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Take two wizards with pointy hats, a seesaw and an area filled with balloons, mix liberally with kinetic energy and the pages of Acorn User and you've got the game Wizalon. You may well be aware that computer magazines of the early Eighties weren't just concerned with reviewing games, but also often published programs that you could type in to your computer. Most type-ins, as they were known, were pretty forgettable. But every now and then one would come along that could clearly have held its own as a standalone release.

If you had an Electron owner back in the day, it's probably the case that you never played Wizalon. Acorn User was aimed at the BBC computers and the fact the game was Electron-compatible was buried away in the small print of the article that accompanied the code. That's not a particular tragedy however, because Wizalon can hardly be described as exciting stuff. The original BBC version at least had a jolly little tune playing on interrupt throughout the action, but the Electron version is completely silent. As for the game itself, it's one where practice makes perfect, but where the player will probably decide the rewards aren't really worth reaping.

The central game concept is that you must move the seesaw, at the bottom of the playing area, left and right. The aim of the game is to use the pointy hats of the wizards - one of whom will always be in the air - to burst all of the balloons above their heads. Every time a wizard flies up in the air you're in with a shot if his hat hits the bottom of a balloon at a fairly straight angle. Too much curvature though and he'll bounce harmlessly off the side of the balloon or sail over it instead. Where the wizard lands on the seesaw determines the angle his fellow wizard will bounce off at and the heaviness of the landing determines the thrust (or lack of it) with which he will be propelled into the air. With a great deal of practice, you'll learn how to position the seesaw so that your chances of clearing the area of balloons are maximised.

Unfortunately, although there's nothing really wrong with the game concept per se, and it's colourful and smooth enough that it's pretty to look at, it's excruciatingly boring to play. The problem is the lack of variety - if there were some "bonuses" that floated across the playing area, or even some different styles of hat to collect, Wizalon may well have gathered quite a following. As it is though, it's like a bad budget game rather than a hidden gem. Clearing each screen takes a long time, and when you do manage to win, the plotting of the new screen takes ages too. You are up against a time limit in the form of a pitchfork that spears a single 'super-balloon' on the extreme right of the screen. Personally I found myself relieved, rather than disappointed, when this was burst.

Second-hand copies of Acorn User are becoming extremely hard to track down but, if the balance of your mind is disturbed enough to want to enter Wizalon line-by-wretched-line, you need January 1988's issue. Expect to pay £2-£4. Otherwise, look to play it by downloading the companion disc for this issue from one of the online archives.