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Castle Frankenstein is a text adventure originally written for the BBC Micro and has now been converted to run on the Electron. The plot centres around Frankenstein's monster. Originally he was thought to have perished in a fire 20 years ago. But now, because of unsolved murders in the area, there's a growing suspicion that he's alive and well and intent on vengeance. The villagers have elected you to be their champion, and your task is to find and destroy the monster.

To help you the cassette comes with an insert which gives general information about the game. Something I found rather strange about this insert was a claim that the tape was disc compatible. I suspect this was intended for the BBC rather than the Electron. However it probably won't be long before the Electron has discs, so curiosity made me try putting the tape onto a friends BBC Micro with discs. I found you could not use it on disc without using a routine to move it down in memory. Even then the save-game option would only work with cassette. I would be interested to know if the same is true of the BBC version.

On loading the program presents instructions and background information. Then begins one of the best all-round adventures I have ever seen for the Electron.

I will not reveal anything about the actual playing of the game. That's a pleasure I'll let you experience for yourself. Whoever wrote this program has an extremely devious mind, and makes you work very hard for each piece of progress. Yet, at the same time, he allows you to roam quite a distance before presenting you with puzzles to solve. This, I feel, is the proper way to write an adventure.

The beginner has lots of locations to explore to get the feel of the game, but the more experienced adventurer can go through them rapidly to reach the puzzles.

There were a few minor things I wasn't happy with. For instance, there's no on-screen indication of exits. But I've probably just got into lazy habits with other adventures. The program itself responds very quickly to keyboard input, and the save-game facility - which is an absolute necessity - is very fast.

Overall, an extremely good adventure and excellent value for money.

Merlin