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This American import is a fascinating graphic adventure. Your task is to retrieve the seven crowns of the Middle Kingdoms from the dungeons where they have been hidden; there are 13 dungeons to explore, and each contains either a crown or a key to another dungeon.

The dungeons, of course, contain monsters as well as crowns: zombies, snakes, spiders and orbs which pursue you relentlessly and sap your strength whenever you come into contact with them. Fortunately there are some scrolls lying around, each of which gives you either extra strength or a spell which will throw the monsters off your track for a while. You can also drop silver crosses in your path, which stop any monsters directly behind you.

The cassette contains the main game program on one side and data for the 13 dungeons on the other. Each time you enter a new dungeon, you have to rewind the tape and load in the appropriate data. This system worked much better than I would have expected; the data loaded remarkably quickly, without any problems.

There is a two-player version which, unusually, requires the players to work in co-operation rather than in opposition. The snag with this is that the players have to enter and leave each screen together, so if you cross a screen too quickly you can be beset by monsters while waiting for your partner to catch up.

A good game, this one.

Excuse me, while I just go and explore the next dungeon...

M.N.