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In Castle Quest, Micro Power has come up with a game which is a cross between Hunchback and a standard computer adventure with sound and graphics, and a full scrolling screen in four directions.

Basically, the player is in control of an adventurer who penetrates the castle walls of an evil wizard, the story is all too familiar: armed guards, trolls (in this case, small red monkeys who do you no harm), spiders and a whole host of treasures and perils all await you in your quest.

The game starts with you and an empty backpack, and with the alternative of a right- or left-hand starting point, only one way will bear a useful result, by picking up any treasures such as rubles or even bones and using them to either gain more points, or to wreak dire havoc upon the inhabitants of the castle will aid the adventurer in going deeper into the maze.

In the past, typical adventures such as these have tended towards typical multi-screened arcade games, but with the opportunity to keep the objects you find and to move them from one scene to another means that there is a good deal of forward-planning and deduction, and in many cases, some 'shorts in the dark', the method of solving Castle Quest will appeal to all those who spend hours puzzling over a text adventure.

The scrolling between each scene is particularly smooth, and you don't have to wait too long. I found, however, the most enjoyable part of the game was solving its many and varied problems; in many cases, the silliest solutions were the best (like throwing up a stool whilst incarcerated deep in the castle's murky depths to knock a torch off the walls to set fire to the bed!!!).

One of the most frustrating scenes involved my falling into a river and drowning. The solution was as expected, to jump up and down, giving enough air space to reach a ladder in time!!

There are, however, some details which are not so good. For instance, most adventures allow the player to save their games. Unfortunately, Castle Quest does not allow this, nor does it have a sound on/off option which will be annoying to midnight questors. There are no real clues as such, so some of the deducation is pure guesswork!!

Still, Castle Quest is very well implemented concerning the overall game outline. It can be played as a simple 'bash-'em-up' arcade game, or as a more logical, thought-provoking adventure, with characters that are both colourful and well presented. The graphics are fast and the response from the keyboard is equally good.

In all, Castle Quest is an enjoyable game of the Cybertron Mission/Hunchback ilk. Not being able to save your progress throughout the game is a problem although its features far outweigh its deficiencies.