Based on an ancient and obscure arcade game of 1981 called Turtles, Terrapins is a search-and-rescue mission dressed up as a basic maze type game. The star is Mama Terrapin, and she's in a bit of a pickle (not literally, thankfully). Evil bugs have kidnapped her babies - the Kidterrapins - and scattered them around their eight-storey building. Taking control of Mama, the player must enter the building and retrieve her many brood, avoiding the devious bugs all the while.

To help her, Mama has a small selection of bombs which can be added to by walking over the star in the centre of each screen. These bombs are 'laid' behind Mama, and are useful when in a sticky spot. Once a baby terrapin has been discovered, the little mite crawls onto Mama Terrapin's back, who must then be guided back to the exit, which rather unfairly moves around the screen after each rescue.

Collect all of her family and Mama can finally return home, and presumably put her feet up with a nice cut of whatever a terrapin's hot beverage of choice is following a difficult day.

The mazes in Terrapins look lovely, despite their basic nature. Mama Terrapin moves around well - fortunately much quicker than in the cute intro screen - but this is no easy challenge; the bugs pursue the faithful parent constantly - it's quite easy to get trapped in between two enemies - and there never seems to be quite enough of the bombs to hand. It also seems a little unfair that after Mama's gathered up a Kidterrapin and heads for the exit that it moves around the screen after each rescue.

While I have some doubts about its long-term addictiveness, Terrapins is a well-polished and undoubtedly fun game to play and well worth looking at if you're after a simple arcade game to while away a winter evening or two.

This is an addictive game - however one in which the difficulty ramps up quickly enough to test one's patience. The premise of Terrapins is simple: explore the maze, dodge the nasty bugs and rescue each of your baby Terrapins by piggy-backing them to the little Terrapin house and safety. Get all your bijou Terrapinets home to clear a level. This is the kind of game where looks need to be functional, and in which gameplay rules, and that's what you get - a simple idea executed really well.

Control keys: Definable
Joystick: Any make
Use of colour: Bright, jolly
Graphics: Functional, with a nice start-attract animation
Sound: Catchy AY tunes throughout and a little Mr. Do! jingle as you die
General rating: Good implementation of a playable 1980s arcade game, but perhaps lacking the addictivity for enduring play