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Despite the cassette cover that seems to promise yet another 'shoot the caterpillar' game, Wriggler is more original and more fun to play than you might expect.

You play the part of a worm (That's novel for a start) taking part in a race around a garden. The garden is populated by assorted nasties, ants of various types and a superbly animated spider that is instant death if it touches you. Beyond the boundaries of the garden are an underground labyrinth and (although I haven't found them yet) a mansion and planet surface, so there's plenty of scope for wandering around and exploring.

Scattered along the way are various items including foods to keep you going, ant sprays for when you're caught in a tight spot, extra lives, and even a parachute. All the graphics are well drawn and the animation is very smooth. Even the movement of the Wriggler is novel in that rather than just moving left/right/up/down, you have to adopt a sort of wriggly side-to-side movement if you want to move quickly.

The only minor irritation that I found was the tune that played after losing a life. Why do programmers insist on using these silly little tunes? Nobody likes them and they only slow the game down while you're waiting to get on with it.

Still, that aside, I enjoyed Wriggler and will be going back to it, to try and find the rest of the locations. It's just that little bit different from the rest of the current crop and well worth buying.

P.S. I'd just like to thank RR for the cute fluffy toy they sent along to publicise the game, which has proved very popular in the ZX Computing offices.