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Jonathan Cauldwell's latest Spectrum game, Jubbles, is quite a simple game concept in which you must direct the bubbles that float horizontally across the screen into the flags, typically on the right hand side of it. You do this by deciding which of the six electric fans, at the bottom of the screen, should be switched on and off. Different combinations will impact each bubble's journey from screen-left to screen-right, and the magic combination will result in the bubble striking its target.

However, each fan uses electricity, of which you only have a finite amount. So, if you struggle for too long, it will run out and the game will end. I didn't find this a problem though as you're given such a generous amount of electricity to start with that you're more likely to quit the game rather than be outfoxed by it.

Aye, there's the rub. Jubbles is nice enough - in that it's smooth, responsive, attractive to look at, and (on a 128K Spectrum) has some amazing AY music accompanying the action - but it very quickly becomes tedious to play, simply due to the lack of variety. Every few levels there's a bonus stage in which you just try to shoot as many bubbles as you can (with a crosshair) but this doesn't really cut into what might be called The Boredom Factor.

Granted, there is a slowly increasing difficulty to the levels that are presented; as they increase, more patrolling nasties and moving target flags are injected into the playing area. But the trouble is that the fans at the bottom always operate in exactly the same way and, frankly, it doesn't take the player long to realise that certain combinations always send the bubbles in certain directions. I found myself instinctively setting them and racing through the levels without wasting a single electricity watt. Perhaps levels do start getting really tough at level 60 or so, but my Boredom Factor overcame me on level 30 - and, if it is the case that higher levels do put up much more challenge, it would also seem that to reach them you'd have to play through all the earlier easier ones all over again.

I actually think that The Boredom Factor would quite possibly be alleviated just by giving the player a little less electricity to play with; perhaps just a few watts more than that needed to complete each level, and password system to get instantly to it, would inject the game with the necessary frustration factor to make it a "one more game" classic. As it stands though, it's not particularly addictive at all.