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If you're a fan of those crazy, fun-loving Royals, then Flunky will be right up your street. Flunky gives you the chance to meet the Windsors at home. There's polo-playing Charles with the jug handle ears, astride his rocking horse; sailor boy Andy playing submarines in the bath; and svelte Di and chunky Fergie getting ready for a night of slumming down at Stringfellows. And, of course, there's HRH Herself, hunting for the Royal Corgis.

If, on the other hand, you're like me, to whom the merest mention of Fergie's botty brings on an immediate attack of indigestion, then such affectionate rib-tickling caricatures will probably leave you cold.

Flunky is veteran Don Priestley's first game for Piranha since The Trap Door, and the fourth game to use the colossal sprites which have become his trademark. Immediately attractive, these giant graphics appeal to game-players who wouldn't otherwise be interested in solving puzzles.

Starting out with only matches and an autograph book, your much-harassed manservant has to travel to the very depths of Buck House to fulfil his employers' every whim, for only then can he collect an autograph from each Royal Personage. To make life doubly difficult, the Palace is patrolled by homicidal guards, deadly polo balls and a Chinaman with a chopper.

In each apartment there's a digital timer, which commences countdown when Flunky's received his first orders. Once a task is completed, whatever time remains is the score, and Flunky then sets off on his next errand.

The tasks are, however, stupidly difficult, often relying not so much on powers of logical deduction, but on using apparently irrelevant objects in unlikely ways. When Andy asks for a boat to play with in the bath, you'll soon find that the frigate on the table gets you nowhere. The real boat lies submerged, scarcely visible, in the dungeons, and retrieving it calls for Fergie's radio control unit, a tug-boat from one of the paintings in the hall, exploration of a secret passage, and some hi-jinx with Willie Hamilton's skeleton.

Things get more difficult from then on. Getting Fergie's freckles is a nightmare of precise actions and split-second timing, while collecting Charles' polo balls requires little logical thought but some impossibly tricky manoeuvring, as does the shootout with Di's flying wig.

If at any time Flunky puts one foot wrong, the guards are summoned to execute him. They can be avoided if he's nimble, but they only give up after five attempts, and that consumes so much precious time that it's better to surrender and sacrifice one of Flunky's six lives.

If none of this sounds too difficult, bear in mind that I was working with a complete Cheat Sheet, explaining exactly how to perform each errand. After hours of play, I still failed totally to achieve any score at all. The time limits are just too short and the necessary actions too pointless precise, to make the game anything other than frustrating.

The game irritates in other ways, too. The abort option is located on the opening menu screen. Otherwise, to restart a game Funky must either light all the fires and then walk back to the menu, or else continually commit suicide by running into a guard. But in some locations, neither of these can be used, so if Flunky gets stuck in the dungeon he has to wait until the time expires.

Despite all this, the graphical presentation is faultless, employing an original screen display where locations sometimes only appear in small windows. The characters are big, bright and bold, cleverly animated right down to lip movements and mobile eyebrows. And there's the odd ditty too.

It's just a pity that Flunky is too damn clever for its own good, and no fun at all to play.