What people really want to do is play games, right? Especially children who have had a hard day at school, so even the best educational software is likely to gather dust if it's no fun. Play Spell is a full-blown platform game - you jump around collecting letters in the right order to spell a simple word. A little picture of an object provides the clue.

The game itself is quite difficult at times, involving some pretty dexterous manoeuvres, while the spelling bit features very basic words. This makes the learning process slow because you tend to find you're battling with your joystick long after you've managed to suss out the spelling.

A password system to skip levels would help to access all twenty screens. Play Spell used to be commercial; you get closer to this if you register - there's a manual and you get data disks to add forty or more screens. Good for a bit, but it tends to turn into a straight game too quickly.