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Way back in RGCD #02, SirClive cast his critical eye over the game Farmer Jack in Harvest Havoc! and deemed it to be a rather splendid re-imagining of Mr Do! for the Spectrum. Since then programmer Bob Smith has given us the highly rated Stranded 2.5 and Splattr. Not content with that, he has also somehow found the time to complete his trilogy of Farmer Jack games with Farmer Jack And The Hedge Monkeys and Farmer Jack - Treasure Trove.

Both Hedge Monkeys and Treasure Trove (like Harvest Havoc) are single screen arcade games which, despite their ridiculous and original back-stories, obviously take their inspiration from coin operated classics. Hedge Monkeys looks to Lady Bug and Treasure Trove is clearly the love child of Pac-man and Lock'n'Chase.

Hedge Monkeys is an excellent version of Lady Bug - a game that did not see an official conversion to the Spectrum. Everything is present and correct; from the timer around the outside of the playfield indicating when the baddies will begin moving, to the rotating sections of wall and the Extra, Special and Multiplier pick-ups that only work when they are the correct colour. This is a really phenomenal version of the game with all the addictiveness (and difficulty) of the game that inspired it. Playing this game has even improved my skills on the arcade original. Now there's a testimonial for the box art!

Treasure Trove is slightly less derivative insofar as it doesn't entirely owe its existence to one game. As in Pac-man you are collecting dots (ahem, 'coins' here) but here the enemies are also collecting them. You can quickly lay fences that will restrict the baddies - however these will decay over time, and at any one time you can have up to five fences in play. This game is slightly less immediate than Hedge Monkeys, as it is essentially a score-attack game - your points increase as you collect coins, but decrease as the enemies collect the coins meaning it is vital to get the bonuses and use your fences wisely. Progression through stages can even end up with you score being lower than when you started a level. This makes Treasure Trove by far the least appealing of the three Farmer Jack games unless you are a big fan of score based challenges. Kudos to Bob though for creating the only game I can think of that has archaeologists as the enemy.

As well as their eponymous hero and agricultural setting, this trilogy recycles some of the same assets - graphics, Lee Du-Caine's excellent music and SFX plus the front-end theme are reused throughout. Whilst this might seem 'cheating' on some level, it gives the games an certain aesthetic continuity. If one looks closely, very slight developments are apparent through the series; Treasure Trove features animation on the menu and game over screen for instance.

It would be unfair to criticise these two later games for their similarity to the first one. The gameplay in each title is quite different, and as a trilogy they offer much more variety than many 'level-packs' that masquerade as sequels in the videogame marketplace. So here, with very little fanfare, Bob Smith once again demonstrates his great touch with two pretty-much essential Spectrum titles. Both are freely available as .tzx images.

The rating below is combined for both titles. Individually Hedge Monkeys probably scores a little better on Gameplay, but the Concept is highly derivative, whereas Treasure Trove fares better in Concept, but suffers from lesser Gameplay.