I know this isn't the norm for 'PD Zone', but I thought we'd have a little lookette at a new game writing package. The reason for this that, though Lethal Formula is an adventure in its own right, it comes as a demonstration on disk two of a new package called the Graphic Adventure Creator (GRA.C).

To address the game first... it's certainly not an unimpressive display, and really does show off exactly what GR.A.C is capable of. You start the game without too much idea about what you're meant to be doing, and in true point 'n click fashion must explore the screen, looking for useful items to manipulate in a puzzle solving way.

It's by no means as fast or spunky as the likes of Monkey Island or Kyrandia, but for a 'home made product' is by no means unattractive. The puzzles are a bit linear, but that's really down to the fact that it's very much a 'one problem per room' affair, and you know that you've probably got the item to solve it. This tends to just end up with you 'using' items on locations to see what happens.

Probably more useful is to look at the package itself, which works in a very simple and logical way. Before you start, you basically tell GR.A.C the name of room #1 and what items are in there. You can then enter text messages that will appear when a certain activity is performed on a certain item. So... the machine knows that room #1 is a kitchen, and if the player tries to perform the activity known as 'Examine' on the item known as 'Spoon', the text message that relates to this is "It's a spoon. And a shiny silver one at that!". Start using things on each other and.. etc. etc. Simple stuff!

As you can imagine, it doesn't take long to string together a fair few rooms, and if you had the patience to plan things out properly, could probably put some pretty good games together, It's also worth mentioning that there's a library of graphics to use if you don't fancy creating your own.

Considering how popular AMOS and SEUCK were, and the fact that this is only £4.99, GRA.C is definitely for you if you've ever fancied creating your own Guybrush outing! Very clever indeed.