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The cover blurb for this piece of software boasts "four arcade games plus a multi-screen arcade adventure" , which sounds like good value for £8.50, or £9.95 if you want a copy of the book by Roald Dahl too.

The only problem is that it doesn't work out like that. The four arcade games on side one of the tape actually load as a single 48K block of code, so what you really get is a single game with four screens and none of them are particularly interesting, despite being (loosely) based upon characters and incidents in the book.

The arcade adventure on side two is somewhat better, though that's not really saying much. It is a straightforward JSW clone set in a chocolate factory with forty three rooms, through which you must guide Charlie in order to locate six golden keys.

Although the rooms in the factory are quite well designed and present some interesting problems as you attempt to find your way through them, the graphics are pretty primitive, and look like a bunch of UOGs rather than animated sprites. They are all very flickery and seem to move one character space at a time rather than in pixels.

Even with the four screens on side one taken into account this "multi-screen adventure" simply does not justify its high cost. I can recommend the book to kids of all ages, but frankly I'd forget about the software if I were you.

C.J.