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No swirling mists added a cloak of mystery and suspense as I wandered down the Victorian lanes in the Whitechapel area of London.

It was a clear night, and I saw the strange shape lying by the wall only too clearly. I examined it, and slowly, in gory detail, the immensity of my find was revealed to me - a woman's body, slit from ear to ear.

As I recoiled in horror, my hand, groping for support, slid into the body's entrails, as it entered a gash that exposed all the vital organs of the stomach.

Strong stuff, including the digitised pictures which are displayed following key events in the game. Jack The Ripper has an 18 certificate from the British Board of Film Censors, the first adults only horror game to be released, claim CRL.

Is the official rating a gimmick? CRL claim that they would lay themselves open to prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act had they not voluntarily submitted the game for appraisal.

This is probably true - in fact, some parts were altered as a result. And there is no doubt that some of the text descriptions are quite disturbing, and certainly not suitable for children - I joke not.

Here is a very remarkable adventure in more ways than one. First, it is a most unlikely creation from two ladies whose reputation is more in the realm of humour. To look at them, you wouldn't think butter would melt in their mouths!

On the other hand, the Victorian setting of St. Brides School, did perhaps help with the atmosphere.

Secondly, this is the first commercially available adventure written using Gilsoft's Professional Adventure Writer - the successor of The Quill. Its capabilities are most impressive, as you will see in a moment - to sum up, you could say that here is Sherlock without bugs.

The comparison with Sherlock is inevitable. Ripper is set in London in about the same period. Couple that with real-time playing so that other developments are happening "behind the scenes" as time ticks by, and you will begin to get the picture.

Multiple word input is accepted, and indeed, necessary from time to time, so as to be able to distinguish, for example, between the fine carved table, and the occasional table - the crumpled paper, and the small piece of paper.

The plot is somewhat linear, with side branches at frequent intervals leading to the player's arrest for the murder (end of game) - but the puzzles to enable the dead-end branches to be bypassed are quite clever, and give satisfaction in solving. The further one gets into each of the three parts, so the ram save STORE command becomes more and more useful, producing a highly playable adventure in place of what would, prior to ram save, have been completely unacceptable.

Although, I found Jack The Ripper pleasantly unpleasant to play. This is certainly St. Brides' best to date. The text descriptions flow long and atmospheric. It is amazing to think of the amount of development effort by programmers that went into the bug-ridden Sherlock, also a Spectrum game, compared with the superior results achieved here in a shorter time by non-programmers using what is a commercially available adventure creator utility.