A welcome change from how to write games for the Amstrad, this time it's the turn of the BBC Micro. This is a hefty tome, 234 pages in all, by an author who manages to keep up his enthusiasm right to the last page.

It is aimed at people who have already got a certain knowledge of Basic and who want to get on to more ambitious programming, writing their own games.

Along the lines which are no doubt now becoming familiar to readers of these pages, the author takes you through all the stages of designing and writing a good adventure game on your micro.

He starts off breaking down the average game into its essential components of communications, commands, room descriptions, a plot and the problems. This might seem rather obvious, but it's actually important to spend time looking at the basics before plunging straight in with the coding.

The book discusses the importance of developing a good plot and how to sketch out a skeleton which will be the basis of your game, before going on to how to build it up in modules. Chapter 4 examines how to develop a cast of characters while the next chapter shows how to map out the 'rooms' or other locations pose, e.g. AND, CHR$, DATA etc.

Other subjects covered are the layout of rooms, placing objects, the input and interpretation of instructions, structuring, sound and graphics, and so on. Each chapter contains at least one module demonstrating the points discussed and providing useful routines for you to use within your own programs. There are also a few line diagrams to illustrate things such as flow plotting.

Finally, a complete program is provided at the back for you to start off with. It is not given with a greal deal of detail, but, as the author says, you should know enough by then not to need your hand holding too much.

I like the tone of this book; there is plenty to get your teeth into and, at £6.95, it's not a bad buy.