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Mike and Pete Gerrard have become something of the Brothers Grimm of microadventures, having between them written not only countless articles and books on programming and playing adventures (Exploring Adventures On Your 64 and The Adventurer's Companion among them) but also an earlier Duckworth title, Island Adventure.

The Odyssey is an out and out text adventure that soaks up 80K of data spread across two tapes in reliving Homer's epic tale of Odysseus's attempts to return to his kingdom, and to his faithful wife, after ten years of headbanging the citizens of Troy. After getting together a crew and provisions, you set sail (sounds familiar?) and prepare yourself for encounters with the race of giants, cyclops, a six-headed monster and the whirlpool - and that's even before you venture into the City of Perpetual Mists and figure out how to escape the wrath of Poseidon and win the battle that is this adventure's grand finale.

The Odyssey is, in terms of its storyline, structure and screen presentation, a considerable improvement on Island Adventure and it's fat enough, and tricky enough, to give many, many hours of arcane entertainment.