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Described on the cassette inlay as "An Adventurer's Adventure", The Quest Of Merravid is for the Commodore 64, and is set in amongst mountains in a land called Thargon.

Your task is to retrieve the magical firestone of the dwarfs, guarded by a Dragon. First of all, you must gather together the one set of armour that has been scattered about the land of Thargon. Not exactly a shatteringly original scenario, but I'll try anything once!

So I typed RUN, and found myself in Lower Blackwoods. The cassette inlay told me that to move I could type GO N for GO NORTH. Perfectly correct - but that was all I could type to move north. N and GO NORTH went unrecognised!

The problem is experienced Adventurers are not used to strictly applied non-standard abbreviations like this - it can easily cause them to suffer a nervous breakdown!

Moving on, I soon came across a bucket. Obviously I was going to find some water before long, so I typed GET BUCKET. I got it OK, but to my dismay, the screen cleared and said "OK - your next course of action".

I had now completely lost the details of my location and exits. So I tried LOOK. "I see nothing special" appeared on a new screen.

Unable to believe there was no way of re-displaying my location, I re-read the instructions, tried a few more words, and eventually decided the only way to find my whereabouts was to try moving until I got out, and then move back.

As every adventurer knows, moving blind can prove very dangerous. I was lucky. Or was I?

To see what I was carrying, I typed INVENTORY, TAKE INVENTORY, INVENT, and finally got it with INV. Like it said - you will soon discover the commands.

When I tried to climb a rope, I was told I could only climb up or down. And that was what I was told when I tried to climb up or down - except where I was meant to!

A pity about these annoying features, as the game had quite a nice sense of humour. The player also needs one. And as for "Adventurer's Adventure" - well, you'd certainly need some experience to guess many of the commands!

The Quest Of Merravid is for the Commodore 64 or Vic 20 from Martech, at £7.95.