Escape is the first in a series of 16K adventures for the Atari home computer. The author W. H. Ferran, has created a small, but good adventure.

Because it fits into 16K Escape doesn't have the world's greatest parser or vocabulary, but it does have a well thought out plot.

The player enters the game to discover he is in a prison, not knowing who he is or why he has been placed there. Stepping outside his quarters, he finds himself in a large courtyard, complete with a guard who takes great pleasure in removing from the player's inventory, anything he can get his hands on.

From this point the game opens up, and he can move about easily, visiting such places as the mess hall, Governor's Office, etc.

It's not until the player returns to his first location, and starts sorting out the small problem of how to open the stove, that the great Escape begins.

I felt the screen layout a little odd on an adventure of this size. I had expected to see split-screen display. In fact, scrolling text is the method used.

The puzzles are not too difficult, and it would seem that the game has been written with the first time Adventurer in mind, using straightforward English, and logical answers to all the puzzles. It's not one of those Adventures with hundreds of locations in most of which nothing seems to happen. It has that old magic I once sensed when first I stood alongside that sleeping dragon in a sunny meadow!

That magic seems to have faded somewhat these days, lost among umpteen lookalike passages, and the motto 'Big Is Best'! But from time to time someone reaches into the old treasure chest and brings forth a jewel. Escape is one such jewel.