Good for gamblers? Bet your shirt on it!

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Have you ever wondered what you'd do if you came into some money? Would you be able to invest it and watch it grow, or maybe start a small business and become a millionaire? With Inheritance you have the chance to find out.

It's a game in two parts, the idea being that you have been left your Great Uncle Arbuthnot's whole estate.

But first you have to prove you are worthy of the inheritance by turning £10,000 of it into £100,000 by invest ing in the stock market, the metal market and, if you're desperate, gambling on horses or cards.

As if that's not enough, you also have to avoid your scheming relatives who'll be trying to thwart you.

I must admit that before I'd played the game I thought that investing might be boring. No way! In fact, I might just buy a copy of the Financial Times tomorrow: I've discovered myself muttering about "market trends in platignum" and insisting beneath my breath that "retailers are underpriced!"

And when I took a chance on a rank outsider because I was short of money, I had to leave the room while the race was run! Incidentally the horse racing and blackjack gambles are mini-games in themselves.

If you manage to run the gauntlet of the shares market and your relatives, you graduate to the second part of the game where you use your business skills to turn the £100,000 into £1,000,000 by investing it in the estate's soft drinks factory.

But first you have to find the recipe for Paradise Cola which uncle A. has hidded, then treat with a native chief for the raw material of the drink.

Only then do you get round to actually running the factory, deciding how much to make at what price and fixing the advertising strategy to con form with market conditions. It's not easy, but it is fun.

A great game, really two games for the price of one. Again Simon Hessel has used tabular information (com bined with clever applications of the BBC Micro's sound and graphics facilities) to produce an interesting, in telligent and enjoyable game.

The only trouble is that there is no way to hold a stewards' inquiry into that last race where I lost all I had in a desperate attempt to make the £100,000.

It was a fix. I'm sure it was those scheming relations.

And have you seen the price of raw materials nowadays? It's enough to make you cry.

And that Chief Imbango, don't talk to me about the exploited Third World ... David Carr

David Carr