For some peculiar reason I feel that a game called Diamond Manor should be a platform game. Thankfully though I don't have to do another review of a Manic Miner clone as the game is in fact a text adventure, one of quite a few now in the Dragonfire range.

The scenario is that you have to steal a black diamond from a mysterious and at first seemingly impenetrable manor. Your task is aided by the fact that you are a cat burglar (that's an agile burglar, not a person who steals cats, dear reader). Despite this quality your task is still tough.

You start off on a pathway, your nasal passages tickled by the smell of tarts; that's a description new tome, and I can only remember a handful of times this tense has been made use of.

Exploring further away from your initial position you find din tracks, hills, wasps nests and the door to the mansion itself. The writer as anyone would rightly do has made sure the door's closed and that you can't open it a problem that you need to keep at the back of your mind while you explore.

One disappointing factor in my opinion though is that the location descriptions are terse to say the least. For instance: 'You are on a small dirt road' does not exactly inspire the imagination to create a mental picture of the surroundings.

Having made that point though I must say that I would find it difficult to say anything more enthralling about a dirt road myself, 'You are walking along a small winding dirt track road, the orange glow of the setting sun gleaming from the pools of slimy black mud' doesn't really have that picture postcard feeling, so perhaps here the author was right to opt for simplicity. (Try playing a chorus of 'Down the Pu^tpipe' - Ed.) Once you get into any task though location descriptions pass unnoticed and here you try your best to get into the safe oblivious of the dirt roads outside.

The whole thing is portrayed on screen in standard green/black text which I now find disappointing having seen this format for so many years. Vocabulary is fairiy extensive with in most cases choice of verbs, for instance if you want to drink you can not only DRINK but SIP. All in all there are over 60 commands which are entered in the standard way of verb-noun.

The game is not one of the hardest that I've ever played, but is not exactly easy either. There are added difficulties, like the gardener who wanders around either pinching what you're carrying or imprisoning you if you've nothing worth stealing.

One interesting point is that my copy is an early version. Dragonfire are ironing out a few 'bugs' before release, all of which will have been done by the time you read this. Andrew Hill of Dragonfire describes these bugs as spelling mistakes and punctuation omissions as well as an error in one location as to your accessible directions. As for spelling and punctuation it's nice to know that they really care about their products, especially when the faults are barely noticeable; it's careless things like the inconsistent spelling of 'metre' in Olympia that bothers me.

Dragonfire could easily leave Diamond Manor as in my copy but take pleasure in selling the public the product perfect. As an adventure alas it is not perfect. It's pretty much a run of the mill type adventure, but not bad.