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In the year 2015 earth's population outgrew the planet, stretching her resources to the limit and giving her a very bleak future. The then newly-formed governing body FourNations (consisting of the USA, USSR, China and the European Community), devised a plan to colonise Mars to cope with earth's overspill. Unfortunately, the plan was plagued by financial problems and earth's economy entered a deep recession.

It is now 2062 (doesn't time fly?) - the colonisation of Mars is still proceeding, if slowly - and you've been summoned to MoonBase, your only instructions: report to Clerical Office 5.

MoonBase is, yes, you've guessed it, a base on the moon. It's made up of three domes, the ClericalDome, IndustrialDome, and the InterShuttle Dome, all three require Plastipavement which weaves its weary way between the domes' many buildings prime objective a rocket capable of transporting to Mars everything needed to begin colonisation.

Your first task upon arriving at MoonBase is to find your accommodation before the 10:00pm curfew takes effect - failure to do so results in your being arrested and the game ending.

The Vid-Screen in your accommodation block filters into technicolour life (when you press its control pad) and Security Guard Thompson requests a morning meet with you in one of the Domes' many parks. Sleep quickly (and automatically) follows leaving you refreshed for the morrow.

Mapping of domes is straightforward, so finding the right park in which to meet Thompson is no problem. As he joins you the serene scene is interrupted by a bomb going off in another section of the park. A quick question-and-answer session with Thompson reveals that a terrorist faction known as the Mining Group are intent on preventing the launch of the Mars rocket.

Perhaps the appointment at Clerical Office 5 will reveal more. Unfortunately, nobody is allowed to start work until midday so a bit more exploring might while away the hours til then.

Reminiscent of Level 9's Snowball and Infocom's StarCross, A Dark Sky Over Paradise (ADSOP) has many locations which bear a remarkable resemblance to one another. This may give the game a large play area but it also leads to tedium as you trudge past yet another security block or admire yet another bed of flowers in yet another park. Also, the futuristic setting is corny featuring Securi-Cams hovering above your every move, Yid-Screens taking up whole walls in accommodation blocks, and Taskbots scurrying around at night cleaning the place up. There are also underlining inhabitants called Menial Workers who serve in pubs and wait in restaurants, (pass the soap box) neither of these tasks are menial and I felt miffed at Interactive Technology for regarding them as such. However, the intrigue created by author Martyn Westwood as to why you've been summoned to MoonBase and what exactly is going on more than compensate for these minor minuses.

ADSOP was written using Incentive's Graphic Adventure Creator, although Interactive Technology informs me that their next adventure (Weird Tales) is to be created using their own Zen system - it should be available by the time you read this.

I have to admire Interactive Technology for tackling an adventure such as this 'cause creating a good scenario on the moon is difficult as it's hard to generate an atmosphere.

ADSOP is available from Interactive Technology, PO Box 146, Sheffield S13 7TY.