ADVENTURE games tend to have certain things in common, points which the experienced adventurer takes for granted. N, S, E and W usually move a character north, south, east and west respectively; commands take the form verb, noun. Once one adventure game has been played, those points become self-evident, but they are battling for a beginner, and Demon Lord makes no provision for a beginner.

The game is recorded in two 48K parts on two cassettes, which are sold separately. The players task is to find and rescue King Arthur from Perilous Castle and to kill the Demon Lord who has taken him prisoner.

Each Location through which the player passes is drawn painstakingly in such detail that a scene containing a key will be re-drawn without it following the command TAKE KEY. That makes progress slower than it might be, while adding little to the game. In fact, as the game progresses and more and more commands are rejected as being NOT ACCEPTABLE, it becomes obvious that too much memory has been allocated to the graphics and not sufficient to vocabulary.

To be enjoyable, an adventure game should have a number of responses. Demon Lord repeatedly produces the response SORRY NOT ACCEPTABLE. That can produce the wrong impression. TAKE THE BLUE KEY is labelled as unacceptable, whereas other games would indicate by a formula such as TAKE WHAT? that the problem lay with the limited program vocabulary.

Demon Lord is produced by MCE, 33 Albert Street, Mansfield.

Memory: 48K Price: £5.50