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Here it is folks, the one you've all been waiting for... the latest from Jeff Minter.

As usual with this famous animal lover, it's different from anything yet seen. It's a game you will either love or hate - and either way you'll go wild about it.

The basic scenario is simple: you are Ancipital, a two-horned, goatlike, superbly-animated beast, and have to travel through 100 rooms containing various enemies and puzzles... that's it! But getting right through the 10x10 grid of rooms in one sitting is like trying to get a mutant camel through the eye of a needle.

Each room is a separate screen with four walls which Cippy can walk along and jump between. Doors can be found in most walls allowing you to pass into adjoining sections,

The procedure for doing this is different in every location but follows several basic patterns.

Most doors can be opened by shooting a particular enemy which will fall to the wall you are standing on and dislodge a shield from it. When enough hits are made, indicated by arrows which change colour with each hit, the gap will appear.

You may not be able to pass through it straight away, though, since there is a time limit to survive on each section before the door will be activated.

Other doors doors can be opened by camel keys or by passing through already blasted objects. However you need to open all the doors without leaving a room since the aliens will not reappear if you reenter and you will not be able to open any more walls.

If in real trouble you will find there is a help screen available for each room giving hints on what to do, but don't expect too many complete giveaways.

The characters are the usual motley Minter crew with animals everywhere, including Rory the guinea pig (a new star), anti-smoking and CND waves; hippies, and much, much more. There's a different collection in each room!

The first screen presents you with some apples bouncing around. You'll find you're firing weird ammunition - bananas!

You have to shoot the green apples with your bananas. The apples turn to apple cores and fall to destroy the shields.

There is a wave based on the recent TV series 'V' and frequent appearances are made by Neil (from The Young Ones), who usually has to be shot. The camel keys are dotted around the place and need to be picked up before doors marked with a coloured camel can be unlocked.

The screen titles have obviously been plucked from the depths of some alien imagination and incude 'Not a breadhead', 'Stargoat', 'Rory wins the cup', 'Strap me to a ...', 'Metagalactic Ancipital' and Neil's refreak'.

Controlling Ancipital takes some getting used to as he hops from wall to wall. The thing to practise is doing right-angled turns where you have to move forward, fire, then move left or right.

Firing is pretty odd as well since Jeff has employed what he calls 'demand firing'. This effectively means that the more accurate you are with your blasting, the more bullelts you will get to fire.

For the technically minded, the program uses a sprite-swapping routine which shares the C64's eight sprites between Ancipital's shooting and his targets.

This results in you having tons of bullets at one moment and none the next. Also the number of enemies will increase or decrease in inverse proportion. It may sound complicated but it works beautifully well.

You are supplied with plenty of lives to begin with but as your camel strength gauge diminishes you will lose them rapidly under the intense pressure of attack.

It is not just the usual Minter shoot-'em-up because you have to actually think about this game. The action is as frantic as ever and the ideas individualistic and original.

One word of warning: the game is really freaky and there are bound to be some of you out there who will hate it. But most people are gong to spend many a happy day discovering yet another classic Minter game.

Jeff Minter is every bit as extraordinary as the games he creates. Hippy hairdo, bizarre sense of humour, and so much energy it's exhausting just to be near him. Ancipital is the result of two months intensive programming. The main character - half-man, half-goat - comes from Sheep in Space.

"I just loved its animation, so I thought it needed a game of its own. Also, I wanted to experiment with artificial gravities - have him walking on the walls and ceilings, you can do a lot with that.

"And, since everyone loved Revenge Of The Mutant Camels, I wanted to do a follow-up, but one which had more depth. I've admired games like Atic Atac, so I thought I'd so my own arcade-adventure. But hopefully it's one that will still appeal to my shoot-'em-up fans.

"One thing I haven't included this time is a screen-scrolling routine. That's because everyone else is now writing screen-scrolling routines. It's no longer original." The lack of originality of other software houses provokes a change of subject at this point as Minter lets off steam against the copycats.

Minter is now 22, but his passion for computer games hasn't abated one iota. He now has three arcade consoles at his home in Tadley, Hampshire - Tempest, Star Wars II (sit-in model) and, his latest, Star Gate, which he was hammering away at in between writing attack waves on Ancipital.

His other interests include ski-ing, running and cycling - he's the proud owner of a horizontally-ridden bike which is supposed to be one of only three in the country.

Soon after Ancipital's release, scheduled for mid-September, Minter flies off to Peru for an encounter with llamas, his favourite quadropeds. After that, work starts on another game. "I haven't decided what to do yet. But I quite like the idea of basing a game around a wildebeest".

Llamas, camels, sheep, man-goats, and now wildebeest. The big question is: will Minter one day run out of hairy animals?

Being a fan of the Minter stye of gaming, I really enjoyed playing Ancipital. It has all the elements of a good shoot-'em-up and still requires that extra element of thought.

It takes a little time to realise the tactics needed for certain screens, but this all adds to the lasting interest.

The presentation is very good, although I did find the accompanying drum beats a little tiring at times.

Yes, Mr. Minter, you've done it again. I think Ancipital will be even a bigger hit than Revenge.

My favourite screen was that starring Rory the guinea pig. Shoot him and he savages you!

I also liked the moving, starry background, and the way the ancipital moves round the screen.

The huge variety (and comic nature) of the aliens makes for great entertainment. But the action is so fast, you often don't know when you've hit one - or when they've hit you. I found this aspect slightly unsatisfying, but if you liked Revenge this won't bother you at all.

The provision of the help screens is a major plus. Without these, the game would cause many people considerable frustration.

The zapping and the controls both introduce new elements, but they don't take long to get used to and they certainly enhance your enjoyment. You have to work out in each room exactly what you have to do to get out: it's not just a question of doing the same thing 100 times.