A Beginners Guide To Adventures is designed as an introduction to computer adventuring. It covers many aspects which may confuse the novice adventurer, and bridges some of the gaps in understanding how they work.

Published by Mandy Rodriguez, editor of Adventure Probe, and written by a Lord of Adventure, Dave Harvard, the guide is a great idea - adventure games can be, at times, very unfriendly for the beginner, giving the impression of being boring, complicated and difficult when they're not!

The book covers a broad range of adventuring subjects, although loading problems are not mentioned - Dave has planned a separate book especially for this subject (luckily the CPC is rarely afflicted by loading problems, unlike its 8-bit cousins).

Apart from the purposeful omission of loading problems nothing seems to be missing - the guide covers subjects such as mapping, mazes, different types of adventure, synonyms (very useful) and the sort of problems to solve.

Half of the guide's 50 pages are taken up by a step-by-step journey through an adventure called The Golden Apple (by Arctic) with added notes and maps. It is a shame that Dave chose to cover an adventure that is not available on the Amstrad in his example, but it doesn't make any difference - you learn from the example game how to play an adventure and understand its responses.

A very well written book which is an invaluable aid to anyone who has just started playing adventure games or is interested in them. It takes you from being a novice through intermediate, and on to experienced level.

The Balrog