Polished Miner

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After Ledgeman arrives home from the village auction, he decides to investigate his bargain of the day - a Victorian bureau. Dusting off the cobwebs, he finds a map telling of great treasure in a hidden cave.

It also warns of the strange and perilous guardians of the cave. Gripping his trusty brolly. Ledgie sets off...only to find himself in a Manic Miner variant.

However, as far as variations go, Ledgeman, by Software Projects is quite interesting. As the program adopts the usual multi-screen format, our hero has to jump around the screen picking up "precious stones" which are usually positioned in suitably awkward places.

The walkways can be solid or they might disintegrate as you walk on them. So far so good.

But the difference is that there are periodic meteor storms that whizz across the screen and smash sections of the walkway. So if you hang about too long on certain screens you're liable to have goodness knows what lobbed at you.

The graphics are simpler and more chunky than the original, though this could well increase its appeal to younger "gamers".

There are seven entirely different screens, after which the nasties get nastier by shooting at you.

The animation is good with a nice little man! Having said this, surely it's not too much to ask for a bit of leg movement during climbing and possibly jumping. The sound is quite clever - with an optional tune and effects.

As a game, its level is set about right. It's not too tricky - but the barrels, ghosties and meteors certainly keep you on your toes.

The instructions are adequate, though the actual blurb spends most of the time on the scenario.

Joysticks can be used, though the keyboard provides very comprehensive control - freeze, unfreeze, abort and skip to next level are examples.

To summarise, it's a simpler version of Manic Miner with polished graphics and sound effects.

Philip Tudor