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Just when you've conquered all the screens in Manic Miner and it's time to come up for fresh air, along comes China Miner, a new game with a similar plot, to keep you chained to the keyboard.

The hero must journey unscathed through 30 screens, each of which contains a series of differently configured platforms, ladders and miscellaneous constructions.

On every screen a lamp, candle, pickaxe, emerald and key have to be collected, this being the only way of progressing to the next screen.

The game is set in the jade mines of China at the time of the Pong dynasty. The hero is a Chinaman complete with coolie-style hat, but he has the unoriental but nudge-nudge name of Miner Wally.

The game abonuds with references to other games, more than you'll find anywhere else except perhaps in an index. Some of the strange screens that Miner Wally overcomes include Piemania, Attack of the Mutant Hovver Mowers, Loony Jetman, Wally Kong, The Yobbit, Fort Apuckerlips and Horace Goes Walkabout.

Wally starts at the bottom of the right on screen 1, can walk left and right, and can jump and climb up and down. Scattered about the platform are the objects he must acquire if he is to ever leave this screen. You might think, as it's only the first level, it will be an easy one, just to break you in. Dead wrong. It took me ages to conquer just this first screen and I never completed the second.

There are two difficulties. First, you have to experiment to find the best route around the obstacles (on the first screen moving monsters, dissolving platforms and apparently unreachable treasures). Secondly, the game is so tightly designed that there is very little margin for error on your part. You can do it - but by not much more than a hair's breadth.

The graphics and screen layouts are very good, colourful and imaginative. There are no sound effects other than continuous music which bears a remarkable yet appropriate resemblance to the theme music from The Sting which can't be switched off.

Although similar in concept to Manic Miner, China Miner offers a whole new set of challenges. The references to other games keep the exercise humorous. You'll need that, since this game is extremely challenging throughout and you're likely to be emitting howls of frustration more than gales of laughter.