Electrifying - that's Statix

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When Statix, from Psion, starts you find yourself on the boundary of an empty rectangle - empty, that is, except for the charge of static electricity after which the game is named.

Your aim is to capture chunks of the charge's territory, by drawing new boundaries, until you have control of at least 75 per cent of the rectangle.

Sounds easy? Believe me, it isn't. The charge may be static electricity, but it is pretty mobile, moving around its territory at random.

It can't catch you if you are on a firm boundary - either the original or one you have completed - but if you are in the midst of chopping off another piece of ground and it touches either you or any part of the new incomplete boundary, that's one of your five lives gone.

Also moving round the boundary are "sparks" — only one at the start of each sheet, but more appear as time passes - and if one of these catches you, that's another life gone.

From time to time while you are busy drawing a new boundary, some rotten devil mistakes it for a fuse and lights it where you left the safe boundary.

> If this burns down to reach you before you can get on to the boundary again, bang goes another life.

The aim is to pinch at least 75 per cent ofthe rectangle. You get 10 points for each 1 per cent if you draw the new boundary or any part of it at "standard" speed.

If your nerve is good and you hold down the slow move key while you draw it, you get 40 points for each 1 per cent.

> Cut off a large lump as your last move and you get 100 points bonus for each 1 per cent that you capture above the basic 75 per cent.

Complete one sheet and you start on the next, and everything will be moving faster.

The game may appear simple, but I found it very addicitive, partly because to achieve good scores requires skill and tactical judgment and not just quick reaction pressing large numbers of keys.

> It can be played with a joystick, but I found it easier to use the keyboard.

The sound is effective, and you don't simply turn it on and off. You can vary it in incremental steps from barely audible to its maximum level, at which it still isn't loud enough to raise objections from others in the room.

All in all, an excellent game about which I have only two complaints. Firstly, there is no high score, and secondly, I have lost an awful lot of sleep playing it.

Michael Gilbert