It's a gamble

Back in our October 1989 issue we reviewed the three games that made up Casino with a promise from Minerva that more were onthe way.

Well, here is the entire Casino collection, a set of multi-tasking programs that sit on the icon bar.

In all cases you need the Banker, which holds details of each player and how much money they have. To play the new Backgammon you also need the dice program. Clicking on the Backgammon icon brings up an excellent rendition of the playing area with the pieces in position. You drag bets over from tothewindow from two player windows to setthem up as the new players for the game.

You then roll the dice - there's a quick interchange between the two multi-tasking programs - and you can move your pieces as allowed by the rules. Although betting is allowed it only seems to be on the outcome as seen from the start - the doubling cube is missing. The Fruit Machine has been revamped and now includes lots of flashing lights with much improved animation. I started betting very carefully on this - when your money is held by the micro and there's no way of adding to it you soon learn caution.

After a while I gained confidence and realised that this was more than a fruit machine, it's a money machine - you can't lose in the long run.

Perhaps Minerva should check the programming - on the one occassion that I got three Minerva logos I also got the Hold.

Casino is quite a bit of fun for one or two players, but it gets into an argument when you have more because of one rather important problem - there's only one mouse.

Steve Turnbull