This is not, as one might think, a test of knowledge of adventures but an educational program in an adventure setting. Its purpose is to test children's knowledge of mathematics. The program comes in two parts, the quiz itself and a drawing program which is automatically CHAINed if the questions set in the quiz are answered correctly.

The quiz makes little use of the graphics capabilities of the Electron and all too much of the sound. I eventually used *FX 210,1 to turn the sound off, though the kids loved it.

The program is well error-trapped and listable on loading. Being written in Basic, it is easy to adapt. Since you are not given the correct result when a wrong answer is given, this would probably be the first thing you would change.

The questions cover multiplication up to the 12 times table, division, addition and mixtures of these. Only whole numbers are used. The drawing game offered as a reward for successfully answering the quiz is a simple etch-a-sketch type program. It isn't as well error-trapped as the quiz but since this is also in the Basic that, too, can be easily changed.

The quiz won't teach children mathematics but it is novel enough to hold their attention and I found there was fierce competition to see who could get to the end first.

The reward stands up well against commercial packages, though a separate instruction sheet would have been helpful. A useful package that could be slightly improved, but is nevertheless good value for money.

Peter Lundstrom