This book has eight chapters, of which the first and last concern programming techniques and each of the middle six deal with the production of one game.

The authors' aim is to enable Electron users to write their own long programs. Their method is to describe in great detail how they have constructed their games programs.

The main technique is to use the procedure facility in Electron BASIC. This, of course, enables you to break the program down into sensible chunks, which have just one job within the whole program.

In each chapter the procedures are introduced one at a time and every line is well explained.

While most procedures are written in BASIC, some are translated into assembly language. Where this is used, the reasons and mechanics of it are dealt with thoroughly.

The end of each chapter consists of a full listing for the game.

The games I have had typed in by pupils at my school (Thanks Keith!) were clearly written and without bugs. They operate very smoothly and are fun to play.

I would criticise their use of spaces, however. I prefer not to leave spaces after line numbers. On a long program like Tadpole, these spaces can amount to close on half a kilobyte of memory. They also slow the program down.

My other criticism is that line numbers are not in regular tens. This makes AUTO difficult.

I also dislike the use of cursor keys as games controls. I wonder if the authors chose these to encourage people to change them. That could also explain the ghastly choice of colours for some games.

This apart, I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn to produce large programs. Work through this book and you will have gained much knowledge of program structure and assembly language animation as well as half a dozen good quality games. It is very good value.

Rog Frost