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As soon as it had finished loading, I suspected this adventure was going to be good - and prove to be nearly impossible. And I was right!

The game itself is huge and room descriptions are very good, if a little over the top - the captain's cabin manages to occupy the whole of one screen!

The parser is certainly one of the best that I have ever used, allowing multiple statement lines, the use of IT, BUT, ALL, etc. and a very useful undo facility for when you find yourself in a bit of a tight spot. However, it seems you cannot undo if you have just died, which would appear to me to defeat the whole object of its existence!

The game is fairly difficult to start off and it took me a while to get into the swing of things. If anyone else is in this situation, you'll find it helps to close and lock the door!

The puzzles are taxing and I believe a player would be hard pushes to complete the game without some aid. Some puzzles are near impossible to guess at and some subtle clues left lying around would have helped.

One thing you either love or hate is messages like 'Talk straight, shipmate' or 'Please specify, matey'. I found that they added to the atmosphere at the start but then became rather annoying.

After spending several attemtped to solve a problem with various permutations of a command, the message 'You speak in riddles, matey' is nothing more than an irritation.

There is an option to select text in either black and white, or yellow and white. Perhaps this is for a hard copy, though I found no built-in way to dump to the printer.

Loading and saving to tape or disc is supported and so is the command WHERE which I would normally only expect to find on multi-user adventures. If you discover you have left something behind, you can always use this facility to discover its location.

This game is certainly one of the best adventures I have played. If you want something to sit at while waiting for summer to arrive, I recommend you buy it with haste.

Paul Thornton