Repton revisited to good effect

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In the summer of 1985 Superior Software launched Repton, which very quickly established itself as a new style of BBC Micro arcade adventure. They must have been pleased with its success, as within six months they've released Repton 2, bigger and allegedly more difficult than its predecessor.

For those of you unfamiliar with the original, your task was to guide hero Repton through a series of twisting underground caverns in the search for diamonds. In your quest you were up against the perils of falling boulders and evil lizards.

In Repton 2, the idea of collecting diamonds is con tinued, but now there are a mere 1,634 of them. And if those aren't enough to keep you busy; in addition you have to amass 4,744 sections of earth, see off 18 monsters and collect and fit together 42 pieces of jigsaw to reveal a message.

Only when you have achieved the lot can you claim to have solved this mammoth puzzle. Because that's really what the program is - a series of separate puzzles each to be solved by determining the correct routes to collect the items you require.

The game has 16 different caverns, four more than the earlier version, all linked by transporters. The transporter's purpose is to carry you to other screens but, they can only be used once.

This new version has all the fantastic colourful features of the original and many more including eggs, meteors, spirits, mon sters, skulls, safes and keys.

A rock or egg will fall if it is left unsupported as you pass through the caverns and you finish up blocking routes that originally were open. And a falling rock will crush you if you're not nimble enough to get out of its way.

When an egg falls it breaks and a monster emerges. Contact with it will be fatal, as will touching any of the spirits, meteors or skulls that block your path around the maze.

Some diamonds are hidden in safes which can only be opened by finding the appropriate keys.

The whole screen acts as a window over the area of the cavern that you happen to be in at any given moment, so that you can see only a small part. As you move, the view through the window scrolls smoothly in the appropriate direction in response to either keyboard or joystick.

I haven't completed even 10 per cent of this adventure, but I relish the prospect of finding my way further into it.

Sounds and music are optional, and the graphics are superb. For Repton addicts, this is an opportunity to carry on where the other left off. For those not yet initiated into the fan club, this is your opportunity to make up for lost time.

And anyway, if there isn't enough in the game to tempt you, there's a £200 prize for one of the first 100 to solve the puzzle.

Nice one Superior Software, this "continuing" idea could catch on. How about Death Star Revisited?

David Andrews