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This is about acorns, not the ones loved by squirrels but golden acorns. There are five that could open a portal to... well, you know, a special place where, well... where anything could happen!

Pentacorn Quest (Penta, five; acorn, seed of the oak tree) is a platformer than plonks you firmly in the shoes of an unnamed adventurer setting forth to gather the legendary precious seeds and ultimately solve the mystery of what lies beyond the portal. As always, it's never quite that simple.

The many hazards and creatures out to stop you can be quite daunting, but thankfully a lot of care and attention has been given to the controls so that the adventurer proves to be an agile athlete, running around with precision. Many enemies populate each screen, waddling and scrabbling about, all intent on stopping the adventurer. Trying to figure out the precise time to make that leap to safety often means a pause for careful thought. The art of jumping is a pretty fluid affair, with direction change in mid-air allowing for some quite spectacular manoeuvres.

To help progress in the adventure, a number of items to pick up are dotted around the many screens - and part of the challenge is to know where and when to use them. Some are obvious, such as the pickaxe or dynamite; others like the acorn seed present more puzzlinmg challenge.

On his dangerous travels, the adventurer can flick a number of purple switches, which change the world. It's not always obvious what they do when triggered and changes to the landscape can be quite subtle, so a good memory is a must for success. As ever, not all of these switches are easy to get to and involve some complex puzzles to solve to keep progressing.

While the controls are well balanced, using the joystick makes it harder to pull off some of the intricate jumps. A personal preference, the keyboard is a much more satisfying experience. The addition of items to help with some of the obstacles is a nice touch, but the solutions are not always obvious and a lot of trial and error is involved to figure out just what to do next.

This turns out to be a nice little game of busy screens full of cutesy, colourful graphics. The character you control is a very capable acorn hunter, and considering his pixel height manages some gravity-defying jumps - and some death-defying drops. The backgrounds are lively and inventive enough to encourage exploration to see new rooms. The only gripe I have is that it's not obvious where the exits are on each screen due to a border graphic that covers them up. Apart from that, I strongly suggest you set off to collect the five acorns and solve what is beyond the portal.

Control Keys: Definable
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Use Of Colour: A very colourful world, but sadly with some colour clash
Graphics: Good screens and characters by Jarlaxe, influences from Sabre Wulf are apparent
Sound: Some jolly AY tunes throughout by John McKlain
Screens: 36
General rating: A very playable little platform game, although it can be frustrating in places