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Monument Microgames, who released The Mojon Twins' Zombie Calavera, have announced another of the twins' games will shortly be unleashed on original cassette. Lala Prologue may be available by the time you read this. If so, it will probably cost the standard £7.00 including P&P.

Lala is another platform-based graphic adventure. You take on the role of a wannabe witch, who must collect up the ingredients for her spells from numerous rooms. You must jump from platform to platform, avoiding the bouncing pre-determined-path nasties. Areas of some rooms are accessed via locked doors - so best grab any keys you find too.

Though it's more colourful than Zombie, Lala uses exactly the same game engine as it does. What drives me mad about this game engine is the ridiculous punishment meted out for simply attempting to play both games in exactly the same way as you naturally expect to. If I approach a bad guy and jump, I expect to jump gracefully over him; I don't expect the "jump" to be a weak "thrust" that barely lifts me off the ground!

Additionally, the opening rooms of Lala's land are mostly arranged vertically. When you clash with a bad guy (Easily done considering the "thrust-jump" feature!) he not only wipes some of your energy but also flings you off him, either into further danger, exacerbating the situation, or into the space between platforms. You then get to watch as Lala plummets through all of the screens you had oh-so-carefully traversed over the past ten minutes, winding up right back at the very start. If the classic Rainbow Islands had done this to its players it just wouldn't have kept them playing - and that is precisely the case here. The game has all the lastability factor of an ice-pop in the Sahara desert, and manages to even make Zombie seem comparatively forgiving.

It's a waste really - the music is good and the sprites, though small and over-detailed, are passable. If I flip my perspective, I'd imagine the Mojon Twins would protest that learning the "thrust-jump" and deliberately hitting the bad guys to deliberately be thrown in a particular direction is the skill of the game itself. But sorry, that's far too silly; you shouldn't have to accurately hit bad guys at exact angles in a platform game of this type. Number one rule of gaming: Cute = Simple.

In fact, I hate Lala Prologue so much that, if Monument isn't already invested in professionally releasing this game, I think it should question whether it's actually deserving of it.