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Tom Frost is a name writ large in the annals of adventuring history as the man who solved the Ket Trilogy. By day a mild mannered Scot, by night an adventure writer, he publishes his own Quilled programs under the imprint Tartan Software.

Dedicated to spreading the adventurers' creed far and wide, he has produced a number of introductory titles as well as some which are rather more for the adventure aficionado.

The Prospector, I suspect, will pan out as one of his tougher titles, but is well worth persevering with.

As you might be able to fathom from the title, this adventure is all about gold and the rugged days of the wild wild west. You have to overcome all sorts of obstacles (including silly things like laws) in your single-mined - sorry, minded - search for gold. No man, no door, no law is gonna stop you! 'I come from the far west, stranger... that's why they call me... Ealing Broadway!' You know, the mythic west with people in different coloured hats and lots of horses and gun play and suspicious looking gunmen and...

Frost has done an excellent job of packing all that into an adventure. The feel of the whole thing is good, and the plot - which is very convoluted - is amply backed up by the graphics.

There are some old adventure favourites here - you get hungry so you have to eat, the sun is too strong so you have to protect your head otherwise you die of sunstroke. Some of the things you need you won't be able to come by legally, so you have to remember that when you meet various people who might recognised their own property.

The lack of originality is more than made up for by the tricky puzzles.

Excellent Quilled adventure with a great plot. Should appeal to everyone who has a love of good adventure writing.