Mushrooms Game Is Magic!

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Ladders-and-levels games tend to be perennial favourites with most computer gamers. But you will usually find that having mastered the first few screens your progress becomes a little slow.

Wouldn't it be nice to remove a few of the offending monsters, or even re-design the screen completely?

Magic Mushrooms, from Acornsoft, allows you to do just that.

Those of you who remember Monsters, one of the first games released by Acornsoft, will find the game vaguely familiar.

The mutant tomato monsters are back with a vengeance, and the levels are constructed from the same green brickwork.

However, the rest of the game proves that the past few years experience have not been wasted.

No longer are the levels wholly constructed of nice solid brickwork. You will need to negotiate conveyor belts, escalators, ice, trampolines, and disintegrating floors.

The hero of the game is a chap named Murphy, a decidedly shady-looking character with a broken nose and a striped jumper. His job is to travel around the screen collecting the magic mushrooms. Then having collected every one, he has to head for the chequered flag.

Contact with the flag causes him to be transported to the next screen. The game consists of nine screens of increasing complexity.

As I mentioned earlier, you can create your own screens, or even modify those provided and save them to tape or disc.

They can then be reloaded in preference to the standard ones. Editing is really a very simple process. Each of the game's 15 features is displayed as a different design of block representing the different types of platform or monster.

Using the cursor keys, you can place the blocks anywhere on the screen, making it as easy or difficult as necessary.

Having designed a layout pressing the Tab key enables you to have a dry run on your new creation before finalising the design.

Magic Mushrooms is an excellent game, and with the flexibility of do-it-yourself screens it should outlive every ladders-and-levels game on the market.

James Riddell