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Since I first set eyes on an Infogrames game, I've always been extremely wary of French adventures. The excruciatingly unplayable Passengers On The Wind almost finished me with them for good. But here's a game that is not quite arcade adventure, not quite text adventures, not quite role-playing, and in some respects, not unlike Lords Of Midnight. That's not to say it is exactly playable, for 'play' doesn't seem to be quite the word. Let's face it, it *is* French and it *is* a bit... well... different. I played Sapiens on the Atari ST, and its facilities and mode of play varies considerably between different machine versions.

About 100,000 years ago, there was Torgan. His tribe was finding food increasingly scarce, and its children, constantly hungry, were becoming diseased. Hognor, the tribal chief, called young Torgan, and gave him orders to go forth and bring back food.

You are Torgan. You can also be another character, which can be set up from the keyboards, with a name, attributes, and a shape - flat or curvy. And off your go, stepping it out at high speed, across the countryside, with carely a stitch on (even over the curvy bits) in search of bilberries, apples, meat and anything else edible. As you move, controlling your character by mouse, the scener scrolls by until you meet up with someone.

In your quest, you will have to befriend people, and this can be done by giving them things. However, what might seem of great value to you, may well be worthless to members of other tribes.

There is that much scenery, it is claimed there are over three million different locations 'obtained by developing algorithms of fractal vision in perspective'. Hmm - fractal, eh? Well, there had to be a catch somewhere, I suppose.

All this scenery appears in 'wide screen' perspective (see, I'm at it now!) at the top, whilst below, suitably edged windows contain word icons that control the action. A hand with an extended finger is used to select an action, such as SAY, PUT DOWN, (It seems the French haven't discovered the use of DROP yet) CONSUME and this opens up a window to the right, with a list of sayings, an inventory, or a menu (food type) respectively, for the actions mentioned. Again, the hand is used to select the object.

The lists within the windows are scrollable at closer background, and is the mode used for all the action. There is also a MAP option, which opens up a relief map window below the main picture. The mouse can be used to zoom in and out of the map.

There is a musical background, which is not too bad, but it is recommended that if you have a MIDI system, you attach it, to save the workload on the Atari ST, and thus speed things up.

Play, as in gameplay, did not make itself apparent. If there is a 'winning' strategy, or if there are real problems to be solved, I couldn't tell. Things happen infrequently, and the action taken has no immediately effect on progress. It is more a walkthrough, chatting to people, making a weapon or two, feeding your face and having a kip. It can go on forever!