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Shards, reasonably well-known for their educational programs and adventures, released this "illustrated text adventure" for the recent PCW show. I've already seen a couple of their earlier adventures, most notably Pettigrew's Diary, and was expecting something a little more interesting than was delivered.

As is usual in these cases, the background documentation promised all sorts of goodies like an "interacted illustrated novel" and "the first genuinely original software ... since Elite" - well, we usually try to discount hype like that, but I was intrigued. Waking in a darkened room, unable to move and with no memory I soon found the broken glass, cut the rope binding me and removed the blindfold expecting to be thrust headlong into the theme of a peaceful village plagued by mysterious events. The plot as detailed sounded like an absorbing mixture of John Wyndham and Nigel Kneale and I'm a sucker for those "things aren't quite what they seem under the surface" fantasies. Sadly, none of it appeared.

The illustrated text (sorry, interacted illustrations) consists of small pictures of some objects, when you find them, and the interactive ingredient means (I think) that you're silting at the keyboard typing it in. No marks for originality either - experienced adventurers will soon get bored and the novice will get increasingly frustrated by the program's inability to recognise even its own limited vocabulary. Frankly, I gave up long before the real time score became impressive, the clock tower started chiming menacingly or I finally solved the mystery of the missing children, the villagers with rather alien appearances, etc. What possessed Shards to claim this as the best thing since Elite is probably the only mystery worth investigating.

There is, however, a prize of the inlay painting for the best score - at least I believe so, as the press release gives the closing date as 30th June 1985 and the game is only released in September. More temporal distortion at work. For bored masochists only - especially Electron ones as they admit some responses on that machine may be a little slow.

D.R.