IF you are at the beginning of a long dull day and wondering how to kill it, this is one solution. Just working through the instructions to this strategy/board game could take you the best part of a morning!

Galaxy Conflict is one of those games where you start off making several decisions that you don't really understand, and end up an hour or two later living through the consequences of your blundering.

The aim is to rule the Galaxy which lies spread out before you on a large board. Unless you like playing by yourself, with a 'dummy' opponent, you'll need a partner. This is strictly a two-player game.

The computer's not an opponent, it delays the choices before you and computes the results of your decisions. It also keeps a real-time track of the resources being consumed from move to move. (Note that even doing nothing sonsumes energy, so declining a move becomes a positive act which could cost you plenty1)

There are four 'planetstations' for each player and each planetstation has four mineral moons. You start off with the planetstations having a fixed resource level (called P/J units). This level is increased in two ways, by the mineral moons at the rate of 100 P/J units per go, and the 'P/J energy grid' (a device by which the computer inexplicably hands out additional chunks of P/J units).

To wage war, you have to build attack ships called Eoncruisers. The catch is that it takes nearly the total resources of your planetstation to build one. And Eoncruisers seem to have a million moving parts, all of which wear out fast. There is also a crew of 1,000, who starve inside five or six turns if you don't resupply them.

Your objectives are fairly clear: the cruiser's 'meson guns' (this game comes complete with its own vocabulary) are used to knock out either enemy moons or enemy eoncruisers. Destroying a mineral moon stops its flow of P/J units to an enemy planetstation and starts a war of attrition. Destroying enemy cruisers stops them doing the same to you.

But you have to balance attack with the ever-present need to maintain and repair your eoncruiser fleet, which you can only do by waiting until sufficient resources have built up on your planetstations.

The board is a 30 x 20 matrix of squares. You fire at a target by inputting its x-y coordinates and you move by inputting helm and 'velix-drive' settings.

It has the makings of a great game. But like every new, complicated board game, it will take time to build up a circle of devotees. And in the meantime, enthusiasts might have trouble finding partners. I thought one of the advantages of a computer in these solitary times was to get round this problem, not cause it.