Big K


Erik The Viking
By Mosaic
BBC Model B

 
Published in Big K #10

Erik The Viking

Last Christmas the outstanding, best-selling and prize-winning children's book was Erik The Viking by Terry Jones, with illustrations by Michael Foreman. This Yule Mosaic, who are almost alone in the extremely intriguing, and potentially explosive middle-ground between book and software publishing, are hoping that the full graphic computer game of the book will be as successful. The pedigree is certainly there, with the programming done by Level 9 of text adventure fame, here embarking on their first ever graphics project.

Your task is the same as Erik The Book's was - to rescue your kidnapped family from the evil Dogfighters.

You wake on a mountaintop and must recover the various items left behind or hidden during the fracas at the farm, assemble your friends, launch your ship, the Golden Dragon, and set sail into the unknown. The game has your usual adventure game vocabulary and style, immediately recognisable to Level 9 fans, with a useful guide in the accompanying booklet, the sketch and paint graphics are excellent, if a little slow (on the Spectrum, at least) and, under the circs, do a reasonably good job of approximating Foreman's beautiful artwork in the book.

My only query is whether it might be a bit hard for the age group which the book was aimed at, but then I'm probably underestimating the precocious little horrors, and anyway there's always the hint sheet.