Alien Images' Arcendium consists of four popular board
games of the type you play to relax, as opposed to the brain
cracking types like chess. These are Draughts, Reversi,
Backgammon and Quadline. Included is a fairly detailed
booklet describing the games, their rules, how to play them
and references as to where you can get more information - a
neat touch.
All the games allow two players or let you compete against
the micro. But be warned: The computer plays a mean game
on the highest skill levels. This is directly controllable in
Backgammon and implied in the other games by limiting the
thinking time. In fact the micro displays its depth of thought
as it goes. You can get the machine to play itself as well
which can be quite instructive.
There are a host of other options too - sound, voice or
silence, pause, back-step moves and save and re-load a
current game position. The latter is very unusual in this type
of game.
Draughts
One of the commonest pitfalls encountered with micro
implementations of board games is that of rule variations, a
problem particularly relevant to draughts where many people
have different views on the huffing rule in particular. Some
don't agree with it at all, whereas others allow traps to be set
where your opponent is given two piece taking moves at once
so that at least one of the attacking pieces is forfeit, it would
have been nice if Alien Images had been able to make some
allowance for this.
Reversi
There is a similar problem with Reversi - otherwise known
as Othello. Usually the game starts with the first four pieces
already placed alternatively in the centre of the board.
However, this implementation starts with no pieces set and
lets you place the first four with the whites adjacent. Apart
from that, the game proceeds as you would expect.
Backgammon
I'm not a Backgammon player so I had to pounce on one of
my friends to run through it. He was impressed, but found a
couple of oddities. Not familiar with micros, he quickly got to
grips with the mouse but took awhile to work out how to take
pieces from the board.
In fact this is done by clicking the mouse only once to mark
the piece to be moved and then going straight to the tick and
clicking on that. Normally you need to click on the position
you want to move to aswell. This isdetailed in the instruc
tions, but can easily beoverlooked.
Quadline
Quadline, or four-in-a-row, is a straighforward conversion.
Mouse control is very useful as you can play a fast but
relaxed game.
If you like board games then this compendium is a must.
Even if this isn't your cup of tea, the disc is worth getting to
have a look at really neatly laid out games.
1st April 1989
