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The Castaway of the title is an explorer of the galaxy who has been stranded on a small, uncharted planet after performing an emergency landing. To get back home, he's going to need someone to help repair his craft. Time to take control of the wide-eyed Castaway and navigate through a deadly group of extra-terrestrial slugs before happening on The Doctor (or at least a Doctor). This kindly soul informs the Castaway that he's more than willing to help repair the ship, but for one niggly little problem: his lab computer has gone rogue and turned all his creations against him. So not only are you contending with the stress of violently crash-landing onto an alien planet, you now have to moonlight as some crazy old doctor's IT whizzkid.

The Doc provides a keycard that gains access to his lab. The goal from here on is to reach the mainframe and shut it down. The various biomechanical nasties infesting the building make the task all the more challenging since they have no other purpose than to make sure the Castaway meets a sticky end as quickly as possible.

Each contact with an enemy in the lab reduces the health bar by one (out of a maximum of five) so it's essential to avoid them to survive. On the upside, coming across a discarded blaster can even the odds. One shot from this is enough to make short work of your foes but - while ammo is unlimited - the blaster needs a short period to cool down after firing, during which time it's useless.

In addition to the blaster, strategically-placed medikits can replenish the Castaway's health, and a pair of moon boots increases jumping ability, which allows you to reach some out-of-the-way areas.

The lab is presented in a classic flip-screen style, with each screen usually having more than one point of exit. Various sections of the map are only accessible via a keycard and the game offers a couple of choices of which door to unlock first.

Castaway's level design is superb, featuring a few well-timed and tricky jumps needed to progress. One screen in particular requires you to traverse a section via moving platforms - miss one of these platforms and you're tossed back down to an area previously navigated.

It's an effective tactic to ensure you plan ahead and to exercise a degree of patience on subsequent attempts to get through.

Martinez has obviously put a lot of thought into the design of Castaway; it eases you in gently and you never feel lost as a player. The enemy movement patterns are quickly memorised (but nevertheless challenging) and when you see that Game Over screen you only have yourself to blame.

Castaway's biggest problem is that it's extremely (almost painfully) short. Most players are likely to get through it in around fifteen minutes at a first sitting and subsequent playthroughs will reduce that time dramatically. Additionally, the ending feels rather abrupt.

While the game is designed for the 48K Spectrum, I'd like to see a remake for the 128K, taking advantage of the extra RAM and AY sound. Even better would be a sequel for the Next. Did our traveller make it home safely? What became of the Doctor? Castaway is a short game but nonetheless leaves you yearning for more.

Castaway is an enjoyable exploration game in which you move your little (very bouncy) space man across a number of colourful screens depicting a lab on an uncharted planet in search of a mainframe that has gone bonkers. You goal - find it and shut it down (never trust a computer I say - unless it's a Spectrum). A small adventure unfolds where moving platforms need to be negotiated, keys found and rooms explored. Great things come in tiny packages - and this is one of them (even the beeper music is quite catchy).

Control keys: User definable
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard Play: Works well
Use of colour: Clever use of monochrome sprites and well-defined, colourful map tiles ensure that attribute-clash is eliminated
Graphics: Crisp sprites and items are immediately recognisable
Sound: Nice, original beeper tunes for the title and Game Over screens. Basic spot effects
General rating: Impressive and fun game. Keep an eye out for future releases from Mr Martinez.