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Crack It! Towers describes itself as a puzzle game for all ages. Mirrorsoft have done well to think of some kind of explanation because it's far easier to say what the program is not. It certainly is not an arcade game or an adventure. It has educational elements, but it isn't a learning program. What is it then? It's a whole load of fun for Electron and BBC Micro owners.

The aim is simple to find the secret of Count Crack It! You must collect seven golden keys which you'll need to open the eighth room in his castle. To gain the seven keys you must visit various rooms and solve a set of puzzles and problems in each.

In room 1 in the castle you try to discover what Oswald eats for lunch. This can best be described as a hangman type game. Success will earn you a key while failure will pitch you into the moat. If you end up in the moat the piranha will start swimming towards you.

A question such as 184 divided by 4 will flash on the screen. A correct answer will stop the fish and you will survive to visit more rooms.

Room 2 features a logic game in which you must shoot some beasties while trying to avoid shooting yourself. It's a version of the ancient game of Nim and it's easy to make mistakes.

Room 3 looks a bit like space invaders, but with bats bombing you. Before you can fire back you need to match a subtraction sum with its correct answer. This room is fiendish, requiring you to concentrate on three different areas of the screen, do a calculation and keep your base away from the bombs.

The castle swimming pool can be found in room 4. It will come as no surprise to learn that the Evil Count Crack It! keeps sharks in it. To avoid them you will have to add a number to a sequence such as 5, 10, 15, 20 and so on.

Room 5 is the spiders' playroom. You have to move your stick of dynamite around to make a spider fall on it, but before any spider falls you must get a multiplication sum correct.

On to room 6 where Albert the Alien lives - in a minefield. In a limited time you must issue commands such as "west 3" to steer him to safely.

Room 7 features ghosts who won't destroy you if you are quick enough at solving an anagram.

You can enter the rooms in any order, but they all need unlocking by adding a set of numbers together. If you succeed in any room you can try for a bonus key by entering the maze of seventeen skulls. If you pick on the right skull, aided by a devious clue, you win. The Count keeps many more nasty friends who leap out at unexpected moments and steal precious keys or put you into prison.

Some of these can be stopped by hitting Space, but others require you to complete words or solve number problems very quickly. If you get fed up with the words defined in the program you can enter your own selection.

My whole family have found this an addictive program. None of the tasks are difficult in themselves, but to succeed you will need fast reflexes and an alert brain.

Mirrorsoft has come up with something quite out of the ordinary and for my money, it's a real winner.

Rog Frost