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Overhead maze games with patrolling nasties exist in their thousands, and practically every idea has been tried by now. So it was with mixed feelings that I tackled Bonfire, a new game for the Amstrad which invites you to progress through each overhead maze, collecting the key and fighting your way to the door.

Fortunately, there's more to it than at first appears...

Scattered throughout each maze are a number of roaring bonfires (hence the name). You play an Indiana Jones style explorer, sporting one of those open torches of the "rag wrapped around a branch" type, and your aim should be to keep that torch alight. When it is alight, you are impervious to any of the patrolling enemies. As soon as it goes out, they home-in on you at startling velocity.

The strategy you must employ is to cross the maze by running from one bonfire to the next. Unfortunately, although a bonfire will light your torch, it remains lit for only sixty steps. And - wouldn't you just know it? - there are often around seventy steps separating each of the bonfires. Hence the game is one of skill, timing and patience.

Now if all that sounds encouraging, let me warn you that Bonfire is still a little rough around the edges. One particularly discouraging feature, for example, will confront you the very first time you play. You start with three lives at the end of a very long corridor; the first bonfire being guarded by an enemy at the end of it. Get the timing of your run towards the bonfire wrong and not only will you be picked off by the enemy, but he will then stand unflinchingly at the end of the corridor. This leaves you no other option than to suicide-charge away your other two lives in order to start again!

Whilst some things about this game don't really make sense - why doesn't the torch burn if you stand still? - it is an overhead maze idea I have never seen before, so I'll give it a cautious thumbs up for originality. Graphics and sound do, however, leave a lot to be desired.