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Another encounter with death in your continuing quest for treasure when you play this latest adventure from the Tansoft stable.

Five treasures are hidden around the House Of Death. As you'd expect from its name, this place is no Home Sweet Home - it was once used as a set in such wonderful films as 'An American Werewolf in Guernsey' and 'Dracula Bytes'. If you find any treasures, they must be returned to the starting point. Scores are given as a percentage of how much of the game has been completed.

As this is a text adventure (plus a few sound effects), the author has considerately made provision for you to specify the colour of your choice for the text. The background to the adventure is also offered.

The game gets off to a lively start when you find yourself outside the house. Ringing the bell produces a knocking sound while rapping with the brass knocker elicits a 'ding dong'. Before long, the finding of garlic, a werewolf mask and a mad axeman soon alert you, sensitive soul that you are, to the fact that this is no ordinary house. A large ballroom and a trapdoor that isn't a trapdoor confirm your suspicions. Finding a witch stirring a cauldron in the kitchen clinches the matter - this is definitely not Coronation Street.

You start the adventure at 18.30 - a digital clock at the top of the screen keeps the time. It chimes on the hour. You can bet your boots that something particularly unpleasant is going to happen at midnight.

The vocabulary is reasonably comprehensive and abbreviations down to four letters are permitted. Input is of the usual verb-plus-noun type but single letters are acceptable (for directions and inventory, for example). A save and load feature is available and while the program is written in Basic, response times are quite satisfactory - two to three seconds on average. As Basic has been used, it's possible to list the program - of course, you spoil half the fun by doing so but it's nice to know you can peek if you really get stuck.

There are quite a few puzzles to test you and the program has a nice sense of humour.

A traditional style of adventure with a pretty meaty content. Good puzzles and an interesting environment, so in you go.