Crash


Spellbound Besieged

Categories: Review: Software
Author: Roger Keane
Publisher: Sulis
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Crash #5

Besieged

This package comes with two cassettes in a plastic videostyle box. The games within are one of a series of four spelling programs under the "Spellbound" heading. Besieged has as its graphical theme that of a castle being attacked by the Infidel. You must get a Crusader to cross the moat and relieve the castle. This can only be done by building a bridge, the stones of which are made up by correctly spelling words. On the back of the box it suggests the age group for these games as being 15 to adult, and certainly the words encompassed in these two programs are not simple ones.

Each has three difficulty levels, easy to difficult. On the two easy levels you are given a clue and below it 12 jumbled letters from which the word must be made up. On the harder level you are not given any letters to use. A correct entry results in the broken span of the bridge above being repaired by one block containing the entered letter. If the entire word is correctly spelt then the bridge is fully formed and the crusader can cross into the castle. When 10 are successfully over the Infidel are beaten. Any incorrect entry results in the letter appearing as a building block against the castle walls and an Infidel leaps up on to it. With three incorrect entries the building blocks reach the top of the castle wall and the game is lost.

That's basically all there is to the game. The reason, presumably, for having two cassettes in the package (they are both the same) is to incorporate a sufficiently large vocabulary of words to make it worth while.

Comments

Control keys: alphabet keys
Responses: fast
Use of colour: simple and effective
Graphics: good
Sound: useful beeps
Features: two cassettes in one box

Roger Keane

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