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What exactly a Shymer is, I'm not sure. According to my dictionary, it is something unmentionable between a Shylock and a shyster. So you'll get no clue as to what the game is all about from the title.

A quick look at the intro informs you that you play the part of Shirley Combes, Sherlock Holmes' private secretary. Sherlock is away on a case, when you get a telephone call. There have been riots by nursery school children on the Isle of Nursree, because all the rhymes are wrong. They must be put right to bring peace back to the schools.

Forget the Sherlock background (why do so many adventure publishers go to such great lengths to build an impressive background that has nothing to do with the real plot?) and take it from me that the game is based on nursery rhymes.

In Shymer, you will meet such characters as Lucy Locket, Kitty Fisher, Tom Tom and Mary Mary. To score points you have to make the nursery rhymes come true. For example, you'll come across Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall, boasting how he can fall off and bounce back again in one piece.

Personally, the plot is not my cup of tea, but if you like the idea, then you should enjoy the game, for it is competently written, and performs well.

The Hobbit is the game which got Sandra Sharkey hooked on adventure. But since those days, Sandra has launched a monthly Adventure fanzine, Adventure Probe, and kept it going for nearly two years.

Adventure Probe came about through Sandra's dissatisfaction with other fanzines at the time, which concentrated far too much for her liking, on solutions, and not enough on reviews and articles of a more general nature.

Probe, which costs £1 per issue, currently has about 200 subscribers, gleaned mainly through mentions in adventure columns in a number of national monthlies.