channel is opened as an output channel, if the file is new, otherwise as an input channel.

PRINT# stream;"string", data, variables sends string or numeric data to previously opened output stream.

SAVE *"d:filename" LINE run saves Basic program in memory to drive specified. Optional LINE suffix gives autorun facility. Error report if file already exists.

SAVE *"d:filename", start, length, run saves machine code bytes from memory. Optional autorun facility. Error report if file already exists.

SAVE# provides same features as above, but allows overwriting of existing file.

VERIFY* "d:filename" verifies Basic or machine code program on wafer against that stored in memory.

ERROR REPORTS:

26 error reports

EXTRA FACILITIES:

Serial RS232 interface with software selectable baud rates from 110 to 19200 baud. Sending and receiving of text and binary files. Centronics parallel output port.

MANUAL:

Excellent 68 page manual with good introductory instructions, full explanation of entire system including parallel and serial port usage, complete command summary, error report list and valuable information for experienced programmers including memory map and port addresses and explanation of extended system variables.

APPLICATION PROGRAMS:

SPECTRAL WRITER word processing package by Softek with 64 character wide display, extensive facilities including printer configuration.

CRITICISM:

Slow access time with high capacity wafers. Non-standard parallel and serial port connectors require specially configured cables.

COMMENTS:

Excellent value for money system offering two drives, Centronics and RS232 ports and useful word processing package. Despite similar performance to ZX microdrives, the drive system has a more rugged and reliable feel. The Wafadrive system doesn’t provide local area networking, but has extra parallel port for low-cost printer connection.

MEDIA:

Entrepo stringy floppy wafers with infinite loop 1/16" width various length tape for 16K, 64K and 128K capacity. Write protection by removable tab. Life expectancy approx. 5000 passes. Prices
16K Wafa £2.49
64K Wafa £2.79
128K Wafa £2.99

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION:

Number of drives: 2
Storage capacity (formatted) max. 128K
Sector size: 1K bytes
Number of sectors: up to 128
Transfer rate: 18K Baud (2K bytes/sec)
Tape speed: 10"/sec (fast search 15"/sec)

TIMING:
Formatting (approx):
16K 47 secs
64K 2 mins 30 secs
128K 4mins 42 secs
Cataloguing (approx):
16K up to 8.5 secs
64K up to 27 secs
128K up to 47 secs
Loading a screen (approx):
16K up to 12.5 secs
64K up to 29.5 secs
128K up to 51 secs
PRICE:
£129.95
Leads

Centronics £12.95
RS232 £10.95

BETA DISK TR-DOS V4 INTERFACE

HARDWARE:

The package consists of the disk interface unit which connects to the expansion port of the Spectrum and a software disk. No disk drives are supplied. The unit was tested using a twin 5" disk drive unit with integral power supply kindly lent to CRASH by Cumana, ‘the best memory people in the business’ (no chance of them forgetting their equipment on loan!).

The BETA disk interface feaures a standard Shugart compatible disk drive port at the righthand side, to which the required disk drive or drive may be connected via a flat ribbon cable. Up to four disk drives can be connected to the system and these can be 40 or 80 track, single or double sided. To the rear of the interface is a expansion port for further Spectrum add-ons and the ‘Magic Button’ which activates the RAM Image Saver. To the left is situated a reset button.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:

On power-up the system boots up into the Disk Operating System (DOS) environment and not in Sinclair Basic. The interface automatically checks the drive specification and adjusts its speed and format accordingly. Access to the disk system is gained by use of the DOS commands. At any time Basic may be called up via a RETURN command. Re entering DOS is via RANDOMIZE USR 15360. The DOS commands can be used in Basic in the form of a RANDOMIZE USR:REM: call, similarly in machine code via a CALL 15363 command after having changed the Basic variable CH ADD to point to an address line buffer. A program stored under the name of ‘boot’ may be run by simply typing RUN and ENTER. The DOS caters for random access files, which allows proper database operation.

At the press of the ‘Magic Button’ the running program is interrupted and the whole image of the RAM is saved on disk. The image may be retrieved from the disk to the RAM with the program continuing to run from where it was interrupted. This means that games may be loaded via cassette in the usual way and once the loading sequence is completed the program may be saved to disk without the change of a single byte in RAM to upset the continuation of the game. This provides a disk copy of any game which runs on the Spectrum and should prove to be a nightmare for any software house if it isn’t for the fact that very few Spectrum owners can actually afford a disk system. The disk system requires a buffer of 256 bytes (one sector) and uses the printer buffer of the Spectrum. Before the buffer is used, it is stored on the system track of the disk. When the operation is completed, the original printer buffer data is reloaded from disk. RAM data is only lost if the disk is write protected. The software disk provided with the interface contains a range of useful disk utilities.

OPERATING SYSTEM:

BETA TR-DOS V4

SYSTEM COMMANDS:

CAT lists the files on disk. The listing can be dumped to a channel when the command is extended to CAT# number.

COPY copies specified source file on source drive to destination file on destination drive. Will not work with single disk system.

CLOSE# channel-number closes specified channel.

ERASE removes a file from disk

FORMAT checks the drive specification and formats the disk. A doublesided disk drive can be forced to format as a singlesided with a disk name starting with ‘$’. This is essential for use with the RAM saver.

GO TO "filename" CODE loads and runs a saved RAM image.

LOAD loads program from disk to memory. A Basic program stored with a line number will autorun from that line number, otherwise the program will be automatically listed. When loading a machine program, it can be relocated with LOAD "filename" CODE new address.

MERGE merges Basic program with the program in RAM.

MOVE repacks the files on disk.

NEW changes the name of an existing file on disk.

OPEN #channel-number,"filename"W opens a channel for write. To save a string to disk in filename requires a Basic function PRINT$channel-number.

OPEN #channel-number,"filename"R opens a channel for read. To read data from filename on disk requires an INPUT #channel-number; variable.

INPUT #channel-number; (record-number), variable-name reads a record from the file when random access file is open.

OPEN channel-number,"filename" RND, record-length opens a file for random access.

PEEK reads any required part of a file on disk and transfers the data into RAM. A complete sector is read and transferred to the specified location within the Buffer RAM.

POKE writes a specified sector of data from RAM to any location on disk.

PRINT #channel-number; recordnumber, variable-name writes a record to a file when random access file is open.

RANDOMIZE USR 15360 calls up DOS from Spectrum Basic.

RUN "filename" loads and runs Basic program filename.

RUN "filename" CODE loads and runs machine code program filename.

SAVE "filename" saves a Basic program.

SAVE "filename" LINE number saves a Basic program run from line number.

SAVE "filename" CODE n, m saves a machine code program.

SAVE "filename" DATA a() or a$() saves a variable or character array.

40 informs the system that the currently selected drive is a 40 track drive. Required for drives without an end stop switch.

ERROR REPORTS:

Disk error indication with retry, abort or ignore option. If DOS commands are from Basic or machine code programs, the error code is stored in the Z80 register pair BC. To obtain the error code, a variable is set equal to the DOS command. The variable takes on the value of the error code on completion of the DOS command.

EXTRA FACILITIES:

RAM image copier for storing protected commercial programs on disk. Utility disk contains programs tapecopy and filer, which are disk utilities.

MANUAL:

32 page manual with TR-DOS V4 addendum does not make for easy reading. Includes advice on using DOS commands in Basic and machine code programs, error message coding, pin connections and explanation of disk utilities.

APPLICATION PROGRAMS:

None.

CRITICISM:

- Not so easy access to DOS commands from Basic

- Confusing doubling up of DOS commands and disk utilities

- Manual confusing with TR-DOS V4 update

COMMENTS:

Excellent value disk interface with random access facility and superb Ram image saver for games collection on tape (naughty but nice...)

MEDIA:

Depends on drives connected.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Number of drives supported per system: 4
Storage capacity: up to 640K (80 track doublesided)
Sector size: 256 bytes
Number of sectors: 16 sectors per track

TIMING:

Formatting: approx 35sec
Cataloguing: approx 2sec
Loading a screen: approx 3.5sec

PRICE:
£109.25 inc VAT Plus £4.00 p&p

MORE MIDI MUSIC

Interfacing MIDI to MUSIC TYPEWRITER

In last month’s NICHE, you were promised a review of selected MIDI interfaces for your Spectrum. We kick off this month, with a package from Micro Musical of Coventry who have come up with a MIDI hardware and a software add-on for Romantic Robot’s excellent Music Typewriter program.

We reviewed Music Typewriter in the May issue, where it was judged to be a program of worth, providing excellent graphics, and musical facilities including screen print out and memory space in which tunes may be stored. The editing facilities are simple and easy to use, and the only thing it lacked when we reviewed it was the ability to communicate with musical instruments. Now Micro Musical have come to the rescue. The addition of their MIDI interface and software allows tunes composed on Music Typewriter and saved to tape to be played on MIDI equipped synthesizers. All in all, a pretty logical package.

Once a tune has been created and saved to tape with Music Typewriter, the MIDI hardware can be connected to the Spectrum and Micro Musical’s MIDI Musician software loaded. This provides further editing facilities and allows you to control external instruments via MIDI. Like Music Typewriter, it will only store monophonic tunes (ie single note sequences — no chords) up to 254 notes long. This means that it will only run in MIDI’s Omni Mode, as it only gives note information and no voice information. Because the package is designed to control any MIDI equipment, it has cut short on some of the possibilities that MIDI has to offer. Given more powerful software, perhaps, other MIDI facilities could have been included, especially the ability to change sounds within the music you’ve written — but you can’t have everything, can you?

The guts of the package is the interface which allows you to plug in MIDI synths, and also non-MIDI equipment such as drum machines. Any tune written into the Spectrum can be performed on a MIDI synth, via the interface. The timing can either be run from the Spectrum itself, the synthesizer/single keyboard or a MIDI drum machine. You can also add drum machines and certain non-MIDI equipment via the ‘sync’ input on the interface to create an impressive array of sound. The editing facilities are thoughtful and comprehensive. High, medium and low registers on the synth can be selected, which in many cases allow you to play notes that the synth keyboard cannot reach. It will also allow you to change your masterpiece into any key. I was a mite niggled however, that the stated key of the demo tune was inaccurate.

Minor faults apart, I particularly liked the inclusion of MIDI leads and the microdrive converter programs to the package which allow you to put both Music Typewriter and MIDI Musician onto Microdrive cartridge. A rare touch, nowadays!

The package includes everything you need to load up and go... Generally, Micro Musician’s software and hardware is a fine addition to an already proven music program. In combination they give an excellent introduction to music and MIDI control. Micro Musical promise that more software is on the way for their interface, which will add extra facilities to Micro Musician’s repertoire — having lashed out your cash on the initial hardware, there will be more software available to run on it.

I don’t think that Micro Musical are under any illusions that this system will be bought by professional musicians, who would be willing to lay out perhaps ten times as much for a dedicated system. For those of us with slightly less to spend, their package represents quite good value. For a little under £100 you get the hardware, and software to drive it including Romantic Robot’s Music Typewriter and Microdriver.

When Micro Musical demonstrated their MIDI equipment to us, they used the Casio CZ101 to put the Spectrum through its musical paces. The CZ101 is a very sophisticated state-of-the-art synth which has a five octave range with eight pre-set voices allowing you to create a lot of interesting sounds. This synth normally retails for around the £345 mark — and while we were there we took the opportunity to twist an arm or two. As a result, MM are prepared to throw their MIDI package in for free for CRASH readers who buy a CZ101 from them. They don’t just make MIDI’s you see, they sell keyboards too! Get in touch with them for further info...

David Thompson, the man who wrote the controlling software for Micro Musical’s MIDI Interface package stands behind a tableful of gear under the control of a humble Spectrum in MM’s music lab.

LULL BEFORE THE STORM

IF YOU LOOK through this month’s column you will notice it is a good deal shorter than is usually the case. The Trail is short for the simple reason that the powers that be at Crash Towers either haven’t received any new software this month or they are hogging it for themselves. True, I did spend some time at the Personal Computer World Show, where I sampled a moderate quantity of the ubiquitous DD beer and struggled in vain at the System 3 stand to see why such a large crowd had gathered. It was somewhat amusing to discover some time afterwards the crowd was caused by a scantily clad dancer. But once I got back home and put my legs up I could have quite happily played a megagame or two.

At the show rumours were rife but my legs were unwilling to check them all out — in fact I didn’t check any of them out. This may turn out to be just as well because I’m going to mention what was there even if it wasn’t.

The long-awaited Lord of the Rings, the major adventure based upon the major work by JRR Tolkien, is probably some way from completion. Terrormolinos, with very nice picture post card graphics on the Commodore, but none as yet on the Spectrum, looked very interesting and I’m sure will do very well on the Spectrum, so long as they can sort out their memory problems. Sorderon’s Shadow, although the graphics look very similar to the Midnight Trilogy, is in fact more an adventure game with text input and some movement within the graphics. Mikro-Gen’s Shadow of the Unicorn, would seem to be a similar sort of game, and is eagerly awaited due to its brightly coloured, highly detailed graphics forming over 11,000 panoramic views. You can travel only to the left or right of the screen, turning to enter other directions. The hardware add-on which is an integral part of this game is what makes it so special adding an extra 16K to the available Spectrum memory.

