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There has been a noticeable upsurge in the number of new Adventure titles for the BBC and Electron of late, and many of them are of a high standard. Greedy Dwarf is one such - it concerns a dwarf who has robbed King Ardanga of his favourite gems. Naturally, it falls upon you to recover them.

At the top of the spiral stairs leading into the dungeon, where the dwarf in question is said to live, lies a convenient lamp, and down is obviously where the true adventurer should go. Being perverse, I thought I'd have a look on the surface first, but that was not to be, because a guard quickly killed me for returning without completing my quest.

So down it was, where the many traps set by the dwarf lay in wait. A number of these were of the type where, having taken all the precautions of looking and examining things in advance, you move into the next location only to end up dead for no reason that can be anticipated. I tend to tire very quickly of games of this sort but, to give The Greedy Dwarf a fair crack of the whip, I tried and tried again. I soon changed my mind about it.

Having discovered where the traps lay, I learned, with a little skill and cunning, that it was possible to pass through these apparent dead ends. This was achieved with a combination of logic and hope! Mind you, it was necessary to try a few different ideas out before I hit upon the right answer!

The Greedy Dwarf is a nicely presented text adventure. It has a fast response and no spelling mistakes that I could find. The only bug seemed to be a tendency to tell me, every time I examined something that I shouldn't, that "I see no compass here!" So before entering the maze, I decided that I should look a bit further for a compass, and so I found one which later proved to be extremely useful!

The Greedy Dwarf is from Goldstar.