PLUMBING DEPTHS OF A TESTING PUZZLE

ABYSS for the 48K Spectrum is a simple graphics adventure which is designed to test your refelexes as well as your mathematics. The idea is that you must cross a series of rickety wooden bridges over an Abyss surrounded by monsters which lurk in the shadows.

Each time you cross a bridge you are presented with a challenge which you must overcome before proceeding to the next bridge.

The test might be negotiating a maze using a complicated set of keys, avoiding giant rats, recognising a word in a split second, or doing some mental arithmetic before your time runs out. The sequence of the tests changes constantly and you need to be able to think quickly. If you play the game a few times, the answers will be increasingly easy to find, so it does not offer endless scope.

Nevertheless, it is a lively puzzle, with amusing responses from the computer, although in one case we suspected that it threw us into the abyss in spite of a correct answer.

Abyss is available from Cases Computer Simulations, 14 Langton Way, London SE3 7TL. It costs £5.