A brace of books for the Vic 20 this month. Both appear from the outside to be very similar, with just under 110 pages containing just over 30 programs in each, and both costing £5.95. The programs in both books are a good selection of the old favourites like Lunar Lander and Muncher, together with a selection of new ideas and a few utility programs.

But even a quick flick through the pages of both of these books reveals some startling differences between them. 'Dynamic Games' by Matthew Bock contains very clear, easy to read listings that have been produced on Commodore's new four-colour plotter, whereas 'Mind Stretchers' uses the more usual dot-matrix listings. What a treat, I thought as I eagerly turned on my Vic, made a quick cup of coffee and prepared for a late night at the keyboard. Easy to read listings at last.

However, my problems started with the first program from 'Dynamic Games' that I tried (A Day At The Races).

The listing contained unrecognisable characters and characters with lines under them, and I was unable to type it in. A thorough reading of the book revealed a list of some of these characters in the Appendix, but by no means all of them, and for this reason alone I cannot recommend this book to anyone other than a masochist who enjoys typing and debugging rather than playing the games.

So, on to Mr Creasey's Vic 20 Mind Stretchers. While the listings don't look as good as in the first book they are at least perfectly readable and contain familiar characters.

Also, each program has a line-by-line description and a list of the variables used, which is very handy if you want to find out how a program works.

Typing in a few programs at random reveals another facet of this book, which is now beginning to grow on me.

Several of the programs contain machine code routines to make the game much faster and more fun to play. It's difficult to tell whether the games are better than the first book but they are certainly well worth the 20 pence per game that makes up the asking price.