I read about Mathilde's Postcards From Teesside in EUG #54 and decidedit would be interesting to see our Ed's amateur film efforts, which I must say were quite entertaining in a zany sort of way.
Anyway, I also received a freebie disk of all the Brainteasers doing the rounds in EUG at the moment, and thought I'd do a bit of a review.
Bang in the disk, SHIFT-BREAK and you're presented with a screen attributing original copyright to one Genevieve Ludinski and the fact that these have been improved by our glorious leader. You just have sufficient time to read this and then you are presented with a menu of 28 games/puzzles. At first I wasn't sure how to navigate this but was soon able to deduce that * took you up and ? took you down.
I've probably mentioned before that most of my "Elk"ing is done through emulation on my Acorn Risc computer these days, and this can sometimes run things a bit fast. I have a fix that slows things down a bit, but even with that I often find up and down scrolling a bit 'jumpy' so, speaking personally, I would have preferred a number or letter allocation for each menu item. Or even being able to select an item just by pressing the first letter of its title. This would also enable a random selection, obviously.
However, these programs are all in basic, so any time delays, etc, can be adjusted for those who like to fiddle.
There seemed to be something for puzzlers of all persuasions; a word search, some spot the difference types (but with a time limit to give it a nice edge), some mathematical stuff (some of which was a bit beyond me I must admit: Histogram rectangles, what's that all about?) and also one or two puzzles with a musical theme, which personally I really enjoyed.
My two particular favourites were Close Encounters and Don't Paint The Cat. With Close Encounters, you are given a short burst of a tune and the number keys 1 to 8 are your notes. You then have to press these in the right order to play the sound you've just heard and, by so doing, you can progressively lower a spaceship until it lands. For something relatively straightforward, I actually found it incredibly difficult!
With Don't Paint The Cat, someone is painting a fence and if you don't solve the musical puzzle quick enough, the cat (sitting at the end of it) gets painted as well. Great fun.
All in all then, a nice 107k's worth of PD brainteasing fun!
1st February 2001