THE DEEDS OF GLEN GARRY HALL

Producer: Terminal Software
Author: Andy Hackett, Peter Dwyer
Price: £5.95

I’m reviewing this game much as a music paper reviews a single. You see, this adventure has a flip side called The Ashes of Alucard. As is often thought the case with singles, the first side of this tape is by far the more commercial as it sports graphics which are simple but effective. The B Side is a very simple text adventure. Both adventures are unusual in allowing the explorer to wander freely throughout their respective lands. Solving problems is something attempted only when almost the whole adventure is mapped out. This release represents the first in the Merlock the Mede Pilgrimage with a cassette carrying two different adventures appearing each month from now until Christmas. In their press release Terminal suggest side two of these tapes, the text-only side, will appeal to wallys and hardnuts alike. I couldn’t help feeling a wally when I played side two of the tape.

So, if the games aren’t up to much, what can Terminal do to arouse your interest. How about a competition? The series is linked by a competition. Each completed challenge yields part of the solution. With eight solutions and proof of purchase every adventurer can win a Terminal digital watch. I’ll have to give it to Terminal, this is not a bad marketing exercise. My only complaint is that, as an adventure games reviewer, it may well have been better to send not the computer tape, but the digital watch! Right, enough of this banter, and down to the sort of stuff I copy off the cassette inlay, partly due to review burn out (chiefly caused by reviewing so much drivel) and partly due to my struggles to understand a single thing that passages like the following are on about.

During Merlock’s early childhood he was initiated into the ancient rites of the Medes. After many years of Medean mental development he became Keeper of the Medean Time Sceptre. As the Keeper of the Sceptre he must complete eight challenges successfully. Merlock will then possess the power to unlock the gates of the Forbidden Temple.

Actually, reading through that stuff as I wrote it out, it seemed to make just that bit more sense than is usually the case. A little more ambiguous is the intro to Side A. A small tavern, excellent game broth and potent ale. A young man with a personal problem needs help. The young man’s personal problem is not the age old one (not washing behind his ears) but a far more worldly one — how to get his hands on his uncle’s estate. He meets you, Merlock the Mede, in the tavern where he plys you with ale and tells you of how, although his Uncle Hamish has snuffed it after living out his days as a recluse in Glengarry Hall, the young man’s attempts to find the deeds of his inheritance have come to nought. They must lie somewhere amongst the yards of corridors and acres of servant’s quarters in the hall. As you play the part of Merlock you obligingly agree to help the man find his deeds and bonds in the hall. Presumably, in exchange, the young man will give you a digital watch.

Playing Deeds of Glengarry Hall, the more commercial of the two programs, you just can’t help but get the feeling you are stepping back to a time when Spectrum adventures were in BASIC and response times were a subject of discussion. This adventure plods along slowly but is ridiculously slow when you’re picking up objects or trying something the program has to think about. No beep accompanies your input and inputting a reasonable amount at the one location causes the picture across the top of the screen to scroll up and off. As has been pointed out in this column many times before such scrolling leads to the inevitable LOOK (to bring picture and location description up onto the screen once more) being used time and time again (REDESCRIBE is the equivalent in Quilled games).

If you are in need of a fruitless exercise try EXAMining everything in this adventure and count how many ‘I see nothing special’ reports you can count. EXAMINE is not error checked so EXAMINE XXX brings the same response as everything else. A more sophisticated program would tell you that you cannot see an XXX. In general, the vocabulary is unfriendly and the program unhelpful.

It isn’t just the program construction which is reminiscent of programs written over a year ago; the layout, presentation and feel of the game are dated. Everything is just a bit too simple and straightforward. Having said that of course, if you are new to adventuring you may well enjoy the game’s accessibility.

The Ashes of Alucard on Side B is hardly an improvement on Side A. Whereas Deeds could be described as dated, this side surely must rate as positively backward. The removal of graphics has not made room for a more comprehensive text, quite the opposite, with very terse location statements. The fast response time raised my suspicions about this being a Quilled game and so indeed it is, as quitting for good puts up the perfunctory ‘Bye. Have a nice day’. Perhaps first impressions are a little misleading with this one as once you get into it the game can be surprisingly resilient to boredom. There are a great assortment of nasties to deal with including a zombie, vampire, wolf man and many rats. Fighting these adversaries involves a quick combat sequence flashing up onto the screen. Whenever I played taking on a rat resulted in a kill (which puts one onto your score) or the rat running away.

Many objects to aid you are scattered about the adventure. These are heavy-handedly pointed out in true Quilled style by residing in a position beneath the location description. When picked up and displayed in your inventory the objects are colourfully depicted along with a small token graphic. Along with the frequent sound effects and good overall presentation one thing you can say is this game at least uses the Quill to good effect.

The first part of the Merlock the Mede Pilgrimage consists of two games: The Deeds of Glengarry Hall and The Ashes of Alucard. The first is a graphic adventure which is pretty run-of-the-mill and the second is a Quilled game with some nice touches but very terse location descriptions. Although neither game is anything special they may be worth playing in order to win a digital watch.

COMMENTS

DEEDS
Difficulty: moderate
Graphics: average by today’s standards but alright
Presentation: glaring white background
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: slow
ASHES
Difficulty: easy
Graphics: none
Presentation: good
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: quite average
General Rating: Very average.

Atmosphere

6/10

Vocabulary

5/10

Logic

6/10

Addictive Quality

5/10

Overall

6/10

MADCAP MANOR

Producer: Gilsoft International
Author: Paul Styles, Brian Jenkinson
Price: £5.50

Every now and again a Quilled game is spawned which is a bit special, standing proud of the piles of computer cassettes which litter my living room floor. There was Hampstead, Tower of Despair, and now Terrormolinos. Madcap Manor, the game I’m reviewing here (in case you were wondering just what I was reviewing), must be a bit special seeing as Gilsoft, the originators of The Quill programming aid, have deemed this effort worthy of their backing. Without wanting to preclude the lengthy discourse which is no doubt about to follow (I say no doubt because it’s a breezy autumnal day — my fave type of day — and I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs in the local park to see how the one-legged duck is getting on) I would say Madcap Manor is not as original or entertaining as say, Hampstead, but is nevertheless a very worthy Quilled game.

Hampstead had no graphics. Terrormolinos should have had some graphics but Madcap Manor does actually feature graphics. Unfortunately their quality is borderline in the ‘should adventures sport graphics and if they should, shouldn’t they be of sufficient worth to add something to the game’ sort of argument. You get the impression when you play this game that the same graphic keeps reappearing as many of the pictures are based upon a common simple design. In short, they are the sort of graphics which were alright over a year ago but now come over as very dated. With the likes of Robin of Sherwood knocking around and the state-of-the-art stuff to be seen on the new Amstrad, home computer graphics will never be quite the same again. What this means is great news for the computer art connoisseur and any art student who would like to try his hand at creating home computer software. It also means a lot of soul-searching within software houses and design teams to work out just what the ratio of pure programmers to arty types should be.

The type of adventure we have here would fall into the detective category. It stars a detective — and since Sherlock has already been taken how about Inspector Le Gles the famous Belgian detective. You are spending a long weekend with Lord Algernon Stingy who is not a West Indian DJ but a country squire tucked away in his deep rural retreat centred around an impressive Manor House. What’s more, the times are quite comfy as well, it being 1933. Like some urbane Clousseau your Belgian nose is to be seen sniffing the corridors of this English haven searching for the Dowager Lady Ditchley’s priceless ruby ring (that word priceless dates this adventure, in these times of the money god everything but everything has a price). Stingy (as he would no doubt be called today) hasn’t given you many clues to go on but has ensured you of his staff’s full cooperation in your hunt for the missing sparklers.

You start in a very comfortable location — bed, but have not quite managed to achieve the state in which mankind is at his best, that is, in deep sleep. Reading a book (must be Mervyn Peake) seems to do the trick and on waking your quest can begin in earnest. Your quest is in fact played out within your dream which is born out by your awakening should something nasty happen to you (and nothing could be nastier than what happens to you when the rats get up your trousers).

Looking in the mirror sets off a weak joke about reflecting on the case but moving on you will quickly come to the scene of the theft, The Arabian Room. Before I forget, I must tell you that this adventure actually comes in two parts, a bit like Deeds of Glengarry Hall which is also reviewed this month, only in this case sides A and B carry the same adventure. Side B carries the text-only version for the puritans while A has the graphics with the necessary reduction in the amounts of text and the number of locations. I chose to review the graphics side A here because it is easier and it would seem more sensible to review the more commercial of the two sides. Now, where was I, oh yes, the Arabian Room, which is not full of sand but has a dresser and an open window. I couldn’t get the dressing table open here, or exit the window, but on the whole this adventure is friendly and basically easy.

I’ve mentioned the graphics, and implied they leave something to be desired but let me just mention the billiards room where the scene comes to life when you switch the light on, just like in real life.

Madcap Manor is a Quilled game marketed by none-other than the purveyors of The Quill programming utility itself. Hence you might expect the game to feature one or two refinements over its opponents and in many areas this is indeed the case. However, in the highly competitive environment which home computer software has now become, I just don’t know if it has got enough innovative features to appeal to any audience greater than that composed of adventure devotees.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy
Graphics: on some locations, very average
Presentation: good
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: fast, pictures slow
General Rating: Better than average Quilled game.

Atmosphere

6/10

Vocabulary

8/10

Logic

8/10

Addictive Quality

6/10

Overall

6/10

QUANN TULLA

Producer: 8th Day Software
Author: Mike White, Gary Kelbrick, Mike Smith
Price: £1.99

There are two reasons why I am reviewing this 8th Day Software program, which I received way back earlier this year, here in this month’s column. One is a recommendation from an avid adventurer to play one and the other is the news that they sell for £1.99. If this price is true then Quann Tulla would seem to offer good value for money as it is a very friendly program. It also has an interesting storyline which is not too difficult to unravel, as the game is easy, with few of the annoying complications seen in many a more awkward adventure.

The first thing to note is that this game is one of a series of text-only Quilled games with titles like Ice Station Zero, Faerie, Cuddles and Four Minutes to Midnight. These last two aren’t exactly my cup of tea since Cuddles deals with the kiddies world of playpens etc, and Four Minutes deals with what you would do given the four minute warning before a rather large bomb dropped on your head. My advice is to be prepared and take a headache tablet.

Quann Tulla describes itself as being of moderate difficulty and has on its flip side detailed background information concerning games play.

Highly advanced robots, computer systems and automatic defence traps form the backdrop to this science fiction adventure in which the player takes on the might of the evil Empire on behalf of the ailing Federation. The battle takes place in the shattered hull of the flagship and finally to a desperate conclusion on a distant alien world. Secret manuals must be retrieved, an evil traitor dispensed with and a crippled ship destroyed before the Federation can govern in peace once more.

Quann Tulla is a long and reasonably easy adventure game with long, detailed location descriptions. It has a friendly vocabulary and fascinating plot. For £1.99 it compares favourably with other Quilled games on the market.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy — moderate
Graphics: none
Input: verb/noun
Response: instant
General Rating: Good.

Atmosphere

7/10

Vocabulary

7/10

Logic

7/10

Addictive Quality

8/10

Overall

8/10

SEAN MONTgomerY ON THE RUN MASTERSON, ponders on the morality of wargaming in general and finds himself fighting fires in olde London

IT SEEMS as if not only is it all quiet on the western front this month, but on every front. Horror of horrors, is this column going to disappear into oblivion just when I had begun to make it worth while reading? Maybe — but just on the assumption that it won’t, I’ll take this month’s lack of review material as an opportunity to present a discussion for your consideration. It’s a subject which many have discussed before but not, to my knowledge, within the pages of CRASH, therefore it shouldn’t be redundant.

Consider the morality of wargames. When you load a wargame (no matter what the subject), your sole aim is to cooly and precisely kill people of conflicting ideologies. Many modern wargames bring this point closest to home with the subject of nuclear exchange. Now I’m not arguing that limited nuclear exchange is possible and that such a war could be won, but nevertheless do any of you pause before hitting the red button? Even in a game, would you rather lose before resorting to the most desperate means or is winning that important?

There are those who argue that wargaming is unhealthy because it breeds cynicism and callousness. Having been a wargamer for some years now, I often overheard conversations by table-top generals boasting about how they had won an engagement by ‘napalming the lot of them’ or ‘nuking them and got away with it.’ Then, in more conventional games there are those whose fumbling, incompetent handling of a situation causes them to throw entire units (or armies) away on lost causes. Or they fight to the death so they can say they have never surrendered. If you have come across any of these people, you can see why there are those who think the whole hobby is a perverse waste of time.

My argument would be that these boastful buffoons are the ones who have totally missed the point of wargaming. They are the egotistical bigots who exist in any society and have simply clung to wargaming to fulfil their need to sound superior. Unfortunately wargaming does attract rather more than its fair share of this sort. But wargaming, if it breeds anything, breeds pacifism. If there is any point to wargaming at all, then this must be it. Rarely does anyone win their first wargame. Instead they see their armies wiped out (usually by the computer) all because of the instructions they gave to their troops. They learn that it can be no fun to play with men’s lives. Or perhaps wargames can show the futility of war itself. Certainly, from an abstract point of view, they can discipline the mind and encourage logical thinking. But never, never should they be used as a vehicle to revel in the grotesquerie of the real thing.

It may be that you decide to employ nuclear weapons in a game and that as a result of your actions you win. But it should be important to remember that if the game makes such a victory possible, then it is only reflecting the designer’s philosophy and not hard fact. And the best, indeed ideal commander would be the one who could win a battle without any losses at all. That would be the most efficient and palatable victory. Obviously, as an ideal it is unlikely to be realised, even in a game. However, it can still act as a guideline and if you had to use even one small tactical nuclear device, it would have resulted in a phenomenal number of casualties. It should encourage you to find a better way next time.

I will leave you to consider this. I once had an Atari computer which meant I had access to SSI wargames (arguably the best home computer simulations in the world). I was playing Reforger 88, a tactical simulation of a Soviet invasion of West Germany, centred around the crucial Fulda Gap. I only won the game once. The East Germans began their advance and I immediately withdrew. The only combat which took place was air to air, where I fared well and suffered few casualties. At the end of the second turn, unopposed, the Soviets took Frankfurt. At this point, I called a truce. I was given a marginal victory.

GREAT FIRE OF LONDON

Producer: Rabbit Software Ltd
Author: Gareth J. Briggs
Price: £3.99

This interesting new title from Rabbit (now under Nick Alexander’s watchful eye at Virgin) puts you in the position of the chief fire officer at the time of the great fire in 1666. You have to co-ordinate the city’s fire fighting resources and stop the entire city from being totally gutted. You have at your disposal several water pumps, demolition gangs and gunpowder gangs, each capable, to a limited degree, of stopping the fire from spreading. You can also make the wind variable and even give the fire time to spread before you actually start playing the game (if you like having your work cut out for you).

You can only take control of one unit at a time and you have to take it to wherever you want it to begin fire fighting. Some units are more difficult than others to control. Although I followed the instructions to the letter, whenever the water pumps were used, the main character was killed off. Water pumps need constant resupply from the rivers or they become useless very quickly. The various gangs you can employ also need to be recalled into action on various occasions.

The screen itself is a large, smooth scrolling map depicting London in the late seventeenth century. The map is in full colour and all the streets are labelled in a redefined character set. Because of the rapid movement required (even on the simplest settings, the fire moves incredibly quickly) it is highly advisable to use a joystick (and there are several joystick options available from the main menu).

There is a great deal of rapid thinking required to figure out which places are the best to build fire breaks and how to deploy your forces, once you have located them all. Once the basic game is mastered, there are options for building and saving your own map, so this offers a great deal of scope for those pyromaniacs like Robin Candy out there.

The main faults with this game seem to lie with the ambiguity of the rules. All the time I was playing this game, I felt that I wasn’t getting the best from my resources and yet there didn’t seem to be any better way to employ them. This led to constantly having to restart the game as the chief fire officer repeatedly died in the course of his duty. Even though I didn’t allow the fire to spread before playing, it spread incredibly quickly, presenting an almost impossible task for the beginner. Perhaps it’s just me...

Having said that, it’s one of the best presented and programmed low price games I have ever seen and it certainly offers something new for those weary with panzer bashing. If you keep your wits about you and a steady hand on your joystick, then this could be one of the best value for money buys you’re likely to come across in the near future.

Presentation

70%
Very atmospheric.

Rules

56%
Simplistic but still manage to be somewhat ambiguous in parts.

Playability

65%
If you avoid using the water pumps, you should be alright.

Graphics

89%
Very good indeed, for this type of game.

Authenticity

50%
Somehow I doubt it really happened this way...

Value For Money

73%
More professionalism and care than any other game in the price bracket.

Overall

71%
I still have reservations but the game has a tremendous amount to offer.

SEVENTH CAVALRY

Producer: Black Knight Software
Author: Edward Grabowski
Price: £3.50

Black Knight have managed to find an interesting yet not overkilled subject for this wargame. Though it’s not strictly speaking a simulation, it is a single player game involving the famous outfit’s stand against overwhelming odds. As the version I received was only a preproduction copy, I had no idea as to what were the goals of the game, though these became more evident as time went on.

You begin the game in control of twelve cavalry troops, each of fifty or so men. The map depicts a fort (where you are based) and some of the surrounding countryside. At the bottom of the screen there are several options made available, these being Move, Rest, Look, Position and Status. As the computer handles your units alphabetically, you can select each of these options for all the units so long as you make Move or Rest your last choice. Look and Position is a kind of game status update available at any point. Status displays all the relevant information about the unit currently selected and Move opens a further option screen for Charge, Gallop, Trot and Walk. Each one taking less energy to accomplish but also taking longer to achieve. Once you have selected the type of movement you require, you are invited to select one of eight different compass directions.

Your units are displayed as single blue coloured character blocks, each labelled alphabetically. When the Indian units appear, they are simply red blocks with an ‘I’ for easy identification. Each unit moves as soon as you have entered your orders and enemy movement takes place in between. Combat with adjacent units is automatic and a message window tells you how many casualties you suffered in that action.

The game takes place over several days and there is no option for a shorter scenario. However, there is a save game facility, so you can play the campaign when you want to. Night affects playing conditions. Whilst I agree that it should, I’m not so sure that movement should only be at walking pace at night. Still, the idea is workable.

After suffering considerable losses on behalf of the United States cavalry, it became apparent that what was necessary was the destruction of Indian camps. If you travel far enough, then you find them as the map scrolls automatically when required. You need to destroy fifteen of these camps in order to win the game and this will take some considerable amount of time.

The game seems to play rather well and is not in the least sense pretentious or distasteful. The one feature which is annoying is the game’s speed, Mainly because it is written in BASIC, it often takes several seconds to respond to keypresses. This can lead to some confusion over whether the game has indeed received orders for a particular unit and such distractions can quite easily become terribly frustrating if you play the game for several hours and from the few games played for this review, it does seem to be the sort of challenge to last for more than one day. Fatigue is handled extremely well, as speed of travel, terrain crossed and amount of time spent resting, are all considered.

On the whole, however, I found this game enjoyable and challenging to play and for £3.50 you could do far worse than add it to your collection.

Presentation

59%
Unambitious screen display but not bad.

Rules

68%
Easy to learn and full of attention to detail.

Playability

54%
Let down by BASIC programming.

Graphics

53%
The best graphics are in the smooth scrolling map; the other UDGs are not too inspiring.

Authenticity

57%
Not really a simulation of Custer’s battle but it treats combat and movement quite realistically.

Value for Money

67%
Some games like this are being sold at twice the price.

Overall

65%
Definitely worth a try.

ASTROCLONE

Producer: Hewson Consultants Ltd
Author: Graftgold Ltd (Steve Turner, Andrew Braybrook)
Price: £7.95

This is the fourth program in the Seiddab series and is in fact a cross between a shoot em up and Dragontorc, but then you should know about that from last month’s preview ... what do you mean you didn’t see it? Get CRASH 21 NOW through the back issues form.

Just in case you didn’t see the preview, Astroclone has three separate parts: a shoot em up sequence, a strategic element and an adventure section (where it’s like Dragontorc).

The idea of the game is to knock out all the Seiddab bases (in the adventure section); to shoot down Seiddab cruisers en route to the bases (arcade section). The strategic element of the game lies in choosing the route you take to achieve the overall aim.

You begin the game in a nice safe location, the Astroclone Assault Craft, in control of a clone — you can get the ‘feel’ of clone control in comfort before you begin the game itself, since there are no threatening things in the immediate vicinity. Don’t hang around too long however, as your oxygen supply is limited.

To operate the clone, you use an icon driven control system. Your clone can be in one of three modes: movement; arm and laser. Clone mode selection (good phrase, use it to impress friends) is achieved via an icon driven menu. In movement mode, you can scamper about; in arm mode it is possible to pick up, drop or use objects; laser mode puts a weapon in your clone’s hand, and allows you to aim it with a cross-hair cursor and loose off shots.

The galaxy is represented on-screen as a series of 24 box-like ‘sectors’. You can move from one sector to another by using a cursor to lock on to a space ship. You can then deploy it in another sector (perhaps one which is full of Seiddab). The strategic element comes into being here, as you try to decide where it is best to deploy your forces.

Once you’re happy with your force dispersion you can then start fighting the Seiddab in the true old fashioned shoot em up style. Pick a sector where you want to fight and your ship enters it through a star gate. The shoot em up sequence is a Defender variant — the landscape scrolls from left to right and you can thrust, reverse and move up and down. The Seiddab cruisers are found zooming around somewhere. Just to make life that little bit harder there are other Seiddab artefacts zooming around in the sector. These include three types of smaller ship, homing missiles and Seiddab-controlled asteroids. These don’t have to be destroyed to clear a sector, but it usually makes life easier if they are.

If you clear a sector of all the Seiddab cruisers and it has a Starbase in it you can enter the base by flying into an object that looks similar to an electricity pylon. When you do so you are put into the 3D arcade/adventure section of the game. Here you have to work out how to destroy the Starbase by using the objects littered around the place. Wandering around the Starbase are the actual Seiddab themselves. They look rather like mini Tripods and pose a threat if they get their claws into you. You can destroy them with your laser, though, so you’re not too defenceless. Once you’ve destroyed the base you can go and try to find another Starbase which has to be destroyed in the same way.

CRITICISM

‘It’s nice to see several types of game all rolled into one and here the three separate parts have been combined successfully. The only trouble is that the game is rather repetitive and long drawn out. In the shoot em up part the gameplay is very sluggish and tedious — you just have to keep destroying the same old cruisers over the same old landscapes. By the time I’d destroyed about twenty cruisers an advanced stage of rigor mortis had set in. The graphics are fast but scrolling is quite jerky and the screen tends to slow down whenever any action takes place. The adventure bit is quite obscure, but if you like Dragontorc then you should be able to get on with it pretty well. The graphics aren’t too bad on the adventure part, apart from being only two coloured and therefore rather bland. Overall the game didn’t appeal to me because the whole game is very long drawn out and too samey to be rated anything above very good.’

‘I’ve played this one for ages now but I still can’t see a lot in it. Graphically the ‘Defender’ scene isn’t too bad although the colour is very garish and after a while of whizzing about the surface of Vega I was completely mesmerized. As for the other part of the game, I didn’t think it was that compelling. Getting into the space station is hard enough, and once I got there I walked around for a bit, got lost and then died. After repeating this several times I stayed clear of the stations and just went around shooting up the Seiddab ships.’

‘Astroclone is the next logical step on from Dragontorc and the Seiddab trilogy. The graphics are well up to Steve Turner’s usual standard. The only niggle I’ve got with the game is that the defender variant part of the game is a little bit sluggish and can be a bit annoying if you want to rush headlong into the adventure part. If you liked Dragontorc then you will love this game because there are plenty of problems to solve. Some of the bases are easy to destroy but others have a huge playing area and could take months to complete. Overall it is a very good combination of three totally different game types that should appeal to most Spectrum owners especially fans of Steve Turners previous games.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Up A, S, D, F, G; Down Z, X, C, V; Left B, N; Right M, Symbol Shift; Fire H, J, K, L
Joystick: Cursor, Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: keyboard control reminds of Dragontorc/Avalon, takes some getting used
to, but works well
Use of Colour: varied, although tends to single colour per screen to avoid attribute clashes
Graphics: very good, with excellent console
Sound: not too bad, nice tune at the end of a game
Screens: 250 plus
General Rating: A strange mix of shoot em up and more recent Steve Turner arcade/adventure that should appeal highly to fans of the genre.

Use of Computer

86%

Graphics

87%

Playability

78%

Getting Started

74%

Addictive Qualities

87%

Value for Money

89%

Overall

88%

THE CUSTARD KID

Producer: New Generation Software
Price: £4.95

New Generation have joined the budget software market with their new sub-label, Fun ’N Games. For the moment there are just two titles in this range: Custard Kid and Cliff Hanger.

Custard Kid has elements of arcade and strategy games as well as adventure and cooking. The cooking part comes from the main theme of the game which involves collecting 12 custard recipes. The layout of the playing area is a little like that of Atic Attack where the player looks down into a room guiding the man back and forth. The adventure element of the game requires the player to find a number of different objects, the most common being the colour coded keys. If you want to go through a door to discover what is behind you must be in possession of the appropriately coloured key. The colour of the door also gives you an indication of what type of room you can expect to find on the other side. For example a red door will lead you into either a stairway or a dungeon while a green door leads to a side corridor. You can only use each key once so keep a good stock.

The kid can only carry sixteen items, all of which are displayed in a box on the right hand side of the playing area. If you have a large selection of items in store and want to use one of them then you have to move the objects around, using the fire key, until the item you want appears in the ‘in use’ section. Your energy level is displayed as milk remaining in bottles below the objects carried screen.

Wooden crates are scattered around the maze. When you approach a crate, it disappears, revealing its contents. Of course you won’t actually know what’s under a box until you have a look and the chances are you could be very disappointed. If you expose one of the custard monsters then make good your escape, every second you remain in contact with one of these beasts, or indeed any other nasty, loses you energy. Of course you might get lucky and find something useful like a key in a crate, and you can pick it up.

Life in the factory gets very uncomfortable if you expose too many custard monsters, as they scamper about hunting for you. However, you do have one defence against them: if you manage to collect a spoon you can use it to turn them into food, turning a drain on your energy into a means of increasing it.

To stay in the game for any period of time you must stock up with the essentials like food, to restore your energy, and custard detectors, which act like Geiger counters. The Geiger counters can generally be found in a magenta room. Once activated the custard detectors have a very limited life span so use them quickly. While you are out and about on the search for the recipes you may have the misfortune to uncover a factory guard who will whisk you off to jail. To avoid the inconvenience of having to find your way out of the dungeon maze you can try bribing the guard, providing you have collected some money in the first place.

This game offers a long list of playing options. Up to four players can take it in turns to uncover the mysteries of the custard factory or you can select play to be between two teams of two, each team having its own score.

CRITICISM

‘For the money I really can’t believe this game is worth the asking price. For a little less it could have been worth it. The graphics are probably its greatest failure: they are too chunky and characterless to make the game enjoyable. Without doubt a great deal of time is required to find your way around the factory, but I have a suspicion that only the dedicated mappers and explorers will get their money’s worth.’

‘I had quite a difficult time with this game; there is great deal to do and a very large area in which to do it. The graphics are not very good but there are a number of interesting facets. The monsters are quite fun but very easy to escape from. Of all the ideas within this game I like the guards the best. If you don’t manage to bribe them then you end up in the nick which means you have to work your way out of a maze before you can get back to the real work. Some people will get quite a lot out of this but it really is quite dated, in gameplay and appearance.’

‘At first Custard Kid seems to be a bit of a bore but after a while it grows on you. Now I can’t see myself putting it away for a few hours at least. Graphically it isn’t stunning but it works well enough given the animation. Sound is hardly used at all except for the odd spot effect. Playability wise there isn’t a great deal that’s new in this one so it doesn’t appeal to me that much. It just has that something which says that you must complete it before you put it away.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q/W left/right, R/D up/down, X, Y to fire, CAPS to eat food and set off detectors
Joystick: Kempston and Interface II
Keyboard play: fine
Use of colour: quite attractive
Graphics: not very detailed
Sound: very little
Skill levels: one
Screens: 600 locations
General Rating: Dated but average.

Use of Computer

70%

Graphics

63%

Playability

61%

Getting Started

75%

Addictive Qualities

74%

Value for Money

60%

Overall

65%

DALEY THOMPSON’S SUPERTEST

Producer: Ocean Software Ltd
Author: Paul Owens, Dan Hartley, Jonathan M. Smith, F. David Thorpe
Price: £6.95

Daley Thompson’s Supertest is the long awaited follow-up to last year’s big summer hit Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. DTS and DTD (sound like weed killers) really originate from the Konami arcade classic Track and Field which started the Olympic sports craze around Easter last year.

There are eight events in DTS: four on one side of the cassette and four on the other. When you load in a side, the aim is to go through the quartet of events as many times as possible. To complete an event you have to beat the set qualifying time or score. If you qualify then you progress to the next event; if you don’t then you lose one of the three lives you start the game with. Each time you complete a cycle of four events the qualifying times get harder.

Control is very simple, using just two speed buttons and a fire button. The speed buttons have to be hit alternately as fast as possible — if you’re using the joystick then swift left and right movements will do the trick. The fire button is used to do a number of things — fire a gun, jump and so on, depending on the event.

Initially, the qualifying targets are fairly low, but as you go round and round, things get progressively more difficult and the challenge mounts up. Once you’ve lost your three lives (or become a superhero) you can always flip the tape over and load in the other four events... but the score you achieve on one set of games cannot be carried over onto the other.

THE EVENTS

Pistol Shooting

You stand in front of a set of six ‘flip-round’ targets. With ten shots in your pistol you shoot the targets as they spin round. You control a cursor, manoeuvring it over the target and shooting the bullet with the fire button. You cannot compensate if you move too far horizontally or vertically which can be annoying, and if you don’t get a shot off while the target is facing you, you still lose a bullet. Points are scored for accuracy.

Cycling

This is one of those simple pound-the-keyboard-into-the-floor events. As soon as you hear the starting gun just hammer away at the keyboard (or joystick) to get the fastest possible time.

Springboard Diving

Bounce your man on the diving board three times by using the fire button to gain height and then he’ll automatically dive. Pound away at the keyboard to make your man do as many somersaults as possible. When he’s near to the surface of the water stop somersaulting when his head is pointing down. If you get it right, he enters the water perfectly. A panel of four judges awards points for each dive…

Slalom

Here you have to build up velocity by pressing the speed buttons so you can zoom down the hill. Once you see the flag gates you gain control of the skier and you have to steer him between the flags. If you hit a flag or turn too sharply then you lose speed and missing a gate completely means disqualification.

Rowing

This is another simple event where you have to beat the qualifying time by pounding the speed buttons as fast as you can.

Penalties

Here you have to build up speed during the run-up to the ball using two keys, then you kick the ball at the goal by pressing the fire button at the appropriate moment. The way the ball travels depends on how fast you run up and how long you keep the your finger on the fire button. The longer you keep your finger on the button the more the ball will bend. Too little and the ’keeper will save it, too much and you’ll put the ball the wrong side of the post. You get five shots and must score three goals to qualify.

Ski Jump

Another event where you have to build up speed at the beginning. Whizz your way down the slope and when you reach the end press the fire button to jump. Watch him fly gracefully through the air and then press the fire button to land him safely.

Tug O’ War

To complete this event you just have to build up massive energy with the speed buttons so you can out-pull your opponent.

CRITICISM

‘The trouble with this game is that it’s trying to break into the Track and Field market where Hypersports rules supreme. DTS is very similar to its predecessor and the essence is on hammering the keyboard as fast as you can. Here there is no skill involved and anyone with speedy digits can easily knock up huge scores. It’s boring and predictable to play: two games on the market are incredibly similar. The graphics are nothing special and the sound is reasonable with a few jolly jingles and effects. The games isn’t half as good as Hypersports and I wonder why Ocean haven’t gone for a new type of control method… I’m just getting very bored of pounding my fingers into a Spectrum keyboard.’

‘Only eight events this time. Supertest doesn’t really test much other than your persistence at pounding two keys or waggling the joystick from side to side. No strategy, no tactics, just lots of stick waggling or key pounding and a little bit of timing. I suppose it’s ultimately competitive, but the fun wore very thin for me very quickly. A respectable piece of programming with jolly tunes, passable graphics and eight different ways to pound two keys.... If you like this sort of thing you love it, if you don’t, you’ll loathe it.’

‘I suppose the extremely unreliable loader bumps up Super Test’s event count by one. I’d say it was the only test with any kind of lasting appeal. The graphics and sound are quite good though very predictable, with Ocean employing all the little tricks they’ve learned from Hypersports. The events themselves aren’t anything new either; all of them making appearances in various other joystick destroying games. If Ocean really intend to squeeze every last drop of money out of Daley Thompson’s name then I think it’s about time they broke the mould and did something different rather than trying to re-capture past glory through mediocre products such as this.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor and Interface 2
Keyboard play: reasonable
Use of colour: fair, plenty of attribute problems
Graphics: varied, but mostly big, undetailed and not very well animated
Sound: nice jingles and spot effects
Skill levels: increases as you progress
Screens: eight events
General Rating: Very disappointing; nothing special.

Use of Computer

86%

Graphics

81%

Playability

72%

Getting Started

70%

Addictive Qualities

77%

Value for Money

79%

Overall

76%

ELITE

Producer: Firebird
Memory required: 48K
Price: £14.95
Language: machine code
Author: Torus

Starting life on the BBC, Elite was converted for the Commodore and, has just appeared for the Spectrum, a mere three months late. It will go down in history as the first major piece of software to be supplied with the Lenslock protection device — a cunning way of preventing piracy by supplying a plastic decoding lens which is used to discover the encrypted access code for the game. In essence, after loading you need to look through the lens onto the screen in order to see the code letters which must be input before the program will RUN. The cassette is also accompanied by a slim novella which sets the scene.

Converted by Torus, creators of Gyron, Spectrum Elite follows a very similar format to its other incarnations. With stars in your eyes and a Cobra Mk III in your charge, you’ve set yourself the task of becoming Elite, a combateer of the highest ranking. To become Elite you’ll have to rise through several distinct stages starting with the almost derogatory rating of ‘Harmless’. The more ships you kill, the higher your rating will rise, though mindless violence is not the only aspect to the game.

To become an efficient killer you must have a well equipped ship, replete with weapons of destruction. When you start, the ship you’re given is a pretty poor machine, not really up to the rigours of deep space combat, so the best thing to do is to buy extra equipment from the space stations you’ll find in orbit around every planet. Most of the military hardware doesn’t come cheap and seeing as how you only start with one hundred credits you will need to make some money. This is where the mindwork comes into play. You will have to trade.

Every planet in the eight galaxies has a tech rating and some information detailing the world’s economy. Using a trader’s cunning, you can buy goods at one planet and take them to another and sell them for a profit. To be sure of making a profit it is wise to sell goods naturally rare on the planet you’re trading with. For example a tech level 12, highly industrialised planet will probably have to import food, making the market price quite high. If you buy food from a low tech agricultural planet you can ferry it to the more advanced planet for a good profit margin.

Information about each planet’s political state is available, which will range from corporate state to anarchy. It is not wise to travel to an anarchic system with little in the way of weaponry as the place will be crawling with pirates. And pirates are doubly aware of you if you’re carrying any cargo.

Different cultures aren’t too friendly with each — you can’t land on planets. This makes trade awkward, so it’s effected through a system of space stations. Each trading planet is orbited by a Coriolis space station which you need to dock with — a time consuming and awkward task. Once docked, you can refuel your ship and barter your wares inside the hanger. If you get rich, it’s possible to buy a docking computer to make life easier.

Fuel is only expended when you use hyperwarp for interstellar travel. Pottering around in planetary space burns no fuel and trips can be costed in fuel terms on the short range chart. If you’ve bought some fuel scoops you can pick up free fuel by flying close and raking energy from a star’s corona — sun skimming.

Bounty hunting is lucrative and simple: jump into an anarchic system and blast away at everything. A kill point is awarded for each ship destroyed and your credit status grows with the bounty. It is, however, best to go in heavily armed, and with a fair amount of battle experience. Other loot gathering activities include asteroid mining, slave trading and drug running — but the last two are illegal and harm your legal status.

You see the action from the cockpit, viewing a 3D representation of space. Three other views are available through left, right and rear windows. The display is mainly monochrome; vector graphics represent ships and objects. Colour appears occasionally, in explosions.

To keep track of ships and asteroids not in your immediate vicinity, there’s an oval short range chart. Other ships, attacking and friendly, are represented as a bar with a small hook at the end showing the height above or below your ship and distance from it.

A wealth of informative documentation comes with the cassette. A book commissioned from SF writer Robert Holdstock gives an interesting story plus a multitude of veiled hints for survival in a rough galaxy. The Space Traders’ Flight Training Manual is also included, an essential guide to survival giving hints on docking, trade and combat. You also receive a pretty wallchart to hang in your cabin!

If you are doing well it’s possible to save out your progress to tape. This will record all your status attributes including score and credits.

CRITICISM

‘Elite is one of the most imaginative games ever to be designed to run on a home computer and Spectrum owners should be pretty chuffed that they’ve got a superb version. When a ship’s destroyed, the explosion looks like an expanding ball of gas and vaporised metal. It’s highly effective. There are slightly fewer ships than on previous versions but the graphics move quite fast considering their complexity — they’re flicker free, too! All in all an excellent version of an excellent game.’

‘With the Spectrum Elite, Firebird have improved on a tried and tested formula. It must have been quite a risk to take, adapting a cult game from the BBC and putting it on the Spectrum, but the risk has paid off handsomely. The graphics are excellent of a reasonable speed (not as fast as Starion), and, unlike previous versions of Elite, they are not flickery. So much for Elite the Spectrum version, what about Elite the game? It can be slow to get into, because at the outset you must trade to get on, but once you have achieved a level of skill that allows you better equipment for your ship, the game really hits deep space in a mean, mean way. This is a perfect blend of trading, shoot em up and strategy and if you’re not very careful you can find yourself getting badly hooked, spending hours trying to get just that little bit further. Here the SAVE game facility is a great help, and means that Elite is not so much a game — more a way of life. That may sound corny, but for once it really is true! No self-respecting Spectrum owner should be without it because it’s worth every penny of the £15 price tag.’

‘Well here it is at last, the Spectrum version of Elite, and yes it has been worth the wait. The graphics are very good, only slowing down a little, if at all, when the screen gets chock a block. The launch/hyperspace sequence is very neat, nearly as good as Dark Star. The screen layout is well-balanced with just the right amount of colour and dots. The addictive nature of the game is increased with 5 missions compared to the meagre 2 of the C64 and BBC versions. My only gripe is that you have to use some stupid lenslock thing to play the game — you could spend hours trying to suss out the thing. You can compare your version of Elite [with the] versions for other machines and smile with pride at what Firebird have produced.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Front View/Launch (1); Back View/Buy (2); Left View/Sell (3); Right View/Equip (4); Escape Pod (Q); Energy Bomb (W); ECM (E); Find Planet (R); Fire Missile (F); Target (T); Unarm (U); Galactic Chart (I); Local Chart (O); Data on System (P); Fire Laser (A); Dive/Cursor Up (S); Climb/Cursor Down (X); Anti-clockwise Roll/Cursor Left (N); Clockwise Roll/Cursor Right (M); Distance (D); Hyperspace/Intergalactic Jump (H); Torus Jump Drive (J); Prices (K); Status (L); Inventory (ENTER); Freeze (SHIFT); Docking Computer (C); Home Cursor (B); Save/Decelerate (SYMBOL SHIFT); Continue/Accelerate (BREAK) Keyboard overlay provided
Joystick: compatible with all
Keyboard play: complicated!
Use of colour: sparse but highly effective
Graphics: excellent, but occasionally produces odd effects
Sound: nice tune when loaded, plus some spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: not applicable
General rating: a first class, absorbing, game

Graphics

93%

Playability

91%

Getting started

92%

Addictive qualities

94%

Value for money

81%

Overall

92%

FAIRLIGHT

Producer: The Edge
Memory required: 48K
Price: £9.95
Language: machine code
Author: Bo Jangeborg

The Land of Fairlight was once a happy, jolly place — but this is no longer the case. More than three thousand years have passed since the worthy King Avars held court over the land from his Castle, and the whole county is enveloped in gloom and despondency. The Light has gone from the land, and the days are perpetually grey and gloomy when once the sun shone endlessly in clear blue skies. Over the years, partly as a result of a series of weak rulers, the social fabric of Fairlight declined — the people once lived happily in a peaceful land, full of music, jollity and magic. Now the county has a feudal system; society is fragmented, overseen by merchants and barons.

Castle Avars stands alone in the middle of the plain of Avarslund, impenetrable and surrounded in rumour and myth. Folktales suggest that a perpetual summer shines within the castle; other myths tell of Segar the Immortal who dwells within the castle, awaiting the moment to return, when he’ll bring Light back to the land.

Isvar is the reluctant hero of this game, which forms the first part of the Chronicles of the Land of Fairlight and is subtitled A Prelude: The Light Revealed. Musing one day on the state of life he decides to enter Ogri’s Wood — a wood that is universally acclaimed as dangerous. Ignoring the wisdom of the Elders, (Isvar is sure they must be hiding something — perhaps a great treasure) he enters the wood and is captured by the woman-monster Ogri and carried off to her cave, unconscious.

When Isvar comes round, Ogri has departed. The figure of a old man in a hooded cloak appears before him and tells Isvar that he is now on the shelf of Ogri’s larder! Not one for being eaten, Isvar follows the old man out of the cave towards Castle Avars. Suddenly an entrance opens up in a wall that moments before was featureless. Isvar is in the castle and the old man explains that he is the court sorcerer of King Avars and has been imprisoned for thousands of years. Then the old man disappears — the figure which lured Isvar into the castle was merely an apparition, created by the imprisoned sorcerer for just that purpose. Isvar is now trapped in the castle, and can only escape by finding the Book of Light hidden within its walls and taking it to the sorcerer.

Isvar, the character you control, is moved round in a world which is not only three-dimensional in aspect, but realistic in terms of the way objects behave. Isvar has five pockets in which he can store objects he collects — but each object has a mass and obeys the laws of physics. Push a chair and it will move quite a long way; push a table and it moves less far. You can pick up and carry several pieces of food, for instance, as each is quite light but if you try to carry a barrel you will find that it is so heavy that Isvar has to drop everything else first. Objects may be called from a specified pocket, when they will be displayed on the little scroll next to the life counter, and can then be used. This scroll also acts as the display area, where messages to do with the manipulation of objects — such as ‘too heavy’ — appear. Isvar’s life force is also shown.

Isvar begins with a life force of 99 units, shown on a counter on the scroll. This counter is decremented by encounters with the trolls, guards and other nasties that patrol the castle and may be topped up by eating food or drinking wine that can be found here and there. Isvar can fight and kill some of the nasties, using his sword, but other opponents are not in the least perturbed by his efforts and are best avoided completely.

Each location in the castle is colour coded — which helps you keep your bearings while you explore. All the open air locations, for instance, are blue. As you leave one room or location, the screen will go blank for a couple of seconds while the change is made, then the new location flashes onto the screen, ready drawn. If a location is filled with other moving figures, Isvar slows down a bit — but in an empty room he can really motor! During gameplay, silence reigns, but music fans will really appreciate the two channel simulation at the start which pushes the Spectrum’s Beeper to the limit!

CRITICISM

‘Bo Jangeborg has certainly come up with an excellent new system for creating 3D representations of rooms and the objects contained in them. Playing Fairlight is a little tricky at first, owing to the number of keys that you have to master but once the initial awkwardness is overcome it’s great fun shoving things around the place and piling objects on top of one another to make ramps which Isvar can climb. Very soon you do feel as if you are playing in a real world and although the pauses between rooms are a bit annoying, the links are made very well. Overall an excellent game, with first rate graphics — worth getting hold of to play not just to look at.’

‘Wow, amazing, brill, trif, fab, awesome and other such noises... I’ve never seen a game that looks as good as this. What excellent graphics! This knocks Filmation and Filmation 2 into a cocked hat. And there’s a game behind the graphics too — what more could I ask for? Sound. There isn’t any during the game, but the intro music makes up for it. Control is awkward and takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, playing becomes second nature. The only thing that is a little infuriating is that the screen blacks out every time you change location. I strongly recommend this game to everyone: it’s very playable and addictive and it looks so good.’

‘Ultimate first introduced us to realistic 3D graphics but sadly not a lot of game was bolted on to them. Now, thanks to The Edge, that gap has been filled. Fairlight features very high quality graphics and a good tune at the start of the game. While the game is fun to play the desire to see the other screens makes you want to solve puzzles to get nearer the end effect. Controlling Isvar and manipulating objects is very easy and using a bit of brain power it’s not long before you are well and truly hooked. It’s hard to say whether Fairlight will appeal to arcade fanatics but I’m sure there are few people who could actually say the game is useless! The Edge have come up with a very good arcade adventure with 3D graphics that should rate in everybody’s top 10.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Y-P up and right; H-ENTER down and left; Q-T up and left; A-G down and right; SYMBOL SHIFT/SPACE jump; B-M fight; X-V pickup; CAPS/Z drop; 1-5 select objects; 6/7 use object selected
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: responsive, but easier on rubber ones!
Use of colour: only black and a second colour used in each location
Graphics: a stunning new technique for 3D representation
Sound: cunningly simulated two-channel music to begin with, otherwise silence
Skill levels: one
Screens: 80
General rating: a stunning game, achieved with a new programming technique

Use of computer

89%

Graphics

97%

Playability

90%

Getting started

86%

Addictive qualities

91%

Value for money

92%

Overall

95%

FIGHTING WARRIOR

Producer: Melbourne House
Author: Studio B Ltd (Stephen Cargill, Russell Comte)
Price: £8.95

Hot on the heels of Exploding Fist comes Melbourne House’s Fighting Warrior, yet another beat ’em up in true Exploding Fist style.

Fighting Warrior actually has a scenario which places you way back in the early Egyptian empire. You are a bit annoyed about the Pharoah’s decision to bury your loved one alive as a sacrifice to the Gods. Acting as any mere near indestructible fighting machine would, you decide to rescue the Princess Thaya from the grisly death that awaits her.

To reach the temple where the princess is imprisoned, you have to cross a desert beleaguered with a host of creatures conjured up by the Pharoah’s court magician. You come across mythological demons, warriors and what can only be described as fighting gargoyles, each doing their best to block your way. As you progress the magician’s resolve to stop you becomes greater, and he creates progressively more vicious opponents to replace those that you’ve vanquished.

Along your quest to free the one you love various objects will present themselves in your path. Left there for centuries, they possess mysterious mystical powers. To use them you’ll need to employ some alternative thinking and it’s best to be sure that the magic they contain is good. Evil magic may bring great harm to you.

Once you’ve fought your way across the burning desert and entered the temple where your beloved is about to be sacrificed, your quest is not finished. A showdown with the court sorcerers follows. Sapping your strength and endurance they will do deadly battle and the only way to release the princess is to destroy them. Having done so, the path is free — your quest is over once you’ve unbound your loved one.

You are armed with a sword and start each combat sequence rejuvenated with your life force, represented by a row of chevrons along the bottom of the screen, replenished. During combat each hit from your opponent reduces your chevron supply. Similarly, the beast or warrior you are up against has a row of chevrons and the first one to run out loses (and dies).

To complicate matters a little, you also have to watch out for the occasional magical arrow which comes whining across the screen from right to left. If you don’t duck or jump in time, and are hit by an arrow, two chevrons-worth of life force is lost.

Fighting controls are accessed through joystick or keyboard using an understandably similar concept to Fist. The control keys or joystick used alone allow movement in four directions: jump, duck, back off and advance. Your repertoire of aggressive moves is a little simpler than in Fist. Pressing the fire button or key in conjunction with a direction gives you access to an upper strike, mid strike or lower strike.

You win ten points for every successful hit on your opponent and it’s possible to collect a bonus score for making a very quick kill. Extra bonus points can be won by releasing some good magic from a pot and of course there’s a hefty bonus available when you complete the game.

As you progress along the scrolling landscape you fight in front of new scenery — all suitably Egyptian, full of pyramids, palm trees and the like. Not just violence for its own sake (or saki?) this time there’s a quest in there as well.

CRITICISM

‘Unfortunately for this game, it is bound to be compared with Melbourne House’s last release, Exploding Fist. Fighting Warrior introduces a bit of scenario into the genre, but remains a fighting game, and is one that can get a bit monotonous. All you seem to be able to do is fight your way from left to right, meeting yet another brilliantly animated opponent after each victory. Graphically the game is very attractive, with excellent animation, and there’s no shortage of fighting to be done. It’s a shame the variety is confined to your opponents — different weapons or moves might have jollied things up a bit. Bound to go well in any beat ’em up collection though!’

‘The game has really striking graphics with some of the best action animation I’ve seen on a Spectrum — the only trouble is the gameplay is pretty dull. Once you’ve chopped up a couple of opponents and you realise that there are still another pile of foes which have to be similarly chopped, boredom tends to set in. The game would have been far better if it’d had some additional gameplay elements but as it stands it just gets rather tedious having to tackle the many (varied to look at) opponents in the same way time after time. Perhaps a set of different weapons would have been better, but as it stands it’s just a case of ‘nice graphics, shame about the game’.’

‘I must admit to not being that amazed by Melbourne Houses’s Fighting Warrior. The graphics and animation are excellent but the game’s just too simple to provide any long term interest. There is some frustration appeal, which makes you want to see what’s on the next screen, but overall, despite the outstanding graphics, I wasn’t very impressed.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q — jump, A — duck, P — move forward, O — back off and bottom row — fire.
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair and Cursor type
Keyboard play: very good
Use of colour: good
Graphics: superlative definition and animation
Sound: weak
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling
General Rating: Graphically excellent, but a bit short on gameplay variety.

Use of Computer

87%

Graphics

90%

Playability

74%

Getting Started

87%

Addictive Qualities

69%

Value for Money

75%

Overall

73%

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION

Producer: US Gold Ltd
Author: Softstone Ltd
Price: £7.95

First produced for the Commodore 64 by Epyx, Impossible Mission was a game which some C64 owners used to advantage in the arguments about whether their computer or the Spectrum was the better games machine. Now there’s a Spectrum version of the game, published by US Gold, which follows the action of the original very closely — although the sound effects have suffered in translation.

You play the role of a crack secret agent on a mission to save the world from the evil doings of the ultimate hacker. A mad professor type, Elvin Atom-bender, has accessed all the defence computers maintained by the superpowers, and is currently trying to puzzle out the codes which will set off a missile attack so huge that the whole globe will be destroyed. Elvin has amassed a fortune from hacks into computers run by banks and financial institutions and has constructed a massive underground complex patrolled by a variety of robot guards. The game is played against the clock starting at noon, you have a mere six hours of game time in which to penetrate the madman’s underground lair, discover his security code and penetrate his control centre.

Each room within the complex has several levels, or platforms, on which items of furniture and computer equipment are to be found. Small one-person lifting platforms may be used to access the different levels within each chamber, and the thirty two rooms in the complex are linked by a network of tunnels and lift shafts.

Elvin has a computer system which monitors the entire complex — at least one terminal on this system is found in every room. If you have the appropriate password, it is possible to temporarily deactivate the robots in that room so that passage through it is much simpler. Alternatively, you may wish to use a terminal to reset the lifting platforms to their starting position in the room. Accessing a terminal is simple — just approach it and push forward on the joystick which causes it to display a menu screen. Without the appropriate password, however a terminal will not accept input...

The platform reset and robot ‘snooze’ passwords can be found by searching the pieces of furniture and equipment scattered around the rooms. The password to the control room is only revealed once thirty six pieces which make up nine puzzles have been collected and assembled — puzzle pieces are also concealed in the objects.

Searching a piece of equipment is easy: you just approach it and push forward on the joystick whereupon a window appears on the screen with a bar graph display which diminishes as you search. Some objects can be searched very quickly, others take some while. If you break off a search, perhaps because a robot is approaching, it can be resumed where you left off so long as you don’t leave the room. Once the search is complete the window reveals what has (or hasn’t) been found.

The defence robots all look the same, but behave according to different programmed patterns. Some of them can fire a deadly electrical charge, others can home in on your agent; most of them patrol a section of catwalk, moving up and down its length. Contact with a robot loses you ten minutes of game time, as does a fall through the bottom of a chamber. Certain items can only be searched when the robots have been disabled, and a strategic approach is necessary if you are to complete the mission — a finite number of ‘snooze’ and platform reset passwords is available.

The mission would be truly impossible were it not for your portable computer. This machine keeps track of the rooms you have passed through, giving you a constantly updated map of the complex which includes a marker for your current position. Your computer can also be used to help assemble puzzle pieces — pressing the fire button while you are in the lift causes the map display to be replaced with an icon-driven menu screen.

Whenever you find a piece of the main puzzle, it is committed to your computer’s memory. You can manipulate these puzzle components through the icon driven display, moving them from memory into a work area and flipping them over horizontally and vertically and changing their colour. It is also possible to dial up the computer at your base to ask for on-line assistance in solving the puzzles — but this costs you two minutes of game time per call.

Each completed puzzle consists of four elements and there are nine puzzles in all. Each time you solve a puzzle you are rewarded with one of the letters in the evil Elvin’s master password. Once you are in possession of all nine letters of the control room access code, you may enter, thwart the madman’s plan and save the world from destruction.

Saving the world brings a bonus of 1000 points, with one point added to your score for every second remaining on the game clock when you enter the control room. If you don’t actually save the world, you still get points for finding puzzle pieces and passwords as well as for solving each of the nine puzzles.

CRITICISM

‘I didn’t think Impossible Mission would survive the conversion from C64 to Spectrum but it seems to be more or less the same. Graphically, this platform game is good — although there are a few glitches. The sound is obviously not as good as the C64 version but it is quite well used all the same. The various types of droid all look the same, so you don’t know what to expect when you sneak up behind one to search an object. My main niggle is that you have to be exactly lined up on a lift platform before you can move it up or down. Generally I’d recommend Impossible Mission as it is very playable.’

‘The Spectrum conversion of Impossible Mission, as might be expected, falls down on sound. The realistic, fading scream as your agent falls into one of the pits in the floor of a room is totally absent — not a squeak on the Spectrum. The sound of his footsteps and the main lift is also disappointing when compared to the Commodore version. Otherwise the game is a very faithful conversion. It is, however, a bit of a pain to play. While your agent scampers around, somersaulting and jumping with glee, using the lifting platforms is a pest. You have to position your man very precisely for them to work which makes life that bit more difficult. A couple of buglets seem to have crept in too — on one screen you can somersault through the platform above you for instance. Overall a good game, and one which is much more than a platform jumping game. Joystick skills as well as brainpower are needed to save the world in this one. Annoyingly frustrating, it’s quite addictive.’

‘Impossible Mission is a classic Commodore game because of its ace graphics, sound, brilliant game content and speech. I wondered how the Spectrum version would compare with the 64 version as I loaded it in. I didn’t wonder for very long — a few minutes play soon decided that. The graphics are pretty murky with heaps of attribute problems and the animation isn’t anywhere as good as the CBM’s, it’s pretty slow and jerky. The sound is pretty reasonable for a Spectrum game but the game has no speech which made the original game something really special. All the other original features of the game are here and the game plays fairly similarly, apart from the control being unresponsive and the difficulty in judging a jump. I suppose I’ve been spoilt by playing the 64 version but I still think it could’ve been improved upon... never mind though — it’s still Impossible Mission.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: CAPS left, Z right, P up, L down, B-SPACE fire
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: average
Use of colour: not inspired, problems with the animated figures
Graphics: straightforward. Can be confusing when the agent is searching
Sound: footsteps and effects for robots and lifts, but no speech synthesis
Skill levels: one
Screens: thirty two rooms, plus corridors and portable computer display
General Rating: A passable conversion from the Commodore original.

Use of Computer

78%

Graphics

75%

Playability

67%

Getting Started

73%

Addictive Qualities

71%

Value for Money

74%

Overall

76%

MAGIC

Producer: Macmillan Software Ltd
Author: Professional Touch (Steve Kelly, Peter Eldin)
Price: £8.95

Macmillan have been publishing educational software for some time now, but their latest series, while still being educational in nature, is aimed at a different market. They have decided to combine their book publishing talents with software publishing and have turned out a series of packages under a sub label The Professional Touch. Three packages have been produced so far, one of which is magic, or conjuring if you prefer.

The idea behind the Magic package is to provide the user with information and stimulation to encourage the study and enjoyment of conjuring. The book, some 34 pages thick, is liberally filled with instructions detailing the performance of some fourteen tricks, varying from the simple ‘crying coin’ trick to effective ‘eggs from nowhere’. Each trick is introduced and then presented in the form of step by step instructions with simple drawings to aid your understanding. At the end of each section there is a little box containing the Magician’s tip. Generally the tips are designed to help you present the trick to an audience.

Performing tricks is not really a pastime that you can enjoy on your own — the fun only begins when you can confound your friends, pets and family. If you are going to put on any sort of a show you must be able to ‘dress up’ your tricks so that there are no awkward moments while you remove the matchbox or card which you secreted away earlier. The book places great emphasis on this point and quite a lot of attention is paid to the presentation of the tricks, not only in the Magician’s tips boxes but there’s also a separate section at the end that gives a little advice on practice, patter and preparation.

Only one page of the book is actually devoted to the software. After the program has loaded you will be asked if you want to make a Microdrive copy: an all too-rare feature. There follows a little business of entering a code word, initially set to MAGIC, the idea being to prevent any of your potential audience taking a sneak look into your computerised box of tricks, always assuming that any of your victims could actually set a Spectrum up.

Once you are finally underway you will be asked to select between TRICKS, SEQUENCE and SHOW. The Tricks section demonstrates the inner secrets of nine tricks but does not deal with the type of magic found in the book. Some of the tricks could be better described as puzzles, and are very well known indeed. One of the tricks titled ‘Now you see it now you don’t’ is not a vanishing act as its title suggests, but more a display of optical illusions. You probably know the sort of thing where a picture of a young girl can, with a bit of imagination and screwing up of the eyes, also be seen as an old hag.

The Magic section is subdivided into three parts. The first part explains in words the principle behind the trick or illusion. Secondly, a tips section explains how the trick is performed and how you should put it across to an audience. The graphics associated with the trick are presented on screen while a scrolling message underneath ‘talks’ you through the performance. The final section allows you to perform a trick any number of times, allowing you to get your speil off pat, and patter off your speil.

Once you have worked your way through the various tricks, and learnt the principles on which they are based, your understanding should enable you to present them to an audience with the panache and confidence of a true performer. The Sequence section of the game allows you to select which of the nine ‘acts’ you want in your show and you can choose the order they are presented in. Should you want, you can add some musical embellishment to your show. When you have decided on the content of your performance and are sure that you can present each act competently, then you are ready to begin.

The show begins with the stage curtains closed; press a key and the title of the first act will appear accompanied some music. When the curtains open you will see the same stage set-up that you learned to love so much during rehearsals. However, this time you must present each trick to the audience without any help. Although the computer will perform the actual magic, you are the presenter. If you suddenly find yourself well endowed with over ripe fruit you can assume that you should return to the earlier stages in the game and polish up your performance. Either that or get a new act.

CRITICISM

‘My lasting impression of this package is that the book, thin though it is, is a great deal more valuable than the software. Having said that I can appreciate that the reverse is true in the case of a younger child, younger than say 10 years old. The book is so well presented it’s interesting from beginning to end. The same cannot be said for the software: for one thing the tricks are tedious, and for another two of them will not work under certain circumstances. The ‘Total Bemusement’ trick causes just that, if the difference of a number and the reverse of that same number is equal to 99. Likewise when, for the ‘Number Divination’ trick, you enter the remainder of a number being divided by another, as zero then the trick fails. The graphics for each of the tricks are only hovering around the reasonable standard mark, the same can be said for the overall presentation of the program. But if you have an inclining towards wizardry then this package could be a fair introduction. The book is certainly a good introduction.’

MARSPORT

Producer: Gargoyle Games
Memory required: 48K
Price: £9.95
Author: Greg Follis, Roy Carter

Gargoyle Games have (temporarily?) abandoned the distant past jumping to the distant future as a setting for their latest game. Marsport, the first in a trilogy of games, begins at a time when the human race is having problems with a race of evil aliens.

The Earth and Moon are defended from the xenophobic alien race known as the Sept by a massive spherical force shield in space. The problem is, the Sept have discovered a way of breaching the field. Deep within the central computers of Marsport, now a Sept stronghold, are the original plans for the construction of the barrier which detail how it can be reinforced. They were hidden there by the barrier’s creator, Muller, who is now dead.

You play the character Commander John Marsh, of the Terran underground liberation movement. Your mission is to locate the central computer in the Marsport complex, recover Muller’s plans and then escape with them intact. Apart from the dangers presented by the aliens in occupation, you have to cope with the computer generated defence systems. Standing at the entrance to the spacefield, your first task is to locate and then charge a weapon, without which your mission is certainly hopeless.

Sept warriors patrol the corridors of Marsport; they are aliens about half your size who are deadly to the touch. In some passages you may find a Sept of the Warlord caste. They are large insect looking creatures who move only occasionally. If you should approach one, without having the right weapon to hand, a sting will lash out and — curtains.

Although you are warned of approaching Sept, you can never be sure from which direction they will arrive. Your energy gun comes in very handy.... Warden and Herald robots, part of the computer run defence system, patrol the corridors. Herald robots become significant later in the game and are harmless, while Wardens tend to mistake you for a Sept and try to blow you away.

Movement in Marsport is similar to that in Dun Darach, in that the character is moved to the left or right, via control keys, and the view may be altered through ninety degrees. At first this is disorientating, a compass at the bottom of the screen can be used to help you keep your bearings.

Sliding panels can be found set into some corridor walls. They’re labelled according to their function and open automatically when approached. Supply units do just that and are constantly replenished. Lockers are a safe storage device for items obtained (you may only carry up to three at a time). Sometimes these lockers are locked and you will have to put a certain object in the Key unit nearby in order to open the covering plate. Refuse units allow you to get rid of objects you no longer want — useful given that you can’t drop anything, and remember, you can always throw away unpleasant things. Power units provide power for objects that need it, such as your weapon, and finally Factor units manufacture a new object from other objects placed inside them. Factor units are essential — some of the things you need to complete your mission do not even exist until you create them!

Rooms in the complex are identified by a nameplate above the door. Rooms with ‘Danger’ above them mean that there is something to be wary of inside, while ‘Restricted’ rooms cannot be entered until you have located the central computer. Consequently, once the first part of the game has been completed, a lot more of the playing area opens up. Many rooms need a specific key to open them... so a little careful thought is needed.

The main action takes place in the top half of the screen, whilst the bottom half gives compass directions, details of object carried, weapon status and messages. Messages are received when you pass a Vidtex unit or when you are in the process of constructing another object. The bottom half of the screen also gives details of the area you are in.

The playing area in Marsport is estimated at being the size of Tir Na Nog and Dun Darach put together. Not a little game! Unlike Gargoyle’s previous two games, Marsport is not played on a flat plain. Instead, it is constructed like a 3D tower block. Each floor has a different function — for instance the Recreational area has a couple of little games that can be played. The levels are connected via a series of lifts that may or may not be one or two way.

Marsport features realistic 3D effects: John Marsh can stroll in front of and behind struts, and a lot of attention has been paid to the animation of his movements.

Unless you have a few weeks to spare, the game will need to be played in several sessions. Thoughtfully, Gargoyle have provided a save game routine which can also be used just before you do something especially tricky in case things don’t work out.

Once you do get the plans, the game isn’t over — you still have to escape from Marsport. Not a trivial task, but this time, Gargoyle have added quite an interesting feature to the end...

CRITICISM

‘I thought Marsport was far better than previous Gargoyle games because there really is so much more to do. The game is about the size of both the others put together and with the fighting, which is one of the highlights of the game, and the atmosphere of being totally alone, the whole thing is very well paced indeed. The background given in the manual is both informative and interesting. I haven’t solved Marsport yet but I’m already looking forward to the next two games. The only thing I thought could have been made clearer was the change in perspective, but you can get used to it and once you do, there’s a lot of exploring to do.’

‘If you’re an arcade adventure freak then you will absolutely love Marsport but if you’re a fast arcade gamester it may not appeal. Walking around the playing area can get a bit tedious but once you have solved a few problems and got the gun the game really opens up. So if you think it is a bit boring just persevere and you will get hooked. The graphics are some of the best I’ve seen especially the aliens and John Marsh. Overall it is a good game. Though a bit hard to get into, Marsport soon proves addictive.’

‘Marsport could be put down as just another Tir Na Nog, but once you start to get into the game you soon realise how much there is in there. We’ve come to expect great animated graphics from Gargoyle Games and Marsport is no exception to this. The main character of the game, John Marsh, looks a bit like Cuchulainn in a space suit but once he has got a gun in his hand he’s much deadlier than Cuchulainn ever was. If you like problem solving then you will love Marsport. This game adds an extra dimension because now you must actually build objects from other less important items in order to open doors or solve puzzles. Marsport can prove frustrating to begin with, but if you get over this initial frustration then you start to enjoy it. Marsport is another excellent game from Gargoyle Games and definitely worth buying, if you’re a fan of this particular game format. Even if you’re not, it’s still fun walking around blasting the aliens.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Walk left/right (ALTERNATE KEYS ON BOTTOM ROW); Enter a door (ENTER); Camera left/right (ALTERNATE KEYS ON SECOND ROW); Pick up/drop (ALTERNATE KEYS ON THIRD ROW); Select object (2,3,7,8,9); Fire (CAPS SHIFT, SPACE); Autorun on/off (4); Freeze/unfreeze (5); Options (6)
Joystick: not applicable
Keyboard play: average
Use of colour: good, no attribute problems
Graphics: excellent
Sound: not applicable
Skill levels: one
Screens: huge scrolling playing area
General rating: Marsport is another excellent contribution to the arcade adventure genre. It’s similar to other Gargoyle games, but easily different enough to deserve a place in an arcade adventurer’s collection.

Use of computer

86%

Graphics

94%

Playability

83%

Getting started

87%

Addictive qualities

95%

Value for money

95%

Overall

95%

MAZE CRAZE

Producer: Partyline Ltd
Author: IDL
Price: £6.95

Maze Craze is a sort of Pacman game. You know ol’ Pacman, the yellow fellow who trundles around a maze eating millions upon millions of little dots and power pills. He gets followed by ghosts who are out for his blood, you know the one. If you don’t then where the hell have you been for the last three years?

Maze Craze is very similar — as you go along you leave a yellow trail and you have to fill the maze up by going everywhere you can (a sort of reverse Pacman if you like). Just to make life more difficult you’ve got to pick up a certain number of moths which are dropped around the screen. You scamper around the maze against a clock — a digital display reduces your pile of points according to the distance you move. If you manage to collect the number of moths displayed on the left of the screen and return to the start point before you run out of moves, you can start a new, harder maze.

Collecting a bug or a frog gives access to one of four submazes where you have to collect some poison and kill a spider before you are returned to the main maze.

Wandering around the maze are loads of nasties (crabs and spiders) — one touch from one and you’ll lose one of your lives. If you feel threatened by one of the nasties then you can shoot them with one of your limited bombs. This will dispose of it for a while — it’ll return after a short period of time so watch out!

At the beginning of the game you can set the skill level on a scale of 0 to 9 peruse the instructions sheets, which describe the various bugs and beasties you will meet.

CRITICISM

‘I thought the age of really dire Spectrum games were over, but I was wrong. This is one of the worst games I’ve seen for quite some time. Not only is the plot archaic but the flickery characters and awful sound make this a real classic in the 1985 role of feeble Spectrum games. Gameplay is dull and awfully boring, after all we’ve seen it all before just too many times.’

‘Yawn, I haven’t seen a game like this since 1982 and then it wouldn’t have been too hot compared to some of the goodies around then. The graphics are jerky, badly animated and generally primitive, sound is poorly used. Gameplay is infuriating, unplayable and unaddictive. I really can’t see how IDL is supposed to sell a product that is out of date, badly produced and overpriced — at seven quid I couldn’t see anyone I know buying it. Perhaps this is IDL’s version of Firebird’s collection of poor games Don’t Buy This.’

‘Oh dear. Not a bad little game hidden away in there really, but the presentation leaves so much to be desired. All the polish and sophistication of Maziacs but a couple of years later. The routines that drive the game aren’t that smart and the graphics are horrible — block moving went out ages ago. Might have gone down well as a listing in a magazine, but probably wouldn’t be accepted by many publishers nowadays.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: A, Z, 5 left; S, X, 8 right; N, K, 7 Up; M, L, 6 down; SPACE, V fire
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: choice of keys a little awkward, responsive
Use of colour: elementary
Graphics: elementary, no animation just movement
Sound: little noises
Skill levels: one
Screens: four
General Rating: Three years too late.

Use of Computer

55%

Graphics

28%

Playability

45%

Getting Started

45%

Addictive Qualities

34%

Value for Money

21%

Overall

29%

ORM AND CHEEP IN NARROW SQUEAKS AND THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Producer: Macmillan Software Ltd
Author: Widgit Software Ltd
Price: £6.95

I must confess that I’d never heard of Orm and Cheep before these programs landed on my desk. The publicity handouts, however, informed me that Orm (a worm) and Cheep (a yellow bird of some sort) are well-loved cartoon characters from a TV programme ‘watched by 72% of the 4-15 viewing audience’. Both games are marketed as being suitable for ‘kids of all ages’ — a very misleading statement. I know it can be very difficult to categorise games into neat age ranges, but what on earth are ‘kids of all ages’? The handout, in fact, claims that ‘whether you are 6, 16 or 60 you’ll find Orm and Cheep a lot of fun’. Not being any of these ages myself (no, I’m not telling you how old I am!) I invited some kids ranging from 5 to 14 years of age, to look at the programs with me.

Both Narrow Squeaks and The Birthday Party begin with a reaction tester to set the level of play. The words ‘Orm and Cheep’ drop, one by one, towards a horizontal line and the player has to press a key to stop them as near to the line as possible. Having thus set the starting level, the difficulty of the game adjusts according to the player’s skill. Narrow Squeaks contains four games, and I’m afraid we found them all totally boring and pointless. The instructions are extremely difficult to find for a start (they are hidden away in the text describing the game) and the children certainly had a lot of difficulty working out what to do as the explanations, once you have found them, are far from adequate. The objective in each game turns out to be surprisingly simple and totally uninspiring.

The Birthday Party is described as ‘a compelling graphic adventure’ but it can hardly be said to fit into the adventure game genre — and we definitely didn’t find it ‘compelling’. The idea is to move Cheep around the countryside to find animals invited to Orm’s birthday party, and accompany them safely to the party having outwitted the enemy on the way. We found the noise of Cheep flapping his wings particularly irritating as the game progressed and there is no facility for turning off the sound!

The graphics in both programs are quite nice, but I’m afraid that’s the only positive thing I can say. These Orm and Cheep games got a definite thumbs down from all the testers, with the five year old saying they were the worst programs he’d seen. One parent, in fact, told me that if he’d bought the games for his children, he’d have returned them to the shop and tried to get his money back! ‘Absolutely awful’ just about sums them up!

Rosetta McLeod

COMMENTS

Control keys: any key, which keeps the game simple for the very young child
Joystick: not applicable
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: bright and attractive
Graphics: appealing
Sound: maddening, and impossible to switch off
Skill levels: adjusted automatically
General Rating: Both games are totally awful.

Use of Computer

60%

Graphics

70%

Playability

40%

Getting Started

35%

Addictive Qualities

20%

Value for Money

25%

Overall

42%

RIDDLER’S DEN

Producer: Electric Dreams Software
Author: David W. Harper
Price: £7.95

This is Electric Dreams’ first release (that’s Electric Dreams as in Rod Cousens, not the other one) and features a brand new, up-and-coming star in the form of Trunkie the Manelephant. Trunkie has decided to set off on an expedition to find the legendary Great Golden God Gregogo. Who? Ah ... ’Tis he who is as yet unseen.

Riddler’s Den forms the first part of Trunkie’s quest and is an arcade adventure in which he searches the Riddler’s Den for a Golden Tusk — and the exit. Oh, and while he’s wandering around the Den, Trunkie wants to collect and bank some treasure to fund his next jaunt.

Once found, the tusk has to be taken to the Final Room, which is in fact the room you start in! This isn’t so easy since there are many nasty creatures blocking some of the entrances to parts of the den and thus further progress. A spider, gargoyle and three dragons are just some of the deadly denizens that need to be negotiated. So how do you pass them? By solving riddles and using objects correctly, that’s how.

The chambers in the Den are shown from above while all characters are shown from the side — similar to Sabre Wulf if you like. Scattered about the Den there are numerous weird objects that Trunkie can pick up — and store in one of his four pockets. Some things can be USEd to good effect when placed in the fourth pocket, such as a pillow that allows you to rest and gain extra energy. Others should be dropped at the appropriate place and time to give the required result. To pick up an object you need to manoeuvre Trunkie up against it and press the key which controls an empty pocket. The object will be transferred to Trunkie’s collection. Objects can only be USE’d if they are in Pocket 4 — and sometimes an object in Pocket 4 can be used on or with an object in one of the other pockets.

Objects which Trunkie has picked up are displayed at the top of the screen, next to a counter which keeps track of how much of the quest you have solved. A flask indicates how much energy Trunkie has remaining, and a digital clock running in game time ticks off the hours... and you have a limited number of days in which to complete the tasks allotted.

Most of the chambers in the Den contain mobile nasties — goblin like creatures which materialise shortly after Trunkie enters and dodge around the floorspace. Larger ogre creatures live in some rooms and contact with ogres or goblins saps Trunkie’s energy — some of them are quite intelligent and home in on you, while others manage to block your path very effectively.

If you spend too long in a room, a homing plant will turn up at the entrance Trunkie used and send out a spore, which bounces round in the room, sapping energy on contact. This is the Bloodhound Trap — which gets very nasty if you are in a room with one of the three dragons that feature in the game.

Careful reading of the rhymes on the inlay will give some clues to the puzzles that have to be solved in the game, and a penchant for puns and lateral thinking will also come in handy. Some of the twists and turns in the game are cunning, others corny — and all of the riddles in the game will no doubt seem obvious once they are solved.

CRITICISM

‘You can’t really say that this is a completely original game but there are some aspects of it that are quite strange. ‘Pyjamarama-ites’ will probably like this one as there are a lot of problems to be solved in a medium sized playing area. Graphically I would rate this game as above average. The characters are well animated and nicely drawn; sound is poorly used there are only a few spot effects here and there. Generally I enjoyed playing Riddlers Den but I couldn’t see myself playing it next month.’

‘There are a large number of arcade adventures available on the Spectrum, with even more being released each week. Riddler’s Den isn’t one of the most impressive of this genre to appear, but then it’s not exactly one of the worst. It might have been a better game were it not for the fact that the riddles are a little too obscure at times. They’re not in any great abundance either, but I suppose their complexity makes up for this. Other than the riddles there isn’t much to keep one enthralled for long, there being little in the any of real action. I find it hard to become stimulated for any great length of time on the strength of solving a few, occasionally illogical, puzzles and I feel that something more is needed to make the game worthy of an honest recommendation.’

‘Personally, I like the way that Electric Dreams have gone for the idea behind the game rather than revolutionary programming techniques with this one. The graphics are as good as in earlier Ultimate games and some of the puzzles reveal a great sense of humour — bereft in other companies’ more recent attempts. Some people may dislike this apparent ‘throwback’ to the early days, but if they bother to give the game the benefit of the doubt and actually play it for a while, they could find themselves becoming addicted. Lots of lateral thinking puzzles to keep you busy on winter evenings!’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Protek and cursor
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: bright and cheerful
Graphics: colourful, and tidily done
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 49
General Rating: A puzzling game. Easy to get addicted to...

Use of Computer

77%

Graphics

78%

Playability

80%

Getting Started

78%

Addictive Qualities

76%

Value for Money

72%

Overall

78%

RUPERT AND THE TOYMAKER’S PARTY

Producer: Quicksilva Ltd
Price: £7.99

This is the story of Rupert, an international star of stage, screen and newspaper page. Now in his sixty fifth year, when most other folk are thinking of retiring, Rupert appears in a computer game courtesy of Quicksilva. One of the world’s most distinguished bears is brought to your Spectrum’s screen, in Rupert and the Toymaker’s Party.

Rupert, ever the helpful soul, has been assisting his father with some chores and as a result is now late for the big party being held by the Toymaker in his castle. Rupert’s pals have left behind a trail of invites pinned to the castle walls for Rupert to follow, and he must collect them all up on his way.

Eager for his ice cream, jelly and lashings of ginger beer, Rupert must follow the trail through eight different areas of the castle on his way to the party room. Each part of the castle is represented by four linked screens, with invitations on different levels and Rupert must clear all four screens before he can go on with his journey.

All manner of toys are wandering loose in the castle — trains, soldiers and aeroplanes to name a few — and while most of them give Rupert a tough time on contact, causing him to take a tumble, others are helpful. Rupert can jump over toys to avoid them, but there is only so much a bear can take: Rupert’s pain threshold is reached once he’s had five tumbles. When Rupert’s surpassed his pain barrier he trots back to the cottage in a bit of a sulk and the game’s over.

The menu screen at the start of the game allows you to choose between three entry points to the game, so Rupert can take a different route to the castle for variety. Once the choice of start location has been made, the screen displays the first sheet with a helpful little rhyme at the top. Pressing the pause key starts the game proper, and the poetry disappears to be replaced with a status line, indicating the player’s score and the number of tumbles left before Rupert will walk off, stage left, in a huff.

If you manage to jump Rupert round the platforms and collect up all the invites, he gets to join his friends at the party and you will be treated to a reward screen showing the chums having fun.

CRITICISM

‘On the Commodore, Rupert is a very pretty game which is amusing if not exactly nerve-wracking or exciting to play. Sadly, in translating it to the Spectrum, most of the graphical charm has been lost. This leaves a very ordinary platform game behind — which might be fun for younger game players and avid Rupert fans, but it had no real appeal for me. The game format is nothing new or exciting — another tie-in to a character that’s more front than game.’

‘There’s not much of a game to play here — Rupert is little more than a simple platform variant. This isn’t a graphically appealing game, sound is sparse and unimaginative and the gameplay is just as weak, making it very monotonous to play. It’s very difficult to jump up steps at times, since Rupert can’t move small enough distances — for each keypress he takes quite a considerable stride, making life tough for pixel perfect jumps and the game incredibly frustrating to play. My conclusions? Rupert and the Toymaker’s Party is nothing more than an average platform game and there are far better of the genre available.’

‘The graphics which are rather plain and dull, with lots of attribute problems. Playability-wise Rupert is a fun game to play at first, but within a couple of goes I had lost interest. Overall it is an average game that may appeal to ardent fans of Rupert paraphernalia, but is nothing stunning in its own right. Not one of ‘The most powerful games in the universe’ whatever Quicksilva might have you believe.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: O/P left/right, bottom row to jump
Joystick: Kempston or Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: not wonderfully done, lots of attribute problems
Graphics: adequate, rather than inspired
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 32
General Rating: An average game.

Use of Computer

68%

Graphics

55%

Playability

58%

Getting Started

66%

Addictive Qualities

52%

Value for Money

48%

Overall

54%

STARQUAKE

Producer: Bubble Bus
Price: £7.95
Language: machine code
Author: Steven Crow

Starquake from Bubble Bus sees the return of Steve Crow, programmer of the much acclaimed Wizard’s Lair. Starquake revolves around a small Bio-Logically operated being named Blob, who’s been landed with the menial task of saving the universe from a savage destruction.

An unstable and potentially dangerous planet is emerging from a black hole somewhere among the backwaters of the galaxy. The planet is so unstable that it’ll blow into a million fragments if its Planetary Core isn’t fixed. If the planet does go kaboom then the whole universe will go up too in a massive chain reaction: a Starquake. Blob has the job of rebuilding the planet’s core, thereby preventing disaster. You pick up the quest, controlling Blob, after his ship has crashlanded upon the planet in question.

The game is presented in age old arcade adventure style. The screens flip between each other with the majority of the action taking place in a cave system below the planet’s surface. Star of the show, Blob, is a creature of limited abilities who can go left and right and has a nice line in falling (for going down). Blob can go up too, using his platform laying device. Platforms can be used to prevent a fall or can be piled up to make a vertical stairway. One laid, they soon fade, however, crumbling to dust leaving Blob unsupported in mid air — unless he’s hopped onto more solid ground meantime.

Blob enters the subterranean caves with four lives, a few platforms in stock for his laying device, a gun and some ammunition. A status display at the top of the screen provides readings on the amount of ammunition left and the number of platforms available for laying. A bar display next to a battery icon indicates Blob’s energy level, which is reduced by collisions with the nasties. Should this dip below zero Blob expires and another droid has to be wheeled in. Packs of platforms, ammunition, and energy are scattered around the playing area, as are a few bonus lives. They are all picked up automatically as Blob runs over them. Collect supply packs to replenish stores, and the status display registers improvement! Other useful objects have to be deliberately picked up and are added to the limited inventory which Blob can lug around at any one time. The status display also reveals what’s been collected.

A veritable swarm of aliens inhabits the planetary caverns: contact with a nasty drains Blob’s energy and while the aliens can be discouraged with a blast from the laser gun, avoiding them is also a good tactic. The nasties are all intelligent — some a lot smarter than others — and come to get you if hang around. The further into the system you have penetrated, the smarter the nasties, it seems.

To rebuild the Planet’s Core you need to collect various items and take them to the planet’s centre. A teleport system has been supplied to help you move around the vast complex of locations by the thoughtful Mr Crow. Six teleports exist throughout the planet each with their own password. When you enter a teleport, it informs you of its teleport code and asks for a destination code so it can transport you to another teleport booth. The teleport network is handy, though the clever thing is it only comes into its own once you’ve travelled the caves and have found the codewords to the six teleports.

Space Hopper Pads are also available which can be used to fly about on — the snag is, Blob can’t pick up items while on a Pad, so frequent parking becomes a necessity. One-way transport in an upward direction is also provide by the Anti Grav Lifts. Decked out in a fetching green, the lifts can also provide a pleasant nasty-free haven as well as an effortless form of transport.

Barring your way to many essential core parts are security doors. To pass these barriers you’ll need the key code card corresponding to the code of the door you want to pass. If, by chance you find a Flexible Whatsit it’ll allow you pass any door but it’s not reusable. The key code cards and flexible whatsits also work on Cheop Pyramids. The pyramids can be used to trade items in your inventory for more useful objects.

A whole range of devices and objects are scattered around the game, including secret passages, zap-rays, space locks and weird and wonderful artifacts, including Smash Traps — small bridges spanning some of the minor gaps in the cave system. These bridges cannot be passed from underneath, but if jumped on from a great height they yield, breaking into little pieces and allowing free passage.

CRITICISM

‘This is one of the best games I’ve seen on the Spectrum for one hell of a long time. It has everything a brilliant game needs — superlative graphics, excellent sound, fabulous and unusual gameplay, real depth and addictive qualities. The game itself is really huge with heaps of screens to explore and map. There are also tons of alien things lying around which play an important part in the game and you have to discover what they do and how to use them. if you don’t buy this game then your Spectrum isn’t really being put to good use ... miss it at your peril.’

‘Why are Bubble Bus games so rare? Perhaps some of them have slipped through my sticky reviewing claws, but to the best of my knowledge they haven’t released a game since Wizard’s Lair which was ages ago. This game is an improvement on Wizard’s Lair, with better sound and graphics — it’s a lot more playable and addictive. There are so many different nasties that do different things to you that you lose track of which are the nastier nasties. All the graphics are very well animated with no attribute clash at all and the game is full of little tunes which are surprisingly good. I love all the little surprises built into the game and I’m completely addicted to Starquake. I can’t see myself putting it down until I’m convinced I can complete it.’

‘After the worthy Wizard’s Lair, Bubble Bus have surely come up with a worthy successor with Starquake. I’d definitely rate this as an all time great. Starquake’s main appeal lies with its design. It’s so well thought out. The graphics are very good indeed, both the movement and backgrounds. The content of the graphics is amazing — they don’t get very repetitive even over the 512 screens. Though the game is very Ultimatesque you soon find that things are a lot more professional, taking the route that ACG should have gone presentationwise. Overall one of the best Spectrum games to date, both from a gameplay and technical point of view. Well worth a place in your games library.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: O Left, P right, A down/lay bridging platform, Q up/pick up object, M fire, break-space continuous pause. Also definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor and Interface 2
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: avoids attribute problems really well, excellent
Graphics: varied without much repetition. Very attractive
Sound: excellent, lots of little tunes
Skill levels: one
Screens: 512
General rating: one of the best Spectrum games currently available

Use of computer

95%

Graphics

96%

Playability

94%

Getting started

94%

Addictive qualities

95%

Value for money

92%

Overall

96%

TEN PACK

Producer: Automata UK Ltd
Price: £8.00

From Automata U.K. Ltd. comes Ten Pack Vol. II, a compilation tape containing the ten best games sent to Automata since Ten Pack I. The ten titles include a mixture of programs, among them utilities, adventures and arcade games. Our in-house Piert, Gary Liddon loaded them up and took a look.

PI THERE

Playing Rastapiman you have to rescue Christian Penfold (the ally pally wally) who has been locked in a cage on screen twenty. The game format is similar to that of arcade favourite, I, Robot. Trapped in a maze, Rastapiman has to turn all the red blocks to purple by running over them. There are gaps in some parts of the maze and he’ll have to jump them. Jumping is dodgy because of the continual surveillance of the ‘Eye of Pi’. The eye can destroy you if it sees you jumping a gap, though you can avoid its stare by waiting until the eyelid closes, when it’s safe to jump. The eye’s anger can also be invoked if you stay too long on one maze: its intolerance to your presence increases as the timer ticks down. Also in your way are the Eye Scream Men, whose touch is fatal. Despite the title of the first sheet, ‘Easy, ain’t it?’, it isn’t and will take some practice to clear even the starting screen.

XTROTH

This is a nice little graphic adventure putting paid the ‘rule’ that no one programs games in BASIC any more. Hak T’anger is a psychopath trying to kill you, Jaze Kilroy, to stop you from saving the intergalactic ark full of rare animals. The pictures appear on a window taking up the top half of the screen and second window, containing text, is directly underneath the graphics. Your input is displayed on the bottom line. The graphics take some while to appear, being individually drawn, and are a bit sparse when they do arrive. The problems presented are of a quite high standard, though the slowness of the game detracts from its addictive qualities. Really not a bad adventure, just awkwardly presented.

PI IN THE SKY

Travelling in a big pink balloon with a big Pi scrawled on it you have to keep aloft while avoiding the gas sapping clouds. There are ten countries to travel through each 500 miles in length. If your gas supply becomes too low then help is at hand — grab a tin of baked beans you’ll find drifting by. The baked beans boost your gas supply, though I can’t see how. The ground scrolls smoothly along the bottom while jelly fish like clouds wander the skies.

Though not the most stunningly executed game on the tape, Pi in the Sky is definitely one of the best to play. The clouds do get a bit too wobbly but if you ignore that you’re left with quite a nice little game.

TOILET TRUBBLE

Zak the snail, careless soul that he is, has fallen down the lavvy. Your job is to guide him out of his porcelain prison back into the real world. (Real? ED) There are twenty sheets to negotiate, each completed by collecting the screen’s supply of toilet rolls. Everything else on screen is deadly to snails and must be avoided at all costs. Zak can move in the four basic directions up, down, left and right but he can’t stand still. The screen titles run true to normal Automata wit, the first being named ‘You Can’t Beat the Cistern’. The game’s a bit flickery with character movement. After a while it can get a bit tedious.

PARADISE IN A MICRODOT

The Quill and Illustrator have been used to excellent effect in this entertaining adventure. Trapped in a microdot you have to solve various puzzles to pass the seven defences to reach the secret object. To accompany you on your journey is the disembodied head of Professor Norden, a scientist rendered headless by the secret police. There are various jokes and riddles scattered about the microdot and it can get confusing trying to sort the meaningful from the meaningless. The riddle snakes were a constant source of entertainment, quizzing you as you pass on by. I can honestly say Paradise in a Microdot never bored me; the program was always able to come up with new rebukes. This is the best adventure on the tape and very good it is too.

THE EGG

This simple arcade game casts the player as a hovering egg trying to collect twenty True Blue Hatching Pills. The background is very similar to that of New Generation’s age old 3D Monster Maze, with a 3D maze background. There are various objects blocking your way, some deadly some just impassable. When the twenty hatching pills are in your possession then a gateway opens in the next screen. All in all pretty average stuff but it can provide a few thrills for arcade junkies.

CHAMBERS OF DEATH

Every compilation has a stinker, at least one game that doesn’t quite fit in because of it’s the worst on the tape. Well I’m afraid the Chambers of Death is it. Clement has disappeared in London’s sewer system and ever since, the place has been overrun with a horde of nasties. You have to find the main flood gates so you can get them open so all corruption can be washed away and the sewers once more made a safe place.

Chambers of Death is an Arcade adventure with a lot of screens all looking extremely similar indeed. Usually with this type of game you’ll be able to remember various routes after a few goes, but at the start of this game the maze is randomly generated. Your man can move character squares only and is pretty unresponsive to your key-presses. Various baddies do cross your path but they’re easily vanquished. All in all really not worth bothering about.

NUDGEIT

As fruit machine simulators go Nudgeit is one of the most proficient to date. Taking a very similar format to Frogit, a real fruit machine, the features included are close to those on the real thing. You are given two pounds and fifteen minutes to make your fortune. The screen is attractively presented in blue, mostly, using yellow as a highlight. The reel graphics are very good with a real fruity look to them. Nudges are awarded allowing you to try and better your winnings. Holds are also implemented. The only thing lacking is cash, though continual practice with this handy piece of software should improve your chances of making money in the arcades.

NTH ZONE

Anyone out there remember Transversion from Ocean? Well Nth Zone is very similar indeed. For those of you unfamiliar with Spectrum ancient history the plot is as follows. You control a small triangular space ship able to move up, down, left and right. Trapped on a grid, bounded by four walls, you must collect a number of blob type characters by travelling over them. Patrolling around the perimeter wall are four Barbs, one on each wall. The Barbs move across their walls and shoot at you if you are in line with them. The game moves at a furious pace and is quite addictive. The graphics, though crude are effective. All in all, I reckon it’s a great game that’s pretty addictive.

PIMAN’S COCKTAIL CABINET

Depending on your age, Piman’s Cocktail Cabinet could prove to be very handy. Containing a database of 160 different cocktails the program allows you to either list the ingredients of a particular cocktail or type in the ingredients you’ve got. If you type in what your drink cabinet contains then the Pi Man will list all the cocktails available to you. Automata’s knowledge of drinks is second to none. Other software houses are merely beginners, barely out of their heads. To keep your favourite cocktails forever with you there’s a printer option as well. Overall, very addictive and I got an amazing high shcore (Hic).

VERDICT

Automata’s ten pack presents excellent value for money at 80p a game. A couple of the games, Paradise in a Microdot and Nudgeit, are of a very high quality indeed, not really budget software at all. If you need some variation in your software diet then Ten Pack would be worth considering. For Pimaniacs everywhere.