Well, we had to review an Amstrad book, didn't we, since around 50 per cent of all new titles being published at the moment seem to be for the 464 and the 664!

This book is published by Argus Books, sister company of the publishers of Computer Gamer. It's aimed mainly at people with a reasonable knowledge of Amstrad Basic and is designed to appeal to those who have progressed from keying in listings and who want to write their own adventure programs. The author starts by explaining the principles of writing adventure games and he includes some advice on games writing in general. For example, he stresses the importance of planning in advance with a pencil and paper, and he illustrates how to design flow charts and use them as the logical basis from which to code.

Three adventures are included, serving both as illustrations of the author's programming advice and also as games in their own right. The Wizard's Quest is a traditional, text only game; Snow White is based on the traditional fairy tale and features full high-resolution graphics for each location; and finally A Journey Through Space will be welcomed by beginners because it can just be keyed in, saved and then played without further ado.

Everything is carefully explained and laid out to be as easily understood as possible. The coding is boxed in so that it stands out clearly from the text when keying in, the workings of each routine are explained immediately afterwards and this is followed by a line-by-line breakdown of the logic.

It's a nicely produced book with an eye-catching cover, some stylish graphics design and just about the right number of illustrations: not so many as to be obvious padding but enough to give the feel of a subject which is, after all, very visual. Unfortunately the dot matrix listings are very dark and rather blobby in places, and on a few pages of my copy the printing was a bit smudged.

There is a lot packed into this book. The author obviously knows his stuff, has an easily readable style, and many Amstrad owners should find it worth looking at.