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He flies through the air with the greatest of ease... oh dear, he's missed the trapeze! Sammy Lightfoot is the daring young man on the trampoline, trapeze and various other hazardous bits of equipment.

Unlike the rest of us who sustain hernias or broken limbs in contact with such devices. Sammy's miscalculations lead to no more than his wig being whirled.

Each scene has Sammy starting at the bottom of the screen and having to get to a particular piece at the top. On two of the three scenes he must challenge a pumpkin wearing sunglasses.

To get to the pumpkin in scene 1, he must bounce on trampolines, jump gaps and swing on trapezes while avoiding balls which are falling down and rolling about.

Scene 2 involves jumping across a set of stepping stones which have a nasty habit of disappearing, while avoiding blocks coming from above. Eventually, he makes it to a flying carpet which will transport him to the end of the scene if he can stay on it.

In scene 3 he really has his work cut out. He must avoid a ball bouncing around a box, dodge under a series of deadly moving poles, grab one trapeze and use it to reach another trapeze (which is moving out of phase with the first) and finally jump to challenge the pumpkin.

Success on level 0 leads to level 1. The basic scenes stay the same, but the hazards get progressively harder to dodge as the levels increase.

There are twelve levels in all and so far I haven't got farther than scene 2 on level 1. The starting level can be selected, though, so I've had a go at higher levels.

Points are only scored by getting through the scene and they're dropping all the time so Sammy can't afford to hang about. If he doesn't make it by the time the counter hits zero, it's not fatal - just bad for the score.

There's a hall of fame for the top ten scores, and Sammy has four lives each game. The animation is well done, with Sammy looking like a pot-bellied teddyboy with a big quiff. There is good use of sound too, with tunes at the beginning and each of each scene as well as sounds to accompany things like wig-whirling.

All the usual convenience controls are there, too, as you'd expect from Sierra On-Line.

My first thought on seeing Sammy Lightfoot was that it was an adaptation (or rip-off, as we say in the trade) of Apple Cider Spider.

However, I then remembered that Spider is also from Sierra. That might explain the similarities - three scenes in each level, moving from bottom to top, avoiding hazards, jumping, climbing and so forth.

You might think there's a world of difference between a spider and a trapeze artiste, but when it comes to manipulating both sets of pixels around the screen, they feel alike.

They're good games, but I don't think many people would want them both.

Of the two, Sammy Lightfoot gets more difficult at lower levels. Also, success at level 0 leads to level 1, whereas starting Spider on level 0 keeps it there. I can see arguments for both systems so it boils down to personal preference, with mine being for Sammy Lightfoot.