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"A crazy fun-packed graphic adventure" is how Ruby Runabout is described on the inlay. Well, it wasn't enough to drive me crazy, for the problems aren't difficult. Come to think of it - what problems? And it is packed with about as much fun as a cemetery on a wet Sunday afternoon.

The author of Ruby Runabout has difficulty in expressing himself. "You are the Adventurer..." starts the instructions. Well I never! They continue, "...you play the part of Reggie the Ruby Thief and hope that you get to find the ruby first or you might find it has gone." Mindblowing, isn't it?

There are said to be 40 locations, of which twenty have a graphics illustration. Perhaps there is no room for further pics, though I doubt it. If so, then it is hardly surprising for a program that uses lashings of space on such variable names as REMOVECOVER and SLIPPERWEAR.

The locations seem linked only in the sense that one leads to another - from a petrol station to an arcade, a gym and an oil-rig? Objects are found in all sorts of unlikely places - any location convenient for them to be left lying around. And, of course, it is a sudden death game: "You have the lit blowtorch here. This house is made of ice. The roof falls on your heads..." What, all four of them? "You pick up the letter and it blows up in your hand. It was a letter bomb!"

I suspect that the author had a traumatic experience at the hands of authority in his youth, for he has a policeman battering the poor Adventurer to death with his truncheon for dropping an object (litter lout!) and a park-keeper turning vicious and calling his killer guard-dog.

Still, there's fun to be had reading some of the replies! "You cut the wire and dissemble the alarms," is one of the more classic examples. How it is possible to disguise alarms in this way I'm none too sure - I would have thought that cutting the wires would more likely dismantle them.

Ruby Runabout is typical of poor quality adventures that, for some reason or other, tend to flock to the Spectrum more frequently than other computers. I suppose that if you do buy this inconsequential software yourself, you can re-use the tape and you won't be too much out of pocket.

Ruby Runabout, priced £1.99, is for the 48K Spectrum from Scorpio Software.