Eighth Day Software have got themselves a good reputation for their budget-priced, well thought out Quilled text adventures. Their secret, apart from price, is an interesting scenario packed with interesting puzzles and commands. Quann TulIa is in a similar vein to their previous offerings.

Trapped on a wrecked spacecraft you must leave the ship and then travel the galaxy fighting the evil Empire for the sake of the Federation, (no trace of Star Wars there?) The adventure starts rather differently with you in dire trouble. You're in a damaged air bubble fighting for breath and only have a few moves before you suffocate. The solution is fairly simple but the game has already started your pulses racing. You have solved a puzzle, your mind starts to become tuned to the adventure and you appreciate the danger involved.

The adventure mechanism is obviously only as good as The Quill - which is good but fairly basic. Only two word combinations are allowed and the screen display is fairly limited. The actual adventure content is very good and pretty addictive as adventures go. There were several grammatical and spelling mistakes, but in an adventure so full of text, that can be forgiven.

I liked the use of the second side of the tape to give the storyline of the adventure, hints on how to play the adventure and details of Eighth Day's other adventure games. The adventure was challenging without being too hard - let's say it's an intermediate game - and at the given price it represents extremely good value.

C.G.